needing insurance info

does anyone know if medicaid/medicare will pay for lap band surgery without medically supervised dieting?

There are others more qualified to answer than myself. The only way to get past dieting is to be in really bad shape. Meaning a BMI of 55+, comorbidities and possibly being in a life/death situation. This is information gathered from my readings on OH. hope this helps! Anyone got some better info for charmed

thank you for your response.

i've done alot of dieting thru the years but only two are documented and i am afraid that wont be enough to get insurance approval. the two that i done was thru two different diet doctors, and neither was recent. i have two degenerated discs and a few other medical problems but worried i wont be able to have surgery due to not getting insurance approvel.

My experience has been that you do need to do the diet supervised thing. Maybe you could talk with your insurance cordinator with the surgery center you're doing your surgery through and see if they could direct you on how to for-go the diet requirement. I used to have Medicare/medicaid and I do remember the superivised diet being a requirement before approval.(I've been researching this diet for almost 6 years) I know that's not what you want to hear, but like I wrote, perhaps your insurance cordinator may know something we don't. Good luck to you- Dee

thank you for your info. i started a supervised diet today hoping that it will help with insurance approval. the soonest seminar i could get into isn't til the middle of next month, does anyone know if there is anything i need to be doing to help speed up the process while i'm waiting?

Hi, I've heard of it covering the band for sure. I was approved in 1 day for my RNY and I only had a paper signed by a lady who stated that I had lost weight on her program but I didn't have anything in detail about it.(not sure it even mattered) My BMI was like 66 and I had sleep apnea and diabetes, Personally I would say you have enough to submit. Like the other poster said your surgeons office will probably be able to tell you exactly. goodluck to you!