What are the Medicare Guidelines?
As you are aware Medicare will only reimburse for Bariatric surgery performed in a facility certified as a Center of Excellence. We are pleased to announce that we received our recognition from the American Society for Bariatric Surgery as a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence in July 2008. There were many criteria our program had to meet in order to make it through the certification process and eventually receive our recognition. There is also a process that you, as patients, must go through in order meet the criteria to qualify for weight loss surgery. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have specified a few criteria which patients must meet prior to surgical approval and reimbursement. Surgical Associates P.C. and the Bariatric program also have criteria that must be met prior to scheduling surgery.
