It all came down to the last set. No, I am not talking about Wimbledon, even though watching Nadal getting upset was an exciting match to watch. I am talking about infusion sets. I had mentioned previously that I was getting very low on infusion sets. I had a box of infusion sets sitting in my diabetes storage bin, so when I went to open it, it was empty. This is why being lazy is not a good idea. I opened the box and dumped all the infusion sets out, like I usually do, except I didn’t take the 2 seconds to throw it away, but just put the box right back into the storage bin. At this point, there were two left. Read More
Category: Insurance
My Life on COBRA for Two Months
As some of you may know, I left the “corporate” job that I had at an agency to go back to running my own business full time. I had awesome, excellent insurance. Probably the best insurance that I’ve ever had, and from the insurance that I hear family and friends have, better than all of those. Well, when I left my job, since I’m not married, I had to opt in for the COBRA insurance coverage. This would be more expensive because I would be responsible for the entire premium, as opposed to when I was only paying 3% because my previous employer was paying nearly 97% of it.
It’s been a little over two months since I have been on COBRA and it’s really not that bad. The monthly premium payment is a lot higher, but it’s manageable. This is the second that I have been on COBRA. The first time that it happened, there were some issues at first with the insurance coverage, and my ID number, and miscommunications on whether the premium was paid or not. I have United Healthcare, and luckily, they have their own COBRA division so they communicate with each other and all of their systems are on the same page.
I get questions a lot about COBRA and any difficulties that I have with it, but this time around, I have been problem free…..so far. The insurance coverage is exactly the same, the co-pays for my supplies are the same, and there has been no issue with the suppliers and doctors billing my insurance.
Let’s keep the fingers crossed and hopefully there are no bad experiences to come.
Some Pretty Damn Big Life Changes
Today is February 1, 2012. Not only is today about flipping over those calendars to the next month and doing a drumroll before seeing what the next picture or phrase or which cheerleader is going to be on the next month (or am I the only one that does that?). Today is a very serious day for me. A day of change.
As some of you may know, I own my own business, CSI Marketing Solutions, LLC. Also, as some of you may know, I have been working at an agency for about 18 months. This digital agency is voted best place to work just about every year and received hundreds of other awards a year. It truly is an amazing place to work. However, I have had a few opportunities come up over the past few weeks or months that requires a lot more of my time. So, I have made the decision, starting today, to go back to running my business full time.
Before making this decision, there were so many different things that went through my head. How am I going to pay rent? How am I going to make my car payment? How can I afford anything? And most importantly, how am I going to get health insurance? Then I started playing the what-if game. What if I don’t have enough clients and I don’t make enough money to pay my bills and then I lose everything I have. A good friend of mine said, “..you can’t play the what if game. For every negative what if you come up with, there’s a positive what if on the other side. So you can go all night on the what if’s.”
I also felt that by making this decision to be able to make my own hours I can get more things in life accomplished. For one, I can now go to the gym at lunch time or in the morning and begin to get back into shape and lose weight again. Next, I no longer have an hour long commute each way, so I can be home earlier and I can eat dinner and be ready for bed earlier. I can also spend more time being more involved in the DOC.
So, let me quickly get into the health insurance issue. I am entitled to COBRA for 18 months, and the costs of it are about 1/3 of what I thought it was going to be, so I am extremely happy about that.
So, that is where I am. Moral of the story? If you want something, do it. Stop thinking about it constantly and stressing about it and going back and forth. Weigh your options, and make the best choice for yourself.
Testing Out Other Insulin Pumps
When I was first diagnosed with diabetes back in April of 2004, I was on MDI using a Humalog insulin pen and syringes to take Lantus at night. I was doing fine with this, and was actually eating healthy at that time and staying at a good weight, but I decided that I wanted to try out an insulin pump, it just sounded so much easier. I am glad that I made that decision 5 years ago. There are definitely things that I don’t like, especially the fact that I now eat anything I want, whenever I want because it is just a few pushes of buttons on the pump. At the time, I wasn’t really given much of an option on a pump. Also, at that time I didn’t know anything about diabetes. I knew I had it and that was about it. I had it less than a year before I went on the pump, I wasn’t blogging, and I wasn’t looking on the internet for information. I was given a Medtronic 712 I believe they were called at that time, I can be mistaken.
I loved the pump. I loved the way it worked and how it helped me manage my blood sugar levels a lot better. Then I got into finding blogs online and just reading them and learning that there were other diabetes companies that existed other than Medtronic and One Touch. I spent some time working for a diabetes supply company, so I had access to a lot of different products from different manufacturers and found out the benefits of all these different pumps. I also learned more as I blogged longer and met more people using different kinds of pumps. So, this finally leads me to the reason of today’s post.
I have been happy with Medtronic, but I’m not 100% loyal to Medtronic. I would like to try other pumps. I would love to try or test out the One Touch Ping and Omni Pod. I have been given the trial pod for Omni Pod and I have worn it and I loved it. The only issue is that I would be changing out the pod every 1.5 days based upon the amount of insulin that I use. If I lose weight then the possibility of my insulin usage can go down and then I can use an Omni Pod.
Along with insulin pumps, I would love to try out the Dexcom CGM, but I just haven’t had a chance to do so. I have used the Medtronic CGM in the past, but haven’t used it in nearly a year because I haven’t had any sensors and some issues with the insurance company. Starting next year I will begin using a CGM again. Whether it is Medtronic or Dexcom, it is one of my top goals for 2012.
For those that have used multiple pumps, not those that have only used one and will tell me how much you love it, but only those that have used different pumps, which have you liked better and why?
I appreciate any responses or feedback in advance.
USB Contour – Need More Strips
I have documented my testing strip sagas throughout the years here on this blog. (Sidenote: still can’t believe that I am saying years about the blog). I was using One Touch Ultra when I first started blogging, but then switched over to Freestyle Lite for a couple of years because I just liked the meter better. Just earlier this year, my insurance company decided that my Freestyle Lite strips would be $150 for a 90 day supply and One Touch strips would still be only $50. So I did what was in my best interest and switched back to the One Touch strips. The only One Touch meter that I kept (since I’m an idiot and threw all the others way when I moved last year), was the Ultra Mini.
I like the size of the Ultra Mini and the convenience of it fitting in Amanda’s purse or bag when we go out, or even just in my back pocket. But, I don’t have any way currently to download the data from the meter. So I started to think, I still have the Contour USB meter that I was sent as a demo some time last year. However, I don’t have anymore strips for that meter. This meter was easy for me to upload the data and see it in nice, pretty charts and graphs.
So, what would be my best option? To completely switch over to the Contour USB again or try and get 50% One Touch strips and 50% Contour strips? That then means that I am going to need two new prescriptions from my doctor, and then take twice as long for Medco to process this order, and blah blah blah.
I am re-ordering one more time in December, remember my whole method of getting one last insurance order before the end of the year? I think that maybe in February or March when I have to re-order I will make that switch to the 50-50. I am also not sure if I even want to go back to the Contour because I don’t remember the accuracy of it. I know that I wrote a review of it, but I did not have enough strips of my other meter to compare the accuracy of them.
Maybe another switch is occuring?
End of the year Diabetes Supplies
It is now the Fall time which means that the end of the year is right around the corner, and it will be here before we know it. This means a lot of things. Snow in the northeast, traveling home for the holidays, hopefully some cold weather in south Florida, but more importantly, a final re-order of supplies. By now, all of my deductibles have been covered, so now I can get one last 90 day supply towards the end of December right before the beginning of the year and before the deductibles reset. I love this time of the year. It is like my one and only chance to stick it to the insurance companies who have been giving it to me all year long. That’s not a very nice way of saying this, but oh well, it’s the truth.
This weekend I will take an inventory of my supplies and then I will figure out when the latest time frame is that I can re-order my supplies and then make sure to get an order in before that.
This time of the year is such a great time.!
Re-Ordering Pump Supplies is Stressful
There are a lot of things that I don’t like about diabetes, but none of them really stress me out. The only thing that stresses me out every single time is re-ordering pump supplies. It is also the most rewarding thing to me when I open up that fresh new box from UPS and open up all the goodies. Why is this the most stressful? Because I re-ordered them in February, when my deductible was nice and fresh, so I owe the entire deductible when I order them. It is now August and of course I have not paid off that deductible yet. But guess what? I can’t re-order these supplies until I pay up what is currently due. Well that kind of money is not just laying around in my pocket where I can just easily pay that bill.
So, this is where it becomes stressful. The good thing is that I have made some decisions in my life recently that will save me some money. First and foremost, no more eating out at restaurants or fast food. Fast food doesn’t hurt me too much in the wallet, but going to dinner and spending $30-$50 every time I go was hurting me, and that was once a week. By cutting out those dinners, I am able to save myself almost $200 a month, so I will be good when I have to re-order my supplies.
I also want to order them soon so I can get another order in before the end of the year before my deductible restarts. Ahh, the life of a diabetic, figuring out exactly what day you have to re-order your supplies so you can re-order just in time before a deductible starts over and also get the maximum length and time out of that re-order.
Well, anyway, I know that I just re-designed the site a few months ago, I am not happy with it and I am going to re-do it. Should be up and running soon, maybe even a first draft of it tomorrow.
Insulin Close Call
This weekend provided me with a close call. I knew that I had to re-order my insulin soon, but it was a little sooner than what I had expected. I normally re-order my insulin when I see that I have about 3 vials left. I thought that I had 4 vials of insulin, so I felt awesome that I was going to re-order it even sooner than I usually did. Well, I only had 1 vial left. There was 4 boxes in the bag still, however, I forgot that I took the vials out and didn’t throw the box out because I was too lazy. Last time that is going to happen.
I am not worried too much anymore because the last time that I checked online it said that it was going to be shipping tomorrow (Tuesday, August 2), and since it normally ships overnight I should have it before Thursday. I go through insulin fast, but not that fast. I use about 150 – 180 units of insulin a day so a vial is only about 4-7 days, depending on how much I eat. On Sunday I wasn’t exactly sure when it was going to ship, so I didn’t eat as much food for dinner and then I skipped out on dessert for Amanda’s brother birthday. It wasn’t because I can’t eat ice cream, it’s because I CHOSE not to eat ice cream.
You may be wondering why you haven’t seen me around on Twitter or blogging a lot often. I am going through some big time thought process over here. I can’t really talk about it too much on here for several reasons, but it would be a huge, as the Big Brother contestants always say, game changer. Stay tuned
Why Do We Still Need to Code These Days?
I have tweeted and posted a few times lately that I am switching back to the One Touch Ultra strips from my Freestyle Lite strips because the insurance company is charging 6 times the amount, $25 as opposed to $150. I had an older One Touch Ultra Link meter from about 3 years ago that I had used a few times, but of course the battery was dead in it when I went to use it. I was looking all over my house because I knew I had to have had another One Touch meter somewhere around the house. And then I found it.
This nice, small, convenient blue One Touch Ultra Mini meter. I was all excited and ripped open a vial of strips and stuck it in and pricked my finger and put my blood on the strip and….. nothing happened. Hmm, what is going on here, does this meter not work also? Oh, I know, I have never set it up, so maybe I just have to put the date in it. So I start going through the numbers and I stop at 6 because it is June ya know. Then it shows me flashing lines which means insert blood onto strip. WTF is going on here?
OOOOHhhhhhhhhh yeaaahhhh. The One Touch Ultra strips still require coding! I had been using Freestyle Lite for so damn long, that I totally forgot that there was even such a thing as coding. I hate coding, why do I have to code my machine? Why can’t I just stick a strip in, insert blood, and bam, it reads my blood sugar?
One Touch Ultra Strips Ordered
I mentioned previously that I was switching to One Touch Ultra test strips instead of using the Freestyle Lite strips. The reason is that Medco changed the Freestyle Lite to a tier 3 which is $150 for a 90 day supply, as opposed to One Touch Ultra’s which are only $25 for a 90 day supply. I called the pharmacy today to see what I had to do in order to get the new strips ordered. It seemed like it would be an easy process. The customer service rep was very nice and helpful, so thank you for that, because unfortunately there are a lot of bad diabetes companies out there, trust me I worked for one for 3 1/2 years 🙂
There was one small issue, there was a limit of 6 boxes of 100. Well I test 8-10 times a day, thats 240-300 a month, so that’s about 900 strips for 90 days, the math doesn’t add up. The customer service rep explained that my doctor can override this, it will just be an additional step. Well, about 30 minutes later, I had a phone call from the doctor, that they called in the prescription and that they also requested the 900 strips as opposed to the 600 limit. It is so great to have not only a doctor that cares, but a doctor that lives with type 1 diabetes and uses an insulin pump herself.
Well, just like the other night, the Miami Heat and Mavs game is on, so that is it for tonight’s post. Plus I just got done with a Twitter #seochat tonight. If you like search engine optimization, I suggest you tune into this weekly chat on Thursday night.