The paper trail
The process is the same for everyone, but the time can vary greatly. It took me 9 months. Some others had a shorter amount of time. I was denied once for the consult, and my primary MD was out on maternity leave for 5 months, so it was a longer time for me. After the first seminar, you will get a packet of the information you will need and the general time frame it takes to get things done. Dr. Callery is very thorough in his process and wants to make sure you're prepared for this. I would suggest waiting for the seminar before doing anything else or trying to "speed up" the process on your own. I was ready with the psyche letter, 6 years of MD notes, the diet history, lab work and the letter for "Why I want Gastric By-pass" and it didn't make anything go faster for me. I had to change the diet history many times as I updated while waiting for the consult approval. I needed to repeat many lab tests because they were greater than 4-6 months old. Once you get the approval for consult, then it suddenly goes real fast. My consult was April 26th and I was finished with the updated paperwork and labs and was scheduled for surgery May 28th. SO, the longest wait for me was getting the consult approved and that you can't hurry along. It depends on your insurance's medical plan and how much your MD is in favor of you pursuing this procedure. My PCP was the one rooting for me, but when she went on maternity leave early, none of her covering MDs would submit a referral. I even switched MD during that time who submitted the refferral that got denied. I found out later that previous MD notes don't count when the new MD submits a request, so my new MD didn't have enough history, in spite of the qualifying conditions. When my old MD got back, she was gun-ho about getting my refferral submitted with all the stuff the medical group wanted. Whatever time it takes, it's all worth it.
Marie
lap 5/28/04
236 (starting wt)/227 (current wt)/120 (goal wt)
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