How long between info meeting and surgery date?

Patience is not a virtue I was born with, and I fully admit I have little of it. And since patience is an inherent part of this entire weight loss surgery procedure, it makes me a little nuts. 

I'm scheduled to go to the informational meeting at my surgical clinic on September 10th (but I'm on the waiting list for the August meeting in case anyone ahead of me cancels --oh, please, oh please!). They say it can take about 2 weeks between the initial info meeting until you have your surgeon consult and then from the consult it is typically 3 months before your surgery is scheduled. So I'm guess-timating that, if all goes fairly smooth, I could be having surgery as early as December.

But I'm curious, how long did it take for you other WLS people to get from first contact/info meeting to consult to surgery date?

I've heard that a big thing I can do to help the process is to be on the ball about gathering my medical records. And luckily I have already had an upper GI endoscopy last year, so my PCP said that I probably won't have to go through that again. I've already been in touch with all my doctors to get records transferred to the surgical clinic, and I'm compiling a binder of my own records to take with me.

What other tips do you have to make this process as smooth as possible? If you could do it all over again, is there anything you would or wouldn't do?

Oh, and I have also read my insurance policy on WLS and have been making sure I provide all the information required to prove I meet those requirements.

Thanks!!!

depends on what, if any requirements, your insurance has as a prerequisite.....

even though my insurance reuires a 90 pre-op plan, between info and surgery date is looking closer to 5+ months simply because of logistics and scheduling appointments....

if your insurance has 6 months of pre-op hoopla, expect 8-9 months before actualy surgery date..unless ya get lucky

 I started out in April and had my approval the 27th of june my surgery is 8/13

This is my timeline from orientation to surgery :D  I wouldn't do anything different.  

8/22/11 - bariatric orientation
9/12/11 - primary care provider referral
9/26/11 - bariatric nurse consultation
9/27/11 - required bloodwork 
10/3/11 - psych eval
10/4/11 - required pulmonary function test 
10/5/11 - 6 hour wls class
10/13/11- meet with surgeon (then they submit to insurance)
11/9/11 - insurance approval
11/23/11 - surgery

My insurance required a 3 month supervised weight loss so I did my initial consult in September and spent October, November, and December getting my supervised dietitian visits done and other requirements (blood work, psych eval, primary care physician visit) done. then was submitted for approval in January and had surgery on Feb 20th

Thanks everyone for your quick responses. It's helpful to hear about everyone's different experiences.

Luckily, I already started seeing a nutritionist back in February, and I'm still seeing her. She's a registered dietician/nutritionist, recommended by my PCP, yadda yadda. So I think I am good if they ask me for proof of diet. My insurance is BCBS and from what I've read on the forums they seem to be pretty good about not taking absolutely forever for approval, so I hope that goes well for me.

Again, thanks for your feedback, everyone! Keep it coming!

 My WLS center advises people to expect it to take 6 months.  Part of this depends on healthy insurance, as many require documented weight loss attempts for that period.  Then, there will likely be a long list of tests that you will need to go through.  Initial consult, nutritiionist, exercise guru, heart test, sleep test, surgeon referral, surgeon consult, and a few more.  In my case, I went to the first seminar in September.  I had several of the tests already completed due to previous screens for various issues related to cancer.  My insurance did not require the 6 month documented loss portion.  Even with that I struggled getting the sugery to be placed on my Christmas break, but I did get it then.  So for me, about 3 months.  

6 months from start to surgery. It seemed like the longest 6 months of my life. But once i got the okee dokee and clear to go it went fast.

 I was incredibly blessed and had my surgery 5 weeks after my orientation!  I had BCBS of MI and they have an automatic approval with a BMI over 50.  My surgeon actually wanted to schedule me within 3 weeks of orientation, but I postponed it by a couple weeks so I could arrange for adequate child care for my little ones.  It seemed like everything happened so fast and it was a blur!  Sooooo worth the wait for anyone else though!!

May 9th was my initial consultation. may 22nd was my nutrition consult. May 23rd was my psych consult. The surgeon received nutrition and psych reports around June 1st. They sent it off to insurance on the 5th. I got my approval letter around June 20th. Doctor's office got letter the next week (don't know why the insurance company doesn't send it to everyone at once). Doctor's office called to schedule on July 2nd. I'm having surgery on July 23rd.

My insurance only requires 1 nutrition consult and 1 psych consult. I have UHC PPO Choice Plus.

So, about 2.5 months total. Not that long when I look back on it.