Bad news

Thanks. I'm on hold with my insurance company right now, if only to confirm what my surgeon's office told me yesterday. I may be prepared to wait until next year if I must, but I'm not going down without a fight.

I'd be surprised if your insurance would pay for the restart and duplication of testing, etc. leading up to the surgery. It would be cheaper for them to approve it now. There's no logical reason to start over. You should not have to pay for some one or many's mistakes. Good luck!

I had ankle surgery right after jumping through ALL of the hoops and couldn't walk so lost my surgery date. So, I, too, had to start over from the very beginning.

In the meantime, I did some research and switched to a much better trained and respected surgeon. I'm now four months out and am grateful that I started over with the new doc as the first one has lots of problems.

hopefully, something good will come from your delay.

Good luck!

oh, btw, it was my insurance that insisted on starting over...the docs still felt that data was relevant.

That is seriously unprofessional. Please, make a BIG stink!

I had to travel about 2.5 hours from home to see my DS surgeon, and he arranged for me to see the psych the same day. I saw the psych first, and my surgeon about two hours later. He already had the psych report!

Did you call your insurance company? You did your part during the time frame required. Hard to believe that you would have to redo process because the psych delayed report 

That is complete and utter BS.  Do NOT just accept what they are telling you.  There is absolutely NO reason that it should have taken 5 months to get a psych report.  Someone on THEIR end seriously dropped the ball (although I do think you should have been burning up the phone lines yourself asking why they didn't have it yet after about two weeks).  

You did what was required.  A supervised weight loss program doesn't "expire"!  You did what was required for the specified period of time.  

The fact that they didn't get the paperwork for the psych eval is not your fault and should NOT require YOU to start over! Be assertive and escalate the issue to the surgeon's office manager or to the surgeon himself/herself, if necessary!

Lora

I did try to chase down the woman I needed to speak to at the surgeon's office, When I would finally hear from her, she would tell me she still needed things, but she never mentioned the psych eval. If there was another bariatric surgeon nearby, I'd switch.

I have to echo the thoughts of those here. I would raise such a ruckus and keep it up full court press till someone some place got it in gear.  You did your part and because of their negligence, you are penalized?  That is bogus!  I had a similar experience at UW of Madison.  They sent me through all their classes and I am driving fro out of state to attend and then when I seen a surgery date, they tell me, oh you have not met a doctor yet.  so I drive up for a doctor appointment only for him to tell me I need to loose 60 pounds before he can do it as their equipment is not made for large people and them he had the nerve to pat my tummy and leave the room!  Baratirc facility and the equipment was not capable of handling my weight?  Stupid OR information that should have been mentioned at the START of my weight loss preparation!  I was really sad, mad and downright upset that I gave up on the whole thing.  Months later I was connected with a surgeon in Vegas, who was able to perform the surgery, met my insurance requirements and counted all my previous evaluations and visits from previous doctors.  It was such a relief and a nice mini break!

I am wishing you all the luck and support I can send - Kimberly 

Thanks. :) I'm sorry you had such a bad time with your first doctor. How patronizing! I'm glad you finally found a doctor you could work with, and had such a great experience.

My husband works for an insurance company, so speaking from experience and his experience, call them. I would file an appeal, they then have to have the Dr at the insurance review it. make yourself a nuisance at both Dr and insurance to get the answers. Also, I would file with the state board of health no matter what the outcome about the psychologist office. There is no way that any of that should have happened. My Dr told me that he would count my weigh****chers a year ago. That it had to be a program done in the last 24 months, and if it wasn't since I had done weigh****chers recently, he would take whatever food journaling I had done (in other words I could fib a little on the dates). I know people who work for the insurance who made up their food journals for weigh****chers to get around the 6 month program. If you want the surgery sooner than later, be an advocate for yourself. It was a hard lesson I learned in the last year of dealing with brain specialists.