I will soon have Anthem insurance (my soon to be hubby works for Toyota in Southern Indiana) and was wondering what hoops I might have to go through to get approved for WLS. I know they cover it pretty good, but didn't know what to expect...ie: 6 months pre-op diet/nutritionist...what kind of labs/tests...psych eval/counseling. Any input would be great.

As of Feb. this year, Anthem did away with any supervised weight loss requirement. I had a friend speed up her surgery by 4 months because of that. Other, than that, you just have to do the intial consul, psych eval., and proof of 3 years of medical history. That is thru St. Vincents  Bariatric. I've heard that IU makes you do more things. But, with St. V, there is no required pre-surgery weight loss or diet. Anthem is probably one of the easiet now. Thank God!!! I wish that it had been that easy when I was going thru the process last year. I had to do 6 months of supervised WL.

I have Anthem, and had very little problem getting approval. They want to know your history, but you can fill out large portions of that yourself, and supplement it with your physician records for the previous five years. I met with the nutritionist and the psychologist, and both were very supportive. They tell you they are really just checking to be sure there are no reasons that you aren't prepared for surgery, such as uncontrolled (or undiagnosed) mental illness, so it sounded as though it is rare for them to not give their approval to the process. All that information was gathered and submitted to insurance, and I am faxing my written approval to my local center today to start scheduling all of the OTHER pre-surgery testing!