Yay!! Well, sort of. I went to the plastic surgeon yesterday to get the ball rolling on my boob job, and boy did it roll. In order to finish by the end of the year, he's having me come in for surgery on September 21st. Yes, you read right, that's less than 2 weeks from now. Holy sh*t.
What he told me is that this is a two part process. Apparently I can't avoid the implants because I still have too much belly fat and my stomach skin is too far out of shape to work with. So he's going to take some skin and stuff from my back for the right boob, and put expanders in both sides to get them ready for the implants. I don't want very big boobs, so this shouldn't take too long. Once it's to the right size, I will have another surgery to put the actual implant in and take the expanders out. I'm hoping to get approval to do a tummy tuck too, because of a rash under my loose skin from my tummy, and maybe he can do that on the second surgery, that way I don't have to have a bunch of different surgeries.
On an NSV note: I am only 37 bmi now, which means I have been out of the "morbidly obese" category for awhile and didn't know it! Now I'm just "obese" and I have only about 40'ish (??) pounds till I'm just "overweight".
Current weight: 215 lbs.
Showing posts with label insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insurance. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Insurance
OMFG!!
So yesterday I was going to go in and get myself officially weighed in. I figured that I must have hit my goal weight, so it was a good time to do that. Wanting to make sure I had my goal weight before I went in, I called yesterday morning, about 10:30, to find out, and was on hold for 5 minutes. So I called back again, and was on hold still. I was on my morning walk, so I didn't really want to listen to hold music, I wanted to listen to regular music, and my iPhone is my iPod, so even though I could listen to both at the same time it would have sounded funny.
I tried back about 10 minutes later, and still was on hold. This time I decided to stay on hold, and did end up listening to both my iPod music and the hold music at the same time. Ick. It was better than hold music alone though.
I waited on hold for over 20 minutes. Then my lunch break was over so I had to hang up.
I tried back again later, about 1:00pm, on my second break, and this time I got their answering service. They were at lunch. OMG. The answering service said that they would be back by about 1:30, but by that time my break would be over.
After work I tried again. I called and this time I actually got through! Yay me. I talked to Cindy, the secretary, and told her that I wanted to do an "official" weigh in so that I could be in the running to get an upcoming surgery. Cindy said they were busy today, and that if I came in tomorrow, I could do that, and talk to Rosemary (the official person to talk to). I said ok, and hung up.
I went home, disappointed, but figuring, it's only one more day. The problem is that I'm on Slim-fast right now... the diet from hell... and that's how I've lost the last few pounds to get me into this range. Well, if at any point I go back to regular food, even with small portions, I'll probably gain back a pound or two which would put me over my goal weight. Which means that waiting one more day means I have to continue this diet from hell. I am so hungry during the day that I'm swooning by the time I get off work, and STILL can't eat. I can't eat till dinner.
Anyway, I get home and tell my boyfriend about all this, and he's visibly annoyed at them for doing this to me. He's like, "it's not that hard to enter someones name in a chart!" He wants to go get a new video game (Conduit, for the Wii) so we're going out anyway. He says we should drop by at their office, and I should pretend that I didn't fully understand what she said earlier and say:
"I know you guys were busy earlier, so I thought I'd come by now and see if you were less busy."
He figured that they'd be less able to send me away if I was standing right there in their face in person.
So, we went in, about 4:00pm. We got there and there was seemingly no one there. The front desk was empty. I was sure they didn't close till 5, and I was there before then, so there should be someone there. We sat down, and waited. I thought, well, if someone was actually here, maybe they went to the back for a minute.
After about 5 minutes, Cindy comes in. Yay! I give her the line, and she says, "I'll take you back and we'll see what we can do." We came around the door to the back, and she says, "We were just talking about you!"
At this point, I'm dying of curiosity. Why were they talking about me?? Is it good or bad? Do I owe them thousands of dollars? Do they know for sure I'll have to wait to get my surgery? Or... are they ready to schedule me?? OMG.
I walked back towards the scale, and on my way Cindy tells Rosemary that I'm here. Rosemary looks up and says, "Angela? Angela ******* ?" I looked up and said yes, it was me. She told me to come sit down at her desk so we could chat.
Upon sitting down she tells me that they were indeed just talking about me. My insurance approval came through FIVE MINUTES AGO!!
Knock me down with a feather.
Well, she then asks me, "Can you..." and I interrupt with a "YES!" because I know she's going to set me a date! OMG OMG OMG OMG.
She asks, "Can you come in for a pre-op consultation tomorrow afternoon?"
And of course I answer, "YES!!"
Then she said she was penciling me in for surgery on Monday, June 29th... MONDAY!!
...
...
...
Did I mention, MONDAY!?!?!?!
Current weight: 249lbs
Time to WLS approval: Done.
So yesterday I was going to go in and get myself officially weighed in. I figured that I must have hit my goal weight, so it was a good time to do that. Wanting to make sure I had my goal weight before I went in, I called yesterday morning, about 10:30, to find out, and was on hold for 5 minutes. So I called back again, and was on hold still. I was on my morning walk, so I didn't really want to listen to hold music, I wanted to listen to regular music, and my iPhone is my iPod, so even though I could listen to both at the same time it would have sounded funny.
I tried back about 10 minutes later, and still was on hold. This time I decided to stay on hold, and did end up listening to both my iPod music and the hold music at the same time. Ick. It was better than hold music alone though.
I waited on hold for over 20 minutes. Then my lunch break was over so I had to hang up.
I tried back again later, about 1:00pm, on my second break, and this time I got their answering service. They were at lunch. OMG. The answering service said that they would be back by about 1:30, but by that time my break would be over.
After work I tried again. I called and this time I actually got through! Yay me. I talked to Cindy, the secretary, and told her that I wanted to do an "official" weigh in so that I could be in the running to get an upcoming surgery. Cindy said they were busy today, and that if I came in tomorrow, I could do that, and talk to Rosemary (the official person to talk to). I said ok, and hung up.
I went home, disappointed, but figuring, it's only one more day. The problem is that I'm on Slim-fast right now... the diet from hell... and that's how I've lost the last few pounds to get me into this range. Well, if at any point I go back to regular food, even with small portions, I'll probably gain back a pound or two which would put me over my goal weight. Which means that waiting one more day means I have to continue this diet from hell. I am so hungry during the day that I'm swooning by the time I get off work, and STILL can't eat. I can't eat till dinner.
Anyway, I get home and tell my boyfriend about all this, and he's visibly annoyed at them for doing this to me. He's like, "it's not that hard to enter someones name in a chart!" He wants to go get a new video game (Conduit, for the Wii) so we're going out anyway. He says we should drop by at their office, and I should pretend that I didn't fully understand what she said earlier and say:
"I know you guys were busy earlier, so I thought I'd come by now and see if you were less busy."
He figured that they'd be less able to send me away if I was standing right there in their face in person.
So, we went in, about 4:00pm. We got there and there was seemingly no one there. The front desk was empty. I was sure they didn't close till 5, and I was there before then, so there should be someone there. We sat down, and waited. I thought, well, if someone was actually here, maybe they went to the back for a minute.
After about 5 minutes, Cindy comes in. Yay! I give her the line, and she says, "I'll take you back and we'll see what we can do." We came around the door to the back, and she says, "We were just talking about you!"
At this point, I'm dying of curiosity. Why were they talking about me?? Is it good or bad? Do I owe them thousands of dollars? Do they know for sure I'll have to wait to get my surgery? Or... are they ready to schedule me?? OMG.
I walked back towards the scale, and on my way Cindy tells Rosemary that I'm here. Rosemary looks up and says, "Angela? Angela ******* ?" I looked up and said yes, it was me. She told me to come sit down at her desk so we could chat.
Upon sitting down she tells me that they were indeed just talking about me. My insurance approval came through FIVE MINUTES AGO!!
Knock me down with a feather.
Well, she then asks me, "Can you..." and I interrupt with a "YES!" because I know she's going to set me a date! OMG OMG OMG OMG.
She asks, "Can you come in for a pre-op consultation tomorrow afternoon?"
And of course I answer, "YES!!"
Then she said she was penciling me in for surgery on Monday, June 29th... MONDAY!!
...
...
...
Did I mention, MONDAY!?!?!?!
Current weight: 249lbs
Time to WLS approval: Done.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Nutritionist-Part 2
Wow. I thought I had already posted on my trip to the nutritionist, but apparently I forgot.
I went to see the nutritionist as part of my required "making sure she'll comply" appointments. I also saw the psychologist (or maybe psychiatrist??) to talk about my history and the reasons why I'm overweight. I think I did pretty good at that one.
BUT
Then they weighed me in. I experienced complete shock. I thought I'd been doing well at loosing weight. After all, I'd set up my first appointment expressly to give myself some easy to lose weight. So on this appointment, I should have lost some good weight. Nope. Not me. I GAINED weight. Gained. Yep, that's right you heard it. I gained 5 lbs.
5 pounds is not that big a deal normally, but I only have another month to lose the first 10 they asked me to lose. So now, I have a month to lose a total of 15 pounds. FIFTEEN.
Hrrumpf.
Current weight: 262 (I think... I'll check my paperwork and fix this later)
Time to WLS approval: 2.5 months
I went to see the nutritionist as part of my required "making sure she'll comply" appointments. I also saw the psychologist (or maybe psychiatrist??) to talk about my history and the reasons why I'm overweight. I think I did pretty good at that one.
BUT
Then they weighed me in. I experienced complete shock. I thought I'd been doing well at loosing weight. After all, I'd set up my first appointment expressly to give myself some easy to lose weight. So on this appointment, I should have lost some good weight. Nope. Not me. I GAINED weight. Gained. Yep, that's right you heard it. I gained 5 lbs.
5 pounds is not that big a deal normally, but I only have another month to lose the first 10 they asked me to lose. So now, I have a month to lose a total of 15 pounds. FIFTEEN.
Hrrumpf.
Current weight: 262 (I think... I'll check my paperwork and fix this later)
Time to WLS approval: 2.5 months
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Dr. Yarbrough
So I had my first visit with Dr. Yarbrough today. He is so nice! It was a longer appointment than I was expecting.
There were three people with concurring appointments. We had to go through a mini-class on what to expect from the surgery and more detailed info on how it works. After that, I had to talk to a finance person who basically told me that I had to have all my surgery money up front.
This wouldn't be a big deal except that my out of pocket through my insurance is like over $4500 bucks. Do you have that kind of money laying around??? I sure don't. I think I may be able to come up with most of it, and I asked my sister to see if she'd fit the extra $2500 that I can't come up with, in exchange for a repayment of $200/mo. and an extra payment at the end.
Hopefully that works out. She said yes, but she tends to be a bit flighty sometimes.
So anyway, my next appointment with them is in March. And the earliest I'll get my surgery, if everything works out, will be in May sometime. So maybe if I'm really lucky it'll be end of May.
I need to lose 75 lbs before I can get my reconstruction on my chest. So, if I get it in May I'll be hard pressed to lose that much before the end of the year.
We had to go through another
Current weight: 258 lbs
Current BMI: >44
Time to WLS approval: 4 months :(
There were three people with concurring appointments. We had to go through a mini-class on what to expect from the surgery and more detailed info on how it works. After that, I had to talk to a finance person who basically told me that I had to have all my surgery money up front.
This wouldn't be a big deal except that my out of pocket through my insurance is like over $4500 bucks. Do you have that kind of money laying around??? I sure don't. I think I may be able to come up with most of it, and I asked my sister to see if she'd fit the extra $2500 that I can't come up with, in exchange for a repayment of $200/mo. and an extra payment at the end.
Hopefully that works out. She said yes, but she tends to be a bit flighty sometimes.
So anyway, my next appointment with them is in March. And the earliest I'll get my surgery, if everything works out, will be in May sometime. So maybe if I'm really lucky it'll be end of May.
I need to lose 75 lbs before I can get my reconstruction on my chest. So, if I get it in May I'll be hard pressed to lose that much before the end of the year.
We had to go through another
Current weight: 258 lbs
Current BMI: >44
Time to WLS approval: 4 months :(
Monday, December 29, 2008
2nd Time Around
So Xmas is over, and the year is too (or will be soon). Which means that my rescheduled banding is coming up. January 22nd is my consult. I waited too long to schedule it and that was the soonest they had available. (I know, right???)
I'm looking forward to it, but I'm worried that something will happen and for the 3rd year in a row I won't be able to get banded. I'm so sick of waiting to be thin. Holding on to the extra pounds so that I don't get rejected by my insurance. I wish sometimes that I'd just started exercising way back in the beginning, then maybe I'd be skinny by now. Then I realize that, no, I would not be. I would just be yo-yo dieting, because, if I could do it by myself I would have done it years ago.
This time I hafta do it though. Even if I do get rejected or put off. I won't be able to get my new bewbs till I lose at least 75 lbs.
So, wish me luck that I'll get banded. TTYL.
Current weight: 252'ish
Time to WLS approval: 2-3 months?
I'm looking forward to it, but I'm worried that something will happen and for the 3rd year in a row I won't be able to get banded. I'm so sick of waiting to be thin. Holding on to the extra pounds so that I don't get rejected by my insurance. I wish sometimes that I'd just started exercising way back in the beginning, then maybe I'd be skinny by now. Then I realize that, no, I would not be. I would just be yo-yo dieting, because, if I could do it by myself I would have done it years ago.
This time I hafta do it though. Even if I do get rejected or put off. I won't be able to get my new bewbs till I lose at least 75 lbs.
So, wish me luck that I'll get banded. TTYL.
Current weight: 252'ish
Time to WLS approval: 2-3 months?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Torn
I recently had a lump in my breast that was about the size of a softball. It needed to be removed. It was benign, but it was still growing and was causing me pain. I went to a surgeon on January 4th to discuss it and he agreed that it needed to be removed. I was scheduled for a January 17th surgery date.
Well, on the 16th I got a letter. It was an estimate for my care, listing the wrong insurance company and a large patient liability. I looked at it and went... OMG.
After calling the hospital, I found that they indeed had the correct insurance, it was just listed wrong on that paper. They mentioned that when they'd called they found out there was a $4500 deductible on my insurance.
WTF?!
No. This is not the case. My deductable was $750 - Only $750. WTF are you talking about??
I called the insurance. They said that this is a family plan, that the deductible was the entire family's deductible. No worries, my company (the one I work for) pays for half of that deductible. So yours is only $2250.
Well, that's better, but unfortunately not what I was figuring on when I planned to get the LapBand surgery. The out-of-pocket was supposed to be $1700 with the deductible and the copay amount. It was not supposed to go over that. Now, I have this surgery and the WLS surgery and both together would bring my total to $4000 + .
Not okay. Not one bit.
So guess what that means? No LapBand. Not this year, and with the current insurance trend, not ever. *cries*
But guess what? My mom's on state medical care, and they offered her one for free. So at least someone is getting it. Not little miss middle-class-me though.
I'll be closing this blog soon. Thanks for reading.
Current weight: ???
Time to WLS approval: 2 mos and a few days??
Well, on the 16th I got a letter. It was an estimate for my care, listing the wrong insurance company and a large patient liability. I looked at it and went... OMG.
After calling the hospital, I found that they indeed had the correct insurance, it was just listed wrong on that paper. They mentioned that when they'd called they found out there was a $4500 deductible on my insurance.
WTF?!
No. This is not the case. My deductable was $750 - Only $750. WTF are you talking about??
I called the insurance. They said that this is a family plan, that the deductible was the entire family's deductible. No worries, my company (the one I work for) pays for half of that deductible. So yours is only $2250.
Well, that's better, but unfortunately not what I was figuring on when I planned to get the LapBand surgery. The out-of-pocket was supposed to be $1700 with the deductible and the copay amount. It was not supposed to go over that. Now, I have this surgery and the WLS surgery and both together would bring my total to $4000 + .
Not okay. Not one bit.
So guess what that means? No LapBand. Not this year, and with the current insurance trend, not ever. *cries*
But guess what? My mom's on state medical care, and they offered her one for free. So at least someone is getting it. Not little miss middle-class-me though.
I'll be closing this blog soon. Thanks for reading.
Current weight: ???
Time to WLS approval: 2 mos and a few days??
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