Need help please!!

Hi all!  I'm looking for a surgeon who uses a bariatric center of excellence in california with a small program fee, or better yet, no program fee at all! 

Northern California would be best, but I'm willing to travel.  Thanks for your help!!

Advanced Bariatric Centers of California.  Dr. Swartz and Dr. Felix.  They are in Fresno and are very good.  They do surgery at Clovis Community Hospital.  I had Dr. Swartz.  The have a web site www.advancedbariatriccenters.com.

Have you checked Dr. Coates or Dr. Coirin in Modesto??  Don't know their policy...

Thanks for the replies.  Did you not have to pay a program fee with these surgeons?

I had to pay $950 the day before surgery for things the insurance would not cover.  I don't know if that is normal or not.

My RNY was over 3 years ago...don't know what is required now.

Dr.s Stone and Nichols in Redding use Shasta Regional Medical Center as their Center of Excellence.  However, I don't think they take Blue Cross / Blue Shield anymore due to a conflict with the hospital.  You'd have to check it out.  UCDavis Medical Center also.  I didn't have to pay anything and I was here in Redding.  Let me correct that - I had to pay $250 for the nutritionist and $250 for the psych exam.

UCSF, Stanford, Valley Care, John Muir in Concord, are all centers of excellence.

Thanks everyone!  I'm willing to pay for nutritionist, psych eval, any of those types of things, even up to a few thousand if I can use my flexible spending account.  What's tough is the program fee that some surgeons require that flexible spending accounts will not reimburse.