First off, educate yourself about surgeons in your area and have one in mind when you go to your PCP. He or she may not be knowledgable about the bariatric surgeons available, especially if you have to go out of town to find one (that was my case). Then, the surgeon usually requires you to attend their information seminar before you can schedule an appointment.
Are you going threw your insurance ? If so I would call them first and ask them about coverage. They may have a program and seminar for you to attend or they will want you to see your doctor for a referral. Thats what I did and my doctor was quite knowledgeable and helpful about the surgery. Good Luck !
Here's some steps of things I did and I was using Insurance to pay:
1. Schedule and attend free doctor/hospital bariatric program orientation session to learn about their programs, doctors, etc.
2. Usually they give you a packet of information to fill out and mail in to them to see if you are a good candidate for surgery.
3. Check with Insurance company and find out specifically if they Exclude Bariatric Surgery including Adjustable Gastric Lap Banding and/or Gastric Bypass/RNY, etc. and what the qualifications are to get insurance coverage approved. What BMI and what co-morbidities do you have to have to qualify - i.e. sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. being co-morbidity examples.
4. Many of the Insurances will require: Surgeon consultation visit to see if you are a candidate,
5. Cardiac clearance - most of us are overweight enough they want to make sure you are okay.
6. Sleep study/clearance - if you haven't been cleared for sleep apnea
7. Psychological study/clearance - its pretty basic but they want to be sure you are mentally and emotionally ready for this life change.
8. Diet and nutrition counseling - at least 1 pre-op session with the doctor/hospital
9. Primary Care Doctor supervised weight loss effort - as noted in other posts - sometimes 6 months consecutive evidence in the doctors' progress notes - not just that they weighed you but that you discussed weight loss issues. Some get by with 3 months - varies by insurance.
10. Any other 'hoops' to jump through the particular doctor gives you or their bariatric program for that hospital.
__________________ Banded March 17, 2008 - St. Patrick's Day 1st Fill April 29, 2008 4.5 cc's in AP-L band 2nd Fill June 10, 2008 1.5 cc's 3rd Fill July 22, 2008 2.5cc's = Total 8.5 cc's Drs. Price and Miller, surgeons, Mt. Carmel, Columbus, OH
Actually the first thing I did was do do ALOT of reading here! Then I attended a seminar and they started me on what I needed to do, which was see my PCP. I "lurked" on this site for months reading everything! Good luck to you
THANK you guys so much for answering my questions. I hated to ask it because I didn't want anyone to think I hadn't done my research. I have been reading alot about LB, but I guess b/c I haven't attended a seminar ( I go next Tuesday, the 29th in Cary) and/or haven't really talked to my PCP about it, some of this information can be foreign. : )
Thank you so much for the info. I have been looking online for weeks now trying to find out what the process is. Even thought I know it is different depending on where you are having it done and on your insurance. I am planning on having it done at Richmond Kaiser of California. So if anyone has info on Kaiser's process please let me know.
Thank You.
Latrice - With Kaiser your PCP has to refer you. I would call the bariactric division at Richmond and get some information from them. It is also helpful to call patient services. There is also a person on here going by the tag Warrior who just had her surgery through Richmond. Look her up and send her a message. She'll tell you all about her journey.
I went through the SSF Kaiser and the plans are a little different between SSF, Richmond and Fremont. Basically I went through orientation (06/07) and then met with the director of bariatrics, nutritionist, and psychologist (08/07). Once I passed muster there I met with the surgeon (10/07) and finally had surgery (12/07). I had to attend a pre-op class and meet the anastegologist (sp). That's a summary of the journey. I had a couple of other appointments due to some elevated liver readings but most people don't need those. I think that the programs are basically the same but may be in a different order. SSF does require you to loose weight prior to being approved by the surgeon. It's an average of 10% of your total body weight. They put you on a 1200 calorie pre-op meal plan. If you follow it, it's pretty easy to loose the weight in the amount of time you have. They suggest you start loosing right after orientation but the director of bariatrics was the one who actually said how much you needed to loose. When I finally got in to see her she told me I had met my requirement.
I kept loosing weight on the program after that for two reasons. 1) I figured I was in this program to loose weight so I might as well keep going and 2) I thought it would be easier to keep loosing than trying to maintain (and less stressful). I made sure that there was not a problem with me loosing too much weight and therefore disqualifying myself from surgery and proceeded to loose 70 lbs prior to surgery. My surgeon was extremely happy although he kept telling me to not be disappointed if I didn't loose much more. He is wrapped up in the statistics. I told him I would be adjusting his line of thinking and have just kept heading towards my goal.
Anyway, enough about me. Check in with Warrior for more specific details on Richmond's program.
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