Surgical weight loss surgery requires a commitment to lifestyle changes, including what you eat and how often you exercise. We help you set the foundation, so you’re mentally and physically prepared for life after surgical weight loss surgery. The entire process, from consultation to surgery, generally takes about six months to complete. It often depends on you and your insurance requirements. If you are interested in surgical weight loss surgery but aren’t sure where to start, our step-by-step guide can help.
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A Step-by-Step Guide to Seeking Weight Loss Surgery
Education and preparation are important first steps if you’re seeking surgical weight loss surgery. We help ensure your safety and long-term success while meeting your health and weight loss goals.
Step 1: Attend a surgical weight loss surgery seminar and consultation with United Bariatric Center of Kansas City
✔ Schedule your seminar and consultation for the same day, if possible. If not, watch our online seminar here BEFORE your appointment.
✔ First, you will work with our nurse navigators to meet some of our providers and learn about our program. Our dietitian explains the supervised diet process before surgery and the dietary changes you should expect after surgery.
✔ Our online Seminar provides an overview of the different bariatric surgery options. You can also watch online videos about bariatric surgery and making informed decisions.
✔ At your consultation, you discuss the surgical options with your surgeon, who also answers any questions. At the end of the visit, a nurse navigator will inform you of the next steps.
✔ After your first visit, we get in touch with your insurance carrier to understand your benefits and coverage. Your insurance company may require that you meet specific guidelines.
Step 2: Build healthy habits
Our expert dietitian and behavior specialists teach you how to build healthy food habits to aid your weight loss. You may be required to begin a supervised diet program. During this program, you meet with the dietitian one-on-one to determine meal plans and caloric intake.
Step 3: Readiness assessment
You meet with a psychologist or social worker to make sure you are mentally ready to move forward with the surgery and have a support system in place.
Step 4: Preoperative testing
Based on your history, we may conduct several preoperative tests to make sure that we meet your needs before, during and after surgery:
✔ Cardiology testing
✔ Clearance from your physician and psychiatrist
✔ Gastrointestinal evaluation
✔ Sleep apnea evaluation
Step 5: Team approval
Our team will review your case to ensure your safety and readiness for surgery.
Step 6: Insurance Authorization
After the committee approves you for surgery, we begin the authorization process with your insurance company. Once authorized, we schedule your surgery.
Step 7: Preoperative clearance and class
After your insurance company authorizes your procedure, you will:
✔ Get clearance: Schedule an appointment with your primary care provider for preoperative clearance two to four weeks before your surgery date.
✔ Attend a class: Our nurses run preoperative classes, which explain what you can expect during and after surgery.
✔ Meet with surgeon: Two weeks before your surgery date, you have an appointment with your surgeon to finalize surgery details.
✔ Preoperative workup: You may complete one more round of tests just before surgery based on your health status.
Step 8: Day of surgical weight loss surgery
✔ Depending on the type of procedure you and your surgeon have selected, your surgery will take between one and three hours. We help you through the first days of recovery, encouraging you to get up and walk as soon as possible.
✔ You can expect to follow a liquid diet. Most patients stay in the hospital for one to two days, depending on their procedure and recovery.
Step 9: Following up
Following up with our team is essential to your safety and long-term success. You will have several follow-up appointments in the first year. After that, we recommend you have one follow-up appointment every year.
Although there are many others involved in our success-proven process, these are the ones that you’ll work with personally to ensure your pre, during and post-experience is everything you hope it would be
🌟 Sigi P. Joseph, MD, Bariatric Surgeon
🌟 Denise Johnson, Bariatric Nurse
🌟 Kim Smith, Nurse Navigator
🌟 Tricia Cockerall, Nurse Practitioner
🌟 Mollie White, MS, RD, LD, Bariatric Dietician
💻 Meet our staff https://kc-weightloss.com/about-us/
💻 Learn more about what we offer https://kc-weightloss.com/procedures/
💻 Schedule your consultation online now https://kc-weightloss.com/contact-us/
