Weighing options: The business of helping obese patients

What does insurance pay for? Bariatric surgery, yes; weight management, maybe.

WEIGHT MANAGEMENT: Reimbursement an issue.
BARIATRIC SURGERY: The surgeons are busy.

By Julie A. Jacob and Cheryl Jackson, amednews staff. May 20, 2002.

Carnie Wilson had fleeting fame as a pop singer with her group Wilson Phillips. Instead, it seems her most lasting influence will be in the field of bariatric surgery.

What once was a procedure considered by few suddenly became mainstream when the daughter of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson had her 1999 laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operation performed live over the Internet. This year, nearly 60,000 people w

As a result, the number of general surgeons receiving additional training to become bariatric surgeons is rising as well. Membership in the American Society for Bariatric Surgery has grown by about 30% over the last two years. About 572 doctors are mem

But Carnie Wilson can't take credit for all of this, even if some surgeons say her surgery was a turning point. What's also piquing doctors' interest is that, increasingly, insurers are paying for the procedure as they try to deal with the costs of an

As of 2000, about 20% of the U.S. was obese, defined as having a body mass index of 30 or higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number was at 12% in 1991. Twenty-two states, mostly in the Midwest and South, had obesi [...]

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