Category Archives: BMI

Can Your BMI Be Too High for Bariatric Surgery?

We must always discuss minimum qualifying criteria for bariatric surgery with our patients. For insurance coverage, a patient’s body mass index or BMI must be at least 35 with one or more obesity-related comorbidities or 40 or more regardless of comorbidities. Recent guidance from ASMBS and IFSO has reduced those recommended BMI levels, but insurance has yet to cover lower BMI surgery. That said, we discuss the upper limits of BMI far less commonly because no official guidelines to that end exist. With TV shows showing extreme BMI patients going under the knife (Think “My 600Lb Life) it’s certainly worth discussing because we see more high BMI patients than ever before. So, what are the challenges of working with a very high BMI patient?

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