I talked with UCSF yesterday and found out that, in the auth. girl's words, they consider a panniculectomy and a TT the same thing. I wasn't clear on that and asked and she said that what they do is bill the ins for the panniculectomy and DO THE FULL TUMMY TUCK!!!!!!
I was so happy I almost cried!!! This PS surgeon at UCSF is the one that my GB surgeon reccommeded. I had seen her in April for a consult and she was just awful with her attitude and seemed to be discouraging me from even getting anything done. One of her statements to me was that my skin was in very bad shape and I shouldn't expect perfection. I realize that, but it was her attitude when she said it that hit me. It was as if she just thought there was no hope for it to do any good, so why even try. I told her that I didn't expect perfection just some improvement. Then she was asking me how I would pay for it if my ins didn't cover the whole thing and I kind of thought that she shouldn't be concerned with that and felt like that was prying a bit. Not to sound harsh, but as long as she got paid I don't think it should make any diff where the money comes from. Well, I had gone to this other surgeon that was wanting the $5,000 on top of the money being paid by my ins for the panniculectomy because of that whole experience at UCSF. This one I recently saw was so positive and felt that he could get rid of all the scars and get such wonderful results and thought his auth people could get full aproval from my ins. So I tried with him. Anyway we have seen that story unfold in here.
The way I am looking at this PS surgeon at UCSF, with the not so good attitude, is that maybe I caught her on a bad day and if that isn't the case most of the time when I see her I will be out of it and won't care what her attitude is like. My GB surgeon is reccomending her to all of his patients and said he went to a symposium given by her and has seen her work in person and is VERY impressed with it, so who am I to complain about attitude? And besides all that I should not look a gift horse in the mouth and thank my lucky stars that it is going to be covered 100%!
The auth girl on the phone said that my ins requires 3 months stability at 100 pounds weight loss. I am just about there (2 pounds away) and she said that was close enough and I need to get the weight recorded and start the count down. I will probably lose more over the next 3 months too since I am still losing and haven't reached goal. So I may be looking at Oct. for my PS!!!
Such EXCITING NEWS!!!!