How long was it for you between first contacting your surgeon, and your surgery date?
What are some of the things you had to do in between?
I believe I first was thinking about it seriously in October, had an appointment with the doctor’s office in December and had my surgery June 28. I had to do three months of nutrition appointments, psych evaluation and fulfill insurance requirements and got approval. it was about a month after I received approval to get the surgery due to work, schedules, etc.
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There's how all mine went down. I didn't have time for anything between contact and surgery. It was fast!
No pre-op diet
Day of surgery 11/4/14: 5'4" 213lbs
1 month: 187
2 months: 171
3 months: 155
4 months: 148
5 months: 142
6 months: 136
7 months: 131
8 months: 125
9 months: 120
10 months: 114
11 months: 111
1 year: 109
1.5 years: 105
2 years: 108
2.5 years: 102
3 years: 113
4 years: 115
5 years: 115
6 years: 117
Nov 15, 2017 Surgeon 1st visit.....May 7, 2018 Surgery Date (could have been scheduled in April, but chose my date to accommodate having help here with me.) Insurance required PCP referral, Psych Visit, Dietician counseling x 6 visits by phone, plus surgeon's requirements; cardiology clearance, EGD & Colonoscopy, Nursing Education, & Dietician Class.
HW 2016=310
SW 5/7/18= 274
4 weeks=241.6
8 weeks=225.0
12 weeks=214.8
16 weeks=205.6
20 weeks=198.6
24 weeks=193.2
6 Mos check-up w/Surgeon: 11/13/2018=189
28 weeks=187
32 weeks=181.2
36 weeks=174
39 weeks + 2 days=169.8 = GOAL!
40 weeks=168
44 weeks=163
48 weeks=160.4
51 weeks; day of 1-yr appt w/surgeon=159.4
54 weeks=154
It was about a 6 month time span. Consultation was in September 2017, Surgery was March 2018. Had to show 5 years of being overweight (doctors records/visits), 6 dietician visits (zoomed chatting, something like facetiming), phsch evaluation, and requirements by my surgeon. Had to complete those steps before insurance would approve the surgery.
I was self-pay, so I didn't have to go through any sort of insurance requirements (which can make the process a lot longer.) And just so you know the time difference/requirements between self-pay and insurance, SassyWade and I have the same surgeon and started our journeys around the same time.
I called on 7/27 to make my consult appointment.
Consult appointment was scheduled for 8/15. Ended up doing labs and cardiac stress test/echo on 8/15 (otherwise I would have had to wait 2 more weeks.) Surgery was scheduled that day for 8/31.
Had a follow-up appointment on 8/22 to discuss test results.
Surgery was originally scheduled for 8/31, but Hurricane Harvey had other plans. The whole city of Houston had been underwater for almost 5 days. Surgery was postponed.
Surgery was then rescheduled for 9/28.
Had surgery on 9/28
I was eight weeks but I was self pay. The main deal on Insurance waiting periods is to get people on a diet and retrained before insurance would pay for it. My insurance excludes everyone so I didn't have that restriction.
What my doc did require was a low carb low sugar diet starting the day of my first visit. Once I lost 20 on it he scheduled my surgery and had me stay on it until surgery other than a pre op 2 day liquid diet.
12/7/17- First surgical appt
8/29/18- VSG date
In between those dates I had to have a 3 months supervised diet with my pcp, psychological evaluation, labs, letter of support from my dr and 2 appts with a nutritionist. All appts were completed by late May 2018 and received the insurance approval around 7/10/2018. The hospital I'm using stays super busy, bc they're the best in my area for this surgery, so my surgical date was 6 weeks out.
Yeah, press on! My old insurance with Aetna required 6 months. Since I decided to pursue VSG right before my open enrollment for health care. I researched weight loss surgery requirements under other plans/companies. I found that under BCBS I would only have to do a 3 mos. supervised diet. So I made this change effective Jan. 1, 2018 but started my 3 mos. diet 1 mos. earlier. So that once my BCBS started I'd only have to do 2 more months of the supervised diet and could then concentrate on all the other requirements.
The supervised diet is stressful in that at your monthly weigh-in's you can't be heavier than your last month's weigh in. This was hard/stressful for the 3 mos. I did it, so I knew it'd be really hard to do for 6 months. Even though I really wanted it and would have made it work. But, yeah once the surgeon's office asks for those pcp records and it's submitted to the insurance, usually if they see any weight increases then it's an automatic denial and you may have to go longer than 6 mos. to dr supervised diet visits. So be careful! My pcp was great!
For me it was 7 months but I went through insurance. I had to have 6 months of supervised weight loss visits with my surgeon but the visits had to be between 31 and 35 days apart. I had to weigh in at each visit. I had to have an EKG, an endoscopy, and blood work. I could not gain any weight during the supervised weight loss visits. I could maintain but not gain. I also had to have 4 visits with the dietician.
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