Obesity treatments at times can be a costly affair. Surgeries for treating morbid obesity can cost you a huge chunk of money. Health insurance or insurance coverage can be of immense help in this regard. It can encourage people to pursue weight loss treatment for a longer duration and help in controlling obesity in the long run.

But unfortunately most of the insurance plans do not provide reimbursement for weight loss treatment. According to many practitioners, very few private insurance indemnity plans or managed care organizations appear to cover the costs of obesity treatment regardless of whether the service is a medically supervised program of weight reduction or maintenance, nutrition counseling, surgery or a pharmaceutical product.

In a typical employer insurance the benefits listed in their employee benefits booklet as "not payable for treatment or services" include charges from medications and diet supplements which result from diet programs; appetite control; weight control and treatment of obesity or morbid obesity. It also includes gastric bypasses and stapling procedures even if the beneficiary has other health conditions which might be helped by the reduction of weight.

The Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute report states that appetite suppression products like diet pills have been excluded by more than 80% of employers, according to a sample of 375 companies representing almost 12 million beneficiaries in 1998. It's a negative trend as non availability of insurance is stopping common people from availing the treatment for obesity.

The countless number of available insurance plans and ever changing policies has made it difficult to assess the extent to which obesity treatment and prevention services are covered by third party insurers. More data and better tracking is necessary to determine the health needs of persons with obesity. It can help in the proper planning of insurance coverage for the benefit of the obese community.