When?

My doctor finally told me on Friday that I was going to need a TAH (which is what I was expecting) for fibroids. They are waiting for auhtorization from the insurance company to schedule the surgey. Can anyone tell me how soon I might expect to have it? I'd like it ASAP (less time to get nervous!), but have no idea how they schedule these things. I am in California if that makes any diff.

My doctors office told me to expect 2 weeks to get the approval through the HMO. (I have Blue Shield). I found out that the two weeks was padding so they had over a week to submit the request. I simply followed up with my Medical Group (that oversees my HMO) to make sure the request was submitted. I was prepared to call on day 3 to the coordinator if it wasn't there. The approval process with the insurance company took 5 days.

Hope this helps!

I believe that one of the components that can effect turn around time is how the doctor's office fills out the paperwork.

My company has a set of medical criteria that must be met for an authorization to be obtained. These are pretty standard in the health insurance industry. I work for a health insurance company. My employment for the company had nothing to do with the speed of the authorizaton.

My authorizaton took a few hours, from the time that it was received to being processed. My surgery was scheduled while they were going through the authorization process.

I received my surgery date on Thursday (for the following Monday), I went to my pre-reg meeting at the hospital on Friday morning, and the authorizations were obtained on Friday.

Mine was quick, but there was the question of what they would potentially find with the fibroids. Health insurance companies go through a national ranking process, and customer satisfaction is one of the ranking criteria. Up here in Massachusetts we have a few of the top ranked in the US, numbers one and two. So the competition between the plans is fierce to be number one.

It really comes down to having the paperwork filled out correctly, and meeting the medical criteria.

I think all are different. I know when I went in for my consultation, they told me to go home, talk to my family and call to let them know when I was ready....well 3 hours later I called the dr's office and they already had it pre-approved thru my insurance!!!!! The surgical nurse called me back within 30 minutes with a surgical date.