Quote:
Originally Posted by hubs
This will also encompass my intended response to another thread here about doctor supervised weight loss programs and the intention of such a program.
So its a catch 22 because some people feel that its a trap of sorts to go on a pre-surgery weight loss program and to be successful in fear that they will then be denied the surgery. That means the full responsibility for continued success lies on their shoulders and that has never worked before. The fear is that the guarantees of fast success that SEEM to come with WLS will be forfeited by any success in losing weight outside of WLS.
Since I have been dragged into a thread in which I have not participated in any way I will repost a clarification that I posted in the orginal thread being referred to above.
Quote:
Just to clarify ...
I am not questioning why a doctor (or particularly a bariatric surgeon) would want to know about a person's diet history. I am fully cognizant of why a doctor would want that information in evaluating a patient's need and likely outcome with weight loss surgery.
I am questioning what the insurance company is looking for when they set ridiculously difficult standards for what does and does not constitute a "physician supervised diet". I am questioning the wisdom of decisions being made for real patients with real medical needs by a bean counter who may never have worked in a medical setting at all and whose entire education is in accounting or business management.
I am talking specifically again about insurance companies putting up ridiculously impossible hurdles. Not doctors.
In fact the sugical practice I have chosen to work with is extremely conservative in both their patient selection criteria and their after care regimen. It is one of the reasons I chose them.
But again - I was not talking about my doctor but about my insurance company.
Both the psychologist and the surgical group are looking at a totality of one's health, weight and diet history. They consider any notation of diet attempts and consultation with a primary care physcian. Whereas my insurance company requires 6 months of monthly visits to a physician, meetings with a nutritionist and documented behavioural therapy.
The insurance company is requiring far more to qualify as compliance than any doctor I have ever met has required, suggested or prescribed. Including a bariatric physician whose entire practice is the non-surgical treatment of obesity. Who I saw for nearly a year with mixed success.
This particular insurance company has a reputation among both patients and physician's offices for setting compliance standards that are difficult if not impossible to meet.
So my question was strictly - What is the insurance company looking for in regard to their 6 month physician supervised diet requirement. Not what is the doctor's office looking for.
Which in no way reflects my attitude toward compliance with any physician order or my ability to comply with those orders.
Additionally - I am not looking for a "quick fix". Nor do I think that a pre-operative diet is a "trap". I was simply thinking aloud of the potential reasons an insurance company could have for having what I (and doctors I know) consider to be impossibly high compliance standards (including denying that a diet was consistently physician supervised because the visits were not "monthly" due to a 6 week gap between supervision appointments).
For your information, hubs, wether I have surgery, take drugs, do South Beach, the grapefruit diet, become vegan or choose to vomit after every meal my success or failure at weight loss will be, as everything in my life,
my full responsibility. The weight of every decision I have ever made in my life and my success or failure at whatever I try rests squarely on my shoulders. It always has and it always will.
I am not "afraid" of anything that you have suggested in your post. Nor do I believe that success is "fast". In fact, I am choosing adjustable laproscopic banding because I
want another tool in my aresenal when I try this again. Not because I want a magic pill, a quick fix or the easy way.
I asked a question. I pondered some possibilities. Why? Because I didn't know and I wanted to be informed.
Go back and reread my post. I said that I don't expect this supervised diet to be any different from those in the past (again including one supervised by a bariatric physician who specializes in the non-surgical treatment of obesity). I said that I will give it my all and do whatever my doctors suggest.
I also questioned what the insurance company is looking for. And I most definitely questioned the motives of the insurance company in their requirements because I do not believe that the best interests of the patient are ever at the top of the list of the insurance companies' motives or considerations.
So before you drag me into your little rant about people who didn't do their homework, have unrealistic expectations or are ill-prepared you should actually read what I wrote.