Cost vs Benefit of Bariatric Surgery
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- The cost of bariatric surgery can be a concern, whether it's a real concern or just a barrier raised by skeptics. Dr. Pilcher talks about the real costs of Bariatric Surgery compared with the costs of the Obesity Disease.
Hey!! We drive trucks up north, doc! 😂
Your videos have been a saving grace on my bariatric journey! I’d love to pick your brain about what to expect/prep for in the future. My surgical team is amazing, supportive, and well informed, but I’ve always appreciated multiple sources of information. Please let us know if you ever do an “open office hours” or some such…would be awesome.
I’m 11 months post op. Started at 385, down to 170 today….trying from the elliptical. ❤
Thanks for everything, Dr. Pilcher!!
Hey thanks for watching up north! I appreciate your question about "open hours." I keep meaning to do a RUclips live, but no firm plans right now.
Best of luck on your journey!
Went to Turkey and had VGS (Vertical Gastric Sleeve) and it cost £3,000 in 2022; with a gallbladder removal costing £450 - UK POUNDS. Super quality hospital and all pre op tests which were extremely extensive. Cost also included blood thinning injections for 10 days post op, stomach protector tablets lasting 6 months; first 2 weeks of milkshake packets. Flights were extra but it did include a couple of days in a hotel, always had Interpreters in your hospital room when staff were attending to you. I did a lot of research beforehand and anyone considering this option should know that it’s only a tool and you do need to change your eating habits and adopt a healthy diet and exercise (once recovered from surgery). It’s not a magic wand, you need to be aware of your calorie intake always and you need to be content with eating well and not unhealthy foods as you will either not lose enough or start to regain if you’re overeating. I went from 18st 9lbs (261lbs) (118.39kgs) to 8st 9lbs (121lbs) (54.88kgs) ❤ the health benefits I have now are truly amazing.
Great to know, and I wish you the best on your journey!
Had VSG at Sage thanks to finding your videos Dr. Pilcher. I am a resident of Georgia but traveled to San Antonio. My surgery was done in June of 2022. I have lost 150 pounds- best thing I’ve ever done! And I highly recommend Sage Bariatric Institute! 😊
Thanks so much, and great work putting the surgery to work for your health!
There was a recent article in Beckers indicating that BCBS is piloting more coverage for Bariatric surgery and removing barriers as the popularity of expensive weight loss drugs surges and they realize that Bariatric surgery is a more cost efficient and effective treatment for obesity. I hope to see that continue and other insurance plans following that approach.
Thanks very much for this information! And yes, as a profession we are actively working with insurers to (hopefully) reach an unbiased assessment about the roles for all stages of the obesity management algorithm, and how earlier diagnosis/intervention can lead to better outcomes for individuals as well as for society.
@@DoctorJP I’ve been jumping through all my insurance hoops since November and looking forward to my follow up visit in a few weeks where my surgery will get scheduled. 🤞🏻
What’s the price if I don’t have insurance?
The cost varies widely across the country. At our center, for patients who are medically appropriate, Sleeve cost comes in slightly under $10,000, and Gastric Bypass is about $12,000.
@@DoctorJP how do I know if I qualify for the surgery
I was going to get bariatric surgery in 2010 but I backed up I was already in the process of doing it my insurance was going to cover it 😊
I wish you the best of health, whatever path you follow.
Spent £3k on my surgery. The cost of a holiday. It has saved me from: high blood pressure, diabetes, immobility etc.
Great feedback, and I wish you the best of luck on your journey!
Obesity prejudice saves lives. Without the social shame, many might not get enough motivation to change.
Thanks for sharing your thought, which is an interesting twist on the traditional "Obesity as a Choice" paradigm. Would you generalize your thesis to contend that prejudice and shame are necessary to have motivation for treating diabetes? or cardiac disease? or cancer?
I believe that, instead of motivating the shamed to seek treatment, the shame around obesity causes people to hesitate to seek treatment. The shame claims that the obese person does not "deserve" medical assistance. I hope that we can all let go of the prejudice/shame narrative.
And, to the point of this video, is it your idea that obesity prejudice somehow increases the availability of medical care?
@@DoctorJP Interesting points.
However, do you feel that obesity is of the same class, causality etc. as cancer? And if so what types of cancer? For instance, lung cancer with a causal source of smoking. Shame was used to reduce the prevalence of smoking. Skin cancer? Shame was used to lower sun exposure. Diabetes, cardiac disease etc. are very strongly correlated with obesity, and so inducing societal shaming on the root cause of obesity might be more effective than separate shame on the outcomes of obesity.
Also, the intrinsic morality of shaming is not my central assertion, but rather that it is effective as a motivation for many. It has been used successfully throughout history to enact change (both positive and negative) across demographics. This is an empirical reality.
Anecdotally, EVERY person whom I have met that has lost a large amount of weight by a variety of methods (diet, surgery, pharmaceuticals etc.) listed feeling ashamed as one of the top three motivators.
They were embarrassed that they could not play with their children, that they could not fit in the booth at dennys, that they could not live life and explore new places because they were too sick or immobile. They felt ashamed that they looked unhealthy and could not attract others. They were ashamed that they had lower job prospects etc.
This shame lead them to do all they could to seek medical treatment.
So shaming will not directly increase the availability of medical care to first order, but it will increase the drive to seek medical care… and as a secondary effect the market forces will drive the development and availability of various care types due to this uptick.
As for “obesity is a choice”… this is not really a variation of that theme, as that is mostly centered around the concepts of ethical, moral and mental weaknesses. This is more centered around motivation, and methods that are powerful motivators. There are always breaking points that help induce change and the creation of habits, and some of them are not pleasant… but they should not be abandoned so quickly to save feelings, which ultimately enable many bad or destructive.
I’m certainly glad that my own sense of shame, and the social stigma I felt lead me to seek surgical treatments. I could feel the shame in not doing all I could for treatment without convolving it as moral failing that my hard efforts in other methods were failing me.
Also, I recognize that swarming will not be universally effective… but it will be for a large majority of people… we are wired that way as social animals.
@@michaelvarney. Sorry to be slow in follow up. With my cancer reference, I was not saying that the Obesity Disease is similar to the various types of cancer in many ways, but to claim that, because cancer (and cardiovascular disease, and diabetes) are accepted as medical conditions, the health system does not use shame as one of its tools. I think in the case of smoking (leading to lung cancer and to cardiovascular disease) you may have a point about the attempts to use shame to change behavior. My impression is that, even in that case, there has been more impact from regulation, taxation, and education than shaming. You proposed skin cancer (sun exposure) as a topic in which shame was a major tool promoting behavior change - I really feel that was an education rather than a shaming campaign. Briefly, I disagree with your central assertion that shame has been a key motivator throughout history.
I agree with your statement that essentially every obese person is made to feel shame, and that shame can be one motivator to get their weight down. However, I reinforce my assertion that shame about the obesity disease mostly serves as a barrier to medical treatment. The shame coming from society makes people feel they must take care of the problem on their own, prolonging the problem since self-treatment has a low success rate. This understanding of shame as a barrier comes from my experience with over 10,000 patients during my career, almost all of whom delayed seeking care for several years because they felt judged for “taking the easy way out.”
It wasn’t clear from your first post that you yourself have had bariatric surgery, and that fact earns you a lot of credibility in this conversation. And, with reference to the closing of your second post, I do strongly believe in personal motivation and personal responsibility. I believe that people have the most success, who actively use the surgery (and other therapy) as a tool. Yet, the thrust I get from your closing is that you haven’t shed the idea that people ought to control their weight with discipline and will power alone. If you have time, you might check out a couple of my older videos:
Obesity is a Metabolic Disease (not just a bad habit) ruclips.net/video/X3B3UHTmGGk/видео.html
The Actual Physics of Weight Loss ruclips.net/video/7Vk_FoYSXJg/видео.html
Against Obesity Prejudice ruclips.net/video/TlmtIVPl5J8/видео.html