Frequently Asked Questions

Surgery in this day and age is very safe due to all of the major medical advances and advanced technology we use in the hospital setting. Prior to surgery, both Pulmonary and Cardiac evaluations and clearance may be needed depending on the medical history of a patient.

Bariatric surgery is approved and covered by Medicare which means that all other insurances should cover this procedure as well. Unfortunately it does not depend on the Insurance company itself, but on what type of plan you have.

Two patients may use the same Insurance company (e.g Cigna) but have different plans, one that will cover Bariatric surgery and another that does not. We recommend you check with your employer or Insurance company to see if your health care plan provides coverage for bariatric surgery.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems.

Obesity is an excessive proportion of total body fat. A person is considered obese when his or her weight is 20% or more above normal weight.

The most common measure of obesity is the body mass index, or BMI. A person is considered overweight if his or her BMI is between 25 and 29.9; a person is considered obese if his or her BMI is over 30.

“Morbid obesity” means that a person is either 50%-100% over normal weight, more than 100 pounds over normal weight, has a BMI of 40 or higher, or is sufficiently overweight to severely interfere with health or normal function.

A) If your BMI is over 40.
B) If your BMI is between 35-39.9 and you have 1 or more medical conditions or co-morbiditys associated with obesity (e.g: Diabetes mellitus, Hypertension, sleep apnea etc).

The process and time frame depends a lot on your insurance company and how quickly the Pre Operative evaluations are completed (e.g: nutrition, psychological, EGD etc). These are the 3 most common case scenarios:

A) The self pay patient, from initial evaluation to surgery could take as little as 4-6 weeks.

B) The insured patient that does NOT require 6 months of Physician Weight Loss Supervision, initial evaluation to surgery would take between 4-8 weeks.

C) The insured patient that requires 6 months of Physician Weight loss Supervision, initial evaluation to surgery would take around 6-8 months.

It depends on the procedure. With the lap band after 5-7 days. With the lap sleeve after 7-10 days and Gastric bypass 10-14 days. Some patients will recover sooner others later. A great deal depends on how the patient is feeling and what type of job they have.

The lap band is done on an outpatient basis which means you will go home the same day of surgery.

The sleeve gastrectomy requires 1 nights stay in the hospital. The gastric bypass requires 2 nights. There are patients that may need an extra night in the hospital including those that opt for the Lap Band surgery.

You can start fast walking after 2 weeks and exercise 4-6 weeks after surgery. This applies to all laparoscopic procedur

Most of the time the patient already has a procedure in mind. We will go over all of the procedures together, and if there is any contra indication or reason why that procedure is not recommended because of medical history, we will discuss another option.

We will put some fluid in the band the day of surgery(around 3cc). The next fill is 4-6 weeks after surgery if needed.

Yes. Once the patient looses a significant amount of weight or reaches their goal, he or she may stop “dieting” and begin re-introducing different types of foods into their diet. This way the patient is able to control their weight loss.

If more weight loss is recommended and/or desired by the patient, we strongly recommend to continue dieting or limiting caloric intake. One of the goals during this process is that the patient will learn to change their eating habits to the point that they no longer crave high calorie or empty calorie foods.