‘I Crowdfunded Money For Weight-Loss Surgery And It Totally Changed My Life’
When I applied for the surgery in February 2016, my insurance required me to visit a dietitian four times over 90 days, get blood work, and have an electrocardiogram test. After my paperwork was approved, my surgery was finally scheduled for September 1, 2016. Nowhere along the way did my insurance or surgical center tell me how much the procedure would cost.
On August 26, just five days before the operation, the clinic called to tell me that I owed $3,178.82 upfront before I could have the surgery.
As a patient advocate, every day at work I help people understand their health insurance, including how to enroll, their benefits, and making claims and appeals. But when it came to my own weight-loss surgery, I was shocked.
I knew I was going to have some out of pocket cost, but I didn’t realize how much it would be. I had great insurance, I’d already met my $1,000 deductible, and I knew that my out of pocket max was $3,000. But I didn’t know that maximum did not apply to bariatric surgery. I also thought that, like most hospitals, the facility where I was having my surgery would have a payment plan, but it did not.
I called my husband and started crying because I thought I would have to cancel the surgery. Then I called our credit card company to see if I could get a credit line increase, and I applied for five different credit cards. I got one with a $500 limit and a 24.99 percent APR. I was rejected by the four others. We had just purchased a house, so our savings were gone. Plus, our credit cards were maxed out from buying new appliances—and our parents weren’t in a place to help us.
Looking back, I realize how important it is to check with your insurer as well as your surgical facility at the beginning of the process to find out what your out of pocket costs are. I shouldn’t have assumed that bariatric surgery had the same insurance benefits as other surgeries.
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