a lil worried

Hi.I just read Dawn B`s post,(Heard back from BCBS).This makes me a lil nervous and worried.I have a consult.with Dr.Shayani In Maywood April 11th.Has anyone here been turned down for surgery by Illinois Medicaid, because of lack of medical evidence of previous weight loss attempts? KimberlyB

I have medicare/ medicaid of Illinois. I had no problem approving my medicaid. just takes a little time and I had no record of a diet. love marie good luck

Dear Kim: Have no fear-----Medicare and Medicaid do not have a stated time requirement of "supervised weight management attempts". They do want your doctor's to address the methods that you have tried in the past that obviously did not work and how you came to this point. In Medicare's decision to cover this procedure, they address the question rather nicely. The reason that I know is that I took it word-for-word to use in my appeal. Good luck on your journey! Dawn

Kimberly Medicaid is easy as far as approval goes... the issue you might have and I would double check with Dr. Shayani is coverage of your fills since he only does the lap band... I had heard at one time they wouldnt cover fills.. weird I know... I would strongly recommend you keep every single thing they send you. because they still havent paid my anestisia bill yet.. claiming it wasnt pre-approved... LOL but thats nothing to worry about now... Good luck! Debby