Denied by UPMC for you of Pittsburgh

I spoke with my insurance company today and found out that I was denied for my surgery!  This is really upsetting to me, I thought for sure that I would be approved, I guess I was wrong, but where do I go from here?  My sister was denied the first time that they submited to insurance, and they made her wait another 6 months before they would let her submit again, but she does have a different insurance company than i do.  I dont know what to do, does anyone know how long an appeal takes and what I would need to do to get it through to these people that this surgery would medically benifit me?  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks all!@!

What was the specific reason you were denied?  I read posts all the time where the denial was simply missing information in the notes.  If that's the case you can just resubmit the missing info.  If you were denied because of a policy exclusion then you may not be able to appeal successfully.  Find out exactly why you were denied and I'm sure someone on this forum can help you.