Thursday, October 28, 2010

UPDATE!

Thank you for patiently waiting for this update. Let me start by saying "ugh."

Ok so I went in for my appointment with Dr. Blackstone (the surgeon) and she was very excited about my decision to revise to the DS from the lap-band. She re-assured me over and over that this is not going to be very risky and that she is not at all concerned about my health in regards to potential surgical complications. She really made me feel better about my concerns with being her first DS surgery.

I feel like the ball got dropped once it was out of Dr. B's hands because it seemed to take forever to get my insurance submitted. Only after numerous calls did something finally get submitted with just barely a month until my proposed surgery date.

Now comes the bad news. I literally, just 2 minutes ago, got my letter from my insurance (BCBS of AZ) DENYING my surgery revision request. They said that they did not receive any information from Scottsdale Bariatric that deemed my revision "medically necessary." It's after office hours but FIRST THING tomorrow morning I am going to call to find out exactly what was submitted. Melissa specifically said that she would have my info submitted to insurance with the claim that I had one of the medically necessary reasons for revision. Technically, I don't. But there are approved reasons that don't really have to be proved other than my surgeon's say-so. *Long deep sigh* I knew this wasn't going to be easy. But obviously I haven't even begun to fight back so this isn't over. I will dispute it and have Scottsdale Bariatric re-submit my info with the "medically necessary" reasons that I was originally told they would. I'm just annoyed because my proposed surgery date was November 17th. Yeah...that's not going to happen at this rate.

I'll post any updates as soon as I get them. Thanks for checking back and reminding me to post ;)