Randolf, why don't you think Cigna approve this or at least part of it? Is Dr. Pettine on your insurance plan? While not ideal, perhaps you can get insurance to cover the most critical levels. Very often insurance companies will be okay with you paying one level out-of-pocket. They just need to be aware of it. This way you save on hospital, anesthesia, etc. You simply pay extra $$ for the device at levels disallowed by insurance and for the extra time of the surgeon.

For me personally, I chose not to fight my insurance as I wrote in my previous posting on this thread. However, it can't hurt to have Dr. Pettine (or the surgeon you choose) find out what they will authorize.

Gene

Dr. Pettine and Techy performed my multi-level ADR at C5-7 in Oct 2014. He used the Mobi-C and I have absolutely no neck issues now. I feel better than I did in my 20's. I know people rave about the M6 but honestly, I can't even tell I have artificial discs in my neck and have full mobility. I have United Health Care (Tricare) and had to fight through 3 appeals which took me about 2 months to finally get approved. The secret here is to respond to each appeal within a week. If you delay, the longer it will take. Dr. Pettine's office has some of the evidence based practices I submitted with my appeal that finally got approved. I say -- fight -- Don't let the insurance companies wear you down. If we all just give up without a fight, they will continue to deny everything.

You are in good hands with Dr. Pettine and Techy. They are the best and they gave me my life back. To top it off, the whole procedure cost me $25.00. It was well worth fighting the insurance and not letting them win!

NJ, i have talked to cigna cust. serv. 2 times with Dr. billing codes. other dr.s won't give me the billing codes. they make you sign on the Dr.s line for whatever they are selling before they will submit for approval. it doesn't make any sense at all to be forced to schedule a surgery when you don't know if it is "approved" as "medically necessary" not to mention if you can afford it or not. further ins. co. are not fans of "hybrid" spinal surgeries, and i have a fusion and i am not a fan of that aspect of the hybrid. as far as the implants all of the hard ball discs work more or less like a ball joint, which has no shock absorption, in that i agree with Synlite. the Spinal Kinetics and the AxioMed implants work more like a natural disc than any of the hardball discs. that also makes no sense, in order for me to buy a top notch product that is made in the USA like AxioMed and Spinal Kinetics, i have to go to Europe to get it.:confused: