2023 was Coverlipedema.com’s fifth year of advocating for women with lipedema to have safe, effective, and fully covered lipedema surgery. As we look over our accomplishments for the year, we are optimistic about the future of lipedema surgery. The past year has proven that safe and effective lipedema surgery can be fully covered by most health insurance with our advocacy

Our Mission for the Past Five Years

Coverlipedema’s mission is to advocate for safe and effective lipedema surgery performed by board-certified plastic surgeons fully covered by insurance. To make coverage possible, we have to overcome several challenges through our advocacy and education, including

• Greedy fringe providers and self-proclaimed lipedema experts who do not perform safe and effective surgery and take advantage of lipedema patients by pretending to be insurance-friendly.
• Uninformed insurance companies that make getting lipedema surgery very hard to cover or refuse to cover it fairly.
• Misinformation by people who mean well but do not understand the realities of lipedema insurance coverage or have been confused by the marketing of self-declared lipedema “experts.”

Our knowledge and experience, combined with our Coverage, Network, and Appeal processes, have helped over 200 Coverlipedema.com members get fully covered by many different insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare in 2023.

Spreading the Message and Finding New Surgeons, Diagnosing clinicians, and Therapists

Many clinicians do not understand lipedema and lipedema surgery. For us, one of the most important activities is educating them by spreading the message that lipedema surgery can be covered by insurance. We attended several regional and national plastic surgery conferences last year. We have promoted the recognition of lipedema by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the need to educate more plastic surgeons to ensure patients are treated safely and effectively.

There is a shortage of highly trained plastic surgeons who treat lipedema. We constantly search to find more. In the past year, we added Dr. Syed Sayeed, Dr. Marwan Khalifeh, Dr. Solomon Azouz, Dr. John Larson, and Dr. Beth Collins to the list of recommended plastic surgeons who treat Coverlipedema.com members. You can learn more about them on our website.

We have also connected with other network plastic surgeons, several of whom are now options for Coverlipedema.com members who are dealing with difficult insurers. We are working with several of these surgeons to negotiate payment rates with insurers that would allow them to treat more lipedema patients.

There is also a shortage of non-surgeons who understand lipedema. This past year we added 30 non-surgeon lipedema experts nationally who can diagnose lipedema and provide continuing care.

As a part of our affordable Lipedema Physical Evaluation, we have compiled a list of lipedema-aware therapists who can administer the test and provide continuing therapy. We now list almost 100 phyhsical and occupational therapists nationwide.

While we are adding new practitioners to treat lipedema, we are also supporting our existing ones to make sure that they are treated fairly by the insurance companies and are treating our members fairly as well.

We Have Added More Advocates to our Team

We always strive to make the preauthorizatiton process easier for women. This past year, we added ten Coverlipedema.com Regional Ambassadors who help our members learn about and navigate the coverage process. The ambassadors are members who have been covered for their safe and effective surgeries and are excited to help other women in the journey through lipedema treatment. We have also added two new advocates who focus on finding new non-surgeon experts and physical therapists who can provide lipedema services. These Ambassadors and advocates provide better service for our members and allow Coverlipedema.com to focus on appeals and  higher-level policy activities.

Our Policy Advocacy

Much of our work involves advocating behind the scenes with medical directors, healthcare regulators, and insurance company executives. Our policy advocacy in 2023 included:

• Continued advocacy with Blue Cross Blue Shield plans at the state and national level led to new or revised policies in Alabama, New Jersey, Maryland/DC. We won coverage for the first time with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama.
• Obtaining many network exceptions leading to single case agreements with non-network surgeons. We also convinced insurers to raise payment rates and contract more seamlessly with plastic surgeons treating lipedema.
• Rolled out new strategies for ensuring that Coverlipedema.com members have access to internal and external reviews to in accordance with state and federal law.
• Worked more closely with the Lipedema Foundation on public, physician, and insurer education. We look forward to our continued cooperation.

Our  mission continues into its sixth year

As our mission continues into its sixth year, we are very excited about the potential for 2024.

Continue to educate about safe, effective, and fully covered surgery by board-certified plastic surgeons, including the right of all lipedema patients to have fully covered, safe, and effective surgery

Exhibit at six medical conferences, including the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, The Aesthetic Show, Obesity Medicine, and several regional plastic surgeon meetings, with the goal of expanding awareness of lipedema and increasing the number of physicians who treat it.

Ensure all Blue Cross Blue Shield plans have reasonable coverage policies for lipedema

Expand access to safe and effective plastic surgeons by educating plastic surgeons about lipedema and ensuring they can treat it and be paid fairly and, in turn, making sure that lipedema patiinets are aware of these high-qualtiy surgeons.

Although we have helped cover over 600 women, lipedema surgery coverage is still not easy. We look forward to the day when insurance companies cover it like most other diseases. Until then, we are ready to advocate for safe, effective and fully covered lipedema surgery for women suffering from this disease.