The Story Continues...

Well, around August of 2008 I tried to make an appointment with Dr. Ronald Clements at UAB. I chose him because he is supposed to be on of the best. UAB has a center of excellence in this area. Anyways, his assistant sent me a book to fill out and told me that they would make the appointment when they had received certain forms back with my proof of insurance.

To reach Dr Clements:
Department of Surgery
Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery
University of Alabama at Birmingham
1503 3rd Avenue South
Birmingham, AL, 35294
ronald.clements@ccc.uab.edu
Website


I finally got all of that together and sent it in and the appointment was set for October. On the day of the appointment, we were all put into a group. It was awkward. Everyone knew why we were there, it was obvious. Like a herd of cows meandering around Kirklin Clinic. Anyways, we had a group meeting with reps from the doc's office. Finally, we met with the surgeon as a group and then individually. I was certainly leaning toward the lap band but he strongly urged me toward the bypass. He seemed sold on the bypass and not so much on the lap band. He quoted the research that it was less effective. I had a lot to think about. Anyways, I was done with that and ready to move on to the real effort of getting the insurance approved.

Insurance approval came in the form of 1) Letter of Medical Necessity 2)Nutritional Consult 3)Pychological Consult. The problem was that no one really knew what the insurance took to satisfy these requirements. So, I started with monthly weigh ins with my family doctor and made an appointment for the Nutritional and Pysch Consults.

During the interim time period here, I decided to go with Gastric Bypass. I only had once shot here and it seemed that I could not risk a failure. There was a chance that the lap band could fail. I just could not risk it.

It was clear to me on the days of my Nutr and Psych Consults that the process was all red tape and a waste of time and money. To top it all off, I had to do the two consults on different days, which meant that I had to take time off from work two times. I was charged over 600 dollars fo the Psych Consult and it was a joke. I had a 45 minute discussion with Dr Lokken and then a series of pysch test. The testing seemed to be centered around research at UAB and had little to do with my case. The conversation with Dr. Lokken was basically a series of questions that she read off to me. It was a joke. Plus, the questions that she was reading had all been answered by me in the questions that they had been sent to me previously in the mail. The wait was horrendous and then to top it all off, it took them 2 weeks to get the report back to Dr. Clements. The Nutr Consult consisted of me sitting with another patient in a room and lectured by a diabetes educator for an hour about the 4 food groups and that "a 3 ounce piece of chicken fits nicely in the palm of your hand". I swear if I hear some pinhead nutritionist or Weight Watchers person say that to me one more time, I think I will lose it.

All the red tape out of the way and it was time for the Insurance coordinator(Jamie) with Dr Clements to submit to insurance. This was really a very quick process. Jamie said that it might take a few weeks, so that it what I was expecting. Instead it took a few days and I found out earlier this week that it had been approved.