Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery Group

Health Insurance Coverage for Body Contouring??

According to WebMD.com, about 63.6% of Americans are overweight while 26.5% are obese.

Because the condition is detrimental for health, many extremely overweight people go to bariatric surgeons to reduce the size of their stomachs, eat far less and watch the weight fall off. Not only does this drastically improve their appearance, it drastically improves their health and quality of life.

But there’s a catch-22.

A person who has lost 100 to 300 pounds is coined as having Massive Weight Loss (MWL). Because the skin of MWL patients has been stretched so much, it can’t spring back as easily as the usual fluctation of weight allow it to. Therefore, the excess skin hangs and droops on the body, often in sheets and thick rolls.

Many MWL patients say sitting on loose, drooping skin is like sitting on jell-O.

For a woman who has lost 155 pounds, her life is like having a size 26 skin on a size eight body. The flopping, loose skin makes it very hard to exercise not to mention the many infections that may often manifest under the rolls of skin.

Additionally, a lot of extra skin hanging from the stomach and chest is hard on the back.

Also known as body lift and body contouring, body shaping is basically a face lift for the figure.

Body shaping usually includes some or all of the following:

■Breast lift
■Brachioplasty, removal of excess skin hanging on upper arms
■Tummy Tuck
■Buttocks lift
■Thigh lifts

Carefully read your health insurance policy to get clues on coverage for all or parts of a body lift. Experts say panniculectomy (removing the apron of skin hanging from the stomach) has the best chance of coverage.

The bottom line: find the procedures that are medically, not cosmetically, necessary. Perhaps you control a health condition like type II diabetes with exercise. But the excess skin prevents you from working out. So coverage for a tummy tuck and thigh lift may be possible.

For more information on what your health policy may cover, call (310) 275-6600 for a complimentary consultation or email us info@bhpsg.com

www.bhpsg.com