Obesity surgery

isa,<br>Just wanted to let you know I too have
Tricare and this is how things went for me. Thank
goodness Wendy’s post were most informative and helpful
and also gave me some confidence that I had a chance
for approval. I went to my PCP on April 5th to get my
referral to a surgeon. They quickly set me up with an
appointment on April 15th to see a surgeon however they made
a mistake and he didnt even do WLS. Again they set
me up another appointment which was for May 13 with
the surgeon. Loved him…all went well there and his
office sent my info by fax to Tricare on May 17th.
Tricare said they would make a decision in 72 hours.
HOWEVER…this is what I found out. If you fall within their
guidelines then its pretty cut and dry and the decision is
made within that time frame. However…I did not fall

within those guidelines but was "close" so my request
had to be forwared somewhere in Texas for further
review by a second panel and they did make the approval.
I got my phone call directly from Tricare on June
1st. I did what Wendy did though…I was calling my
local Tricare office immediately after that 72 hours
had passed. So try not to worry and do give them a
call. I have also been told that sometimes the Dr’s
office doesnt get that info sent off as quickly as we
think. Guess they are busy and we are counting the
seconds on the clock waiting, huh?!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2003 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.