Are You Struggling to Lose Weight and Keep It Off?

If you’ve struggled with other weight loss methods, change is possible with the right treatment and an experienced team by your side.

The comprehensive weight management team teaches you the skills you need to help take control of your weight and regain your health. Losing weight isn’t just about a number on the scale. It’s about eating well, socializing more and enjoying activities. Our comprehensive weight management program covers everything from education about your surgical options, to safe, minimally invasive procedures and nutrition and mental health counseling - all tailored to your needs. Our practice also includes a plastic surgeon who performs surgical body contouring and an obesity medicine specialist for nonsurgical weight loss.

Two Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center surgeons sit in front of four staff members.
Our comprehensive weight management team offers personalized and compassionate care to help you meet your goals.

Surgical Precision. Tiny Incisions.

We use the latest minimally invasive laparoscopic, robotic-assisted and traditional techniques to perform bariatric surgical procedures. Patients benefit from these minimally invasive techniques with:

  • Smaller incisions
  • Less pain, blood loss and scarring
  • Shorter hospital stays
  • Faster recovery
  • Earlier return to normal daily activities

We are skilled in several laparoscopic procedures, including:

  • Sleeve gastrectomy
  • Gastric bypass
  • Bariatric revision surgery, which corrects or improves prior weight loss surgery

Our team provides compassionate care before, during and after your surgery. We collaborate with primary care physicians and other specialists to provide the most effective care.

Schedule an appointment

Three surgeons prepare to perform surgery using the da Vinci surgical system.
Penn State Health surgeons perform robotic-assisted surgery with the da Vinci ® surgical system. While the word “robotic” is in the description, a robot doesn’t perform surgery. Your surgeon is the one performing surgery using the instruments and enabling features the technology offers.

Personalized Education and Support

Obesity is a health condition. Our program provides essential nutritional and mental health counseling to help people explore the complex mix of environmental, behavioral and genetic factors that cause obesity. Success requires a commitment to the program and engaging with our supportive community.

Our comprehensive weight management program begins with an in-person visit with a surgeon to determine if weight loss surgery is right for you. If you are a good candidate, the program includes:

  • Diet and exercise resources
  • Mental health counseling
  • Support groups at Lancaster Medical Center
  • Plastic surgery consults if needed

If a nonsurgical approach is best for you, you can meet with the obesity medicine physician on our team. Dr. Daron Kahn provides a comprehensive intake and evaluation of weight history to identify specific targets for intervention. He uses a tailored, multidisciplinary approach for each patient to provide a dietary, social work and, if appropriate, medication therapy treatment plan that includes both oral and injectable options. Weight management is a lifelong process, so continued follow-up is paramount for success. 

Our program is personalized, so all your visits are one-on-one appointments with our providers, not group visits. Virtual visits are available, but our entire program is based on building a relationship between you and your surgeon.

When is Bariatric Surgery the Answer?

Bariatric surgery might be right for you if:

  • Your body mass index (BMI) is 40 or higher, or you are more than 100 pounds overweight
  • You have one or more obesity-related conditions, including high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, and a BMI of 35 or higher
  • Your BMI is 30 to 34.9, and you have not been able to achieve substantial or long-term weight loss or improve obesity-related conditions using nonsurgical methods.*

*Your insurance may not cover surgery at this BMI. Insurance is screened before your first consult to determine coverage.

Click here to calculate your BMI

Convenient Location

Penn State Health Medical Group - Noll Drive is 0.2 miles from Penn State Health Lime Spring Outpatient Center, so you can get lab work and imaging services done nearby. We’re only 3.5 miles from Lancaster Medical Center, where medical expertise, the latest diagnostic technologies and comfortable amenities create a welcoming place to heal.

Skilled, Compassionate and Safe Care

If you require an inpatient stay following your surgery, your treatment team will provide skilled and compassionate care for your body, mind and spirit at Lancaster Medical Center.

In 2024, Lancaster Medical Center became a Comprehensive Center for bariatric surgery, accredited by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program. The accreditation lets patients know that the Comprehensive Weight Management Program at Lancaster Medical Center meets the highest standards for safety and quality.

Because we’re part of Penn State Health, patients have access to the expertise and resources of a university-affiliated health system that includes Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical CenterPenn State Health Children’s Hospital and Penn State College of Medicine.

Our Experts in Care

Our Convenient Locations

Surgical consultation and follow-up care:

Penn State Health Medical Group Noll Drive
2135 Noll Drive, Suite D
Lancaster, PA 17603
223-202-7001

Surgery and recovery:

Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center
2160 State Road
Lancaster, PA 17601

Imaging and testing:

Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center
2160 State Road
Lancaster, PA 17601

Penn State Health Lime Spring Outpatient Center
2221 Noll Drive
Lancaster, PA 17603
717-327-4694

Learn More About One Woman’s Surgical Weight Loss Journey

Daily living had become difficult for Trina Love.

At her peak weight of just over 300 pounds, performing simple chores was hard, and the 50-year-old Berks County woman experienced frequent pain in her feet and ankles.

Read more about Trina's story

Lancaster Bariatric Surgery Support

As a benefit to patients in the program and as a service to the community, the Penn State Health Lancaster Comprehensive Weight Management program hosts monthly support groups.

The group generally meets on the third Thursday of each month virtually and at Lancaster Medical Center, 2160 State Road, room 1603 Lancaster, Pa. All pre-op and post-op patients, friends and family are welcome.

Please call 223-202-7001 or email Danelle Ziegler at [email protected] to register and receive information on upcoming sessions.