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Medical Weight Loss

Medical weight loss is an option for patients who want to manage their weight with provider support — including nutrition counseling, behavioral support and prescription weight loss medications (such as GLP-1 medications) when medically appropriate — without surgery. Getting started is simpler than the surgical process. Contact us to schedule an initial consultation.

Your first visit is a one-on-one consultation with one of our providers, who will:

• Review your medical history, current medications and weight history.
• Complete an initial history and physical, and order baseline lab work if needed.
• Talk through your goals and build a personalized plan, with regular follow-up visits to track your progress and adjust your plan over time.

The surgical consultation and evaluation steps below are not required to begin medical weight loss. If surgery becomes the right option for you later, your care team can help you transition.

Learn More About Arkansas Bariatric Institute

Here are just a few of the key benefits of taking your weight loss journey with us:

• Our surgeons meet with patients from the very first consultation. We believe that developing relationships early on will help us better understand your circumstances and goals, which will ultimately lead to better results.
• We perform surgeries at Saline Memorial Hospital, which holds nationally recognized accreditations.

• Readers of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette have voted us as the Best Weight Loss Program for 2022 and 2023, and our surgeons and dietitians have been named among the “Best of the Best” in both the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and AY magazine.
• We have a vibrant and enthusiastic support group that communicates online and meets in-person. Here, the staff and patients offer encouragements, tips and recipes; they are even forming a group to train and walk in a 5K together.

We hope this helps you see a bit about what is so special about the Arkansas Bariatric Institute, but we encourage you to schedule a consultation so that you can see for yourself!

There are several advantages to having weight loss surgery done in an accredited facility, but here are just a couple:

• You can expect higher quality care because accredited facilities follow evidence-based best practices and are accountable to the accrediting organization for following quality standards and reporting results.
• More insurance companies cover bariatric surgery at accredited hospitals.

Yes, we are happy to share our data with you. First, here is a little background:

As an MBSAQIP-accredited facility, we submit data on all our surgeries, and MBSAQIP sends us a report twice a year, for the dates specified. The report shows where our surgical results fall into assessment categories: needs improvement, as expected or exemplary.

Note: This report only applies for stapling procedures, so that is why lap band, overstitch and balloon aren’t included, even though we do report data on these procedures as well.

View our semiannual report for 07.01.23 to 06.30.24

Surgical Weight Loss: Schedule Your Consultation

Once we review your insurance, we will SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION with you.

During the consultation, you will:

• Meet with a nurse, surgeon, and insurance specialist
• Meet with the provider for an initial history and physical

After the evaluation, to ensure the healthiest transition to a life without the weight and to comply with any insurance mandates, you will be scheduled for the following:

• Nutrition assessment
• Psychological evaluation
• Weight loss program (if your health insurance requires this)
• Additional medical tests, as determined by the surgeon
• Support group engagement

Once the program and insurance requirements are completed, we will submit your case to your insurance company for approval. As soon as we have insurance approval, we will move forward with scheduling pre-operative appointments and bariatric surgery.