Why Am I Not Qualified for Bariatric Surgery?

The NIH (National Institute of Health) set forth some guidelines for weight loss surgery. These guidelines are followed by insurance to allow "coverage" for these procedures. If a person's BMI is 35 to 40 AND that person also has conditions associated with being overweight such as Diabetes and Hypertension then that person may qualify for surgery. If a person is significantly overweight that they have a BMI > 40 then they also may qualify. There may be a situation in which a... more

The criteria to qualify for weight loss surgery is a BMI of 40 with no medical problems or a BMI of 35 with medical problems related to obesity.  The Lap-Band procedure should be approved for BMI 30 - 35 in the very near future but will probably not be covered by insurance.  The reason is that it has only been shown to improve medical problems when you meet these criteria and then considered medically necessary. see video

The guidelines for bariatric surgery are based on balancing the risk of surgery with the health benefits of losing weight.  Yeah, sure, it would be nice to be thinner, but with a BMI less than 30, the surgery would be more dangerous than staying overweight.  It's true that surgery is much safer these days, but we still are obligated to "first do no harm" in our recommendations.