- Two surgical groups have updated the guidelines for bariatric surgery for the first time in three decades.
- The guidelines mean vastly more people are eligible for weight loss surgery.
- But whether Medicare and the insurance industry will expand their coverage to match the guidelines remains to be seen.
Two groups of bariatric surgeons have overhauled weight loss surgery guidelines for the first time in more than 30 years, saying the previous standards are out of date and inadequate to cope with America’s growing levels of obesity.
The new standards, released early Friday, will vastly increase the number of people eligible for the operations.
Weight loss surgery has become dramatically safer in recent decades and shown to reverse or improve dozens of weight-related diseases, but guidelines last set in 1991 haven’t been updated to reflect the improvements. That’s why the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders, which represents 72 countries, decided to make the new recommendations.
The old guidelines were “trapped in the past,” said Dr. Shanu Kothari, immediate past president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. “We’ve made tremendous strides in the fields of metabolic and bariatric surgery in three decades. So, we feel it’s time to update these.”
INSIDE AMERICA’S OBESITY EPIDEMIC:How weight loss isn’t so simple
The new guidelines reduce the weight limit…
