A week ago Leah from fiveblondes did an excellent post on healthcare & it inspired me to write about my own experience. Also, I found out about this process through talking to a dear twitter friend, Jania. (who TOTALLY just twisted my arm into giving her credit *wink)
1) Decided that surgery would probably be the only option to losing (and keeping) weight off. I'm having Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass. Benefit: Way too many to list here.
2) Called the weight management clinic I went to last year. Got an appointment for Thursday morning. Cost: Zero dollars. Waiting time: A day and a half.
3) Had appointment with doctor to discuss surgery & options. Cost: Zero dollars. Time: About an hour. Benefit: Learned about the surgery, got the ball rolling.
4) Learned I will either have the surgery at my local hospital, or go to Utica, New York and have it done there. Time: If I have it here, the waiting time is 5-6 months until surgery. New York, the time is about 3 months.
Cost: For the surgery itself (in both places): zero dollars. Travel is not covered for the New York option, neither is the 2-week liquid Optifast diet beforehand (for either option; about 92$). Also, Keith might miss 3 days of work (still to be decided if it's paid or not) to come with me.
For medication, the cost will be zero dollars as well. However, that is due to my mother's excellent health plan (which I am covered under until the age of 25 if enrolled in full-time post-secondary studies) and not related to strictly healthcare.
So. yeah. I should know next month where I'm going to have the surgery. It's going to be a reaaaally long month.
4 comments:
Congrats! I'm excited for you! Though also a little bitter about how cheap this is for you!
You have no idea how much this just saved my life. I was thinking it wasn't covered, and there would be years before we could afford a surgery like this....and then I found out it's covered, and. Man. It's just way too awesome for words.
Wow, good luck with the surgery! Be sure to blog about your experiences.
Do you read Duwaxlulu? She had the lap band surgery recently.
Thanks for the link love!
That's kinda exciting and kinda scary at the same time! Good luck!
NZ is very similar to Canada in it's health care (though they do make you pay $3 for a prescription)...but Australia is much more expensive. If I had a heart operation or something it would be free but specialists/doctors etc are very expensive and only partly covered here.
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