Another Road block! P.S. long sorry : (

Amazingly, I have hit another road block. It seems that the surgery I probably should have been qualified to have by the end of September probably won't be approved until January. I am not even sure if I will still have a job or insurance by that time. First, when I called on the status of where I was in the submission process. I was told  (it was probably around Sept. 10th) that the surgeons office did not have my bloodwork. This was interesting to me since I had completed my blood work over a month prior on 08/01/11. I called the lab and they said the results were sent but, that they would resubmit them to the surgeons office. I called the surgeon's office a week later and they still had not received my bloodwork. I then called the lab again and it was discovered that they were faxing the info to a Doctor that was associated with my Doctor's Bariatric team, but is not from the same office. So now I am excited again that everything is settled and my info can be submitted for insurance approval. About 2 1/2 weeks pass and I receive a call from the Nurse Practitioner (who surveys the pre-certs before submitting to the insurance) and she informs me that my gallbladder and liver ultrasound was never received. Instead the imaging center forwarded over my pelvic ultrasound (which was taken in April due to IUD issues). WTF, How did this even happen? At this point I am feeling down and discouraged but, they took care of it right away, I gave it about another week and called today about my status. They have now discovered that my primary Doctor forwarded my medical history, pre-existing conditions and her approval and referral for this surgery. However, my mandatory 6 months of weight management and monitoring do not exist in my surgeons file. Until they receive this there will be no submission to the insurance. I had a few other glitches along the way but this post is already way too long. I am sure my primary Doctor will respond quickly to my request (Bariatric Surgery was her recommendation in the first place after all) and I hate to be such a Debbie Downer, but I am sick of all this disappointment. Is this some Omen from a higher power telling me not to follow through with the surgery? Or is this one of those things where the reward is sweeter because of the struggles I needed to overcome in order to get to the prize? Again, sorry for the pity party and negativity but, this is really the only place I have to vent about the surgery. Thank you all, it is wonderful to have such amazing people on these boards who understand and who have been through similar issues. Sorry for the mini-novel!

Just wanted to say, I am sorry you are having all these problems.

When I went through the process last year it seemed like they had a very well oiled machine going on over at Penn Bariatrics. I am very surprised to hear you are encountering so many glitches.

Hopefully you will have an answer soon and everything will be smoothed out.

I think most of the fault lies on the other people. I used Jeff for imaging and then the other problems were the lab company and my Doc. My only thing that upsets me about Penn is that I wish I new about all of the problems at once and handeled them at one time, instead the way it has transpired one issue at a time  has severly extended this process. But thanks for actually responding and reading all of that.

I feel ur pain. Im getting so discouraged with this process.

I am sorry to hear you are discouraged as well. I wish us both luck and a much smoother process.

I think you are a very patient person.  I would have been calling the very next day to see if those results were sent.  lol.  I too am finding myself feeling like I am "jumping through hoops" trying to get approved for a sleeve.  I wish you the very best and sincerely hope things work our to your advantage very soon.

I wish you both luck.
In my process, I found that I needed to stay one step a head of my coordinator. Mainly the financial one. It take a little more work, but at least it gets done properly the first time. It helped that I was a little control freak.
Even with my control issues, I had to wit more than 6 months because of insurance issues. But at 4 weeks out, I don't regret it.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

Hang in there Tirza- this is definitely a situation where the struggle makes it all sweeter!

No need to be sorry.........as you said your prize will be there waiting for you.  I also had to jump thru many hurdles with my surgeon's  office because although Johns Hopkins is wonderful medically, adminstratively they are lacking in many ways. I am wishing you the best on the rest of your journey and YOU WILL GET THRU THIS AND JOIN US ON THE LOSERS BENCH SOON.