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Category: Diabetes OC

Demand for Diabetes Educator Increases – Now What?

Chris Stocker

I recently read this article posted on Endocrine Today, Demand for Diabetes Educators Projected to Increase Sharply.  My first question when I read this is if the demand is going up, then is the supply going to increase as much?  I am not going to give an economics class here because most of you all know this, but when the demand increases, the supply tends to go down.  But the supply for diabetes educators is already low, so, I’m not a genius but this doesn’t sound look a good situation.  I think that we already knew that the demand for diabetes educators is going to increase sharply because the disease itself is increasing, so this article does not really tell me much or help the situation.

One question that was some-what answered in this article that I was interested in is how Medicare and insurance companies would reimburse for these diabetes education classes.  Would they cover only one a year, or 50% of each visit, or not cover any of them at all?  I think that it is important for diabetes education to be covered by insurance because people just don’t have the money to spend on education.  So if they don’t have the money to show up to a physical classroom setting or one-on-one lesson, or even a group diabetes education session, where else are they going to turn to?  Pick me, pick me, I know, I know.  The Diabetes Online Community, the DOC.  I mentioned this briefly in a post the other day also.

I think that it is essential to take diabetes education online.  There may not be live sessions on the internet, but quality recorded videos may be able to provide essential answers to some of the top diabetes questions.  One way to do this may be to submit your questions before hand and the diabetes educator can answer all the questions in one sitting and provide answers to all of the questions.

I know you are asking…. who’s going to pay for this?  Well, the answer is, I don’t know yet.  Who is going to produce the videos, edit them, finalize them, distribute them, what CDE is going to do this, how are we going to collect the e-mail questions?  I don’t know the answers to all of these questions, but I truly feel that the more I ask these questions, the more people are going to step up and answer these questions.

We all have specialties in the DOC, it is about damn time that we start pulling all of our personal resources together and start putting them together and start kicking ass with our skills.

Beginning today, Diabetes Education has now been put on my top todo list.  It was always on there, but it wasn’t as high as it is now.

Where Are You Obama?

Chris Stocker

Today’s post is going to very short and simple.  Today, a letter to President Barack Obama was published asking him to take a leading role in the UN NCD Summit in September of 2011.  This letter has over 80 signatures from people all over the diabetes community.  Below is a link to the slideshare version of the letter for you to easily share.

I encourage you to do the following with this letter:

  1. Post it on Twitter and anytime you see somebody else post it, Retweet it.
  2. Post it on your Facebook account and ask others to share it
  3. Share it with colleagues
  4. Share it with friends and family
  5. Print it and mail a copy or two yourself if you want
  6. E-mail it to your local representative and ask for their help in moving it up the chain
  7. E-mail your state reps and do the same
  8. E-mail it to the Diabetes Caucus
  9. Once you reach this step, go back to Step 1

And here is the link:

We ask President Obama to take a leading role in the UN NCD Summit, Sept. 2011 

 

Express Scripts and Medco Acquisition

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Recently, Express Scripts looked to acquire Medco, which is still pending approval to my knowledge, but who knows.  This is my issue with this.  I have Medco, at least right now.  It seems that every year I have a new mail order pharmacy, and every year I get nervous about how easy or hard it is going to be to get my supplies.  Is there going to be an issue, do they have the strips that I use as a tier 1 or a tier 3.  So, now I haven’t switched insurance companies or supplier, but if this acquisition goes through then I will be using Express Scripts.  Typically mergers or acquisitions of large companies like this, not many things do change, but there will be some executive level decisions that could make some big differences.  For example, Freestyle Lite strips may be considered tier 3 and cost 5 times the amount of a tier 1.

Mergers and acquisitions do not always go easy, I’ve seen some bad ones in the past,but let’s just hope that this one goes fine.  I’ve never used Express Scripts before, so my question is to all of you, how have they been in the past?  Any issues?  Do they favor one specific brand over the other?

I look forward to all of your answers and feedbacks….that’s what the DOC is all about 🙂

Have a great week everybody

Building Relationships with the DOC

Chris Stocker 5 Comments

We are winding down on the reviews of the Roche Social Media Summit, then it’s back to the boring Life of a Diabetic blog posts.  This leads me into a discussion that I had with Scott King at the summit party on Thursday night.  He asked where I came up with the name The Life of a Diabetic.  I explained that I wanted to write a blog to show people what a normal life with diabetes is like.  It is just like your life except I have a few extra things to do.  The Life of a Diabetic is not a very exciting life.  This was just one conversation among many that I had at the summit.  That’s where the title comes into play for this post, Relationship building with the DOC.

I had spoken to most of the attendees on Twitter before but had only met a few.  This was not just a time to learn and speak to companies about social media, but for us diabetics to get to know each other better.  What I was the most amazed with is that everybody was pretty much exactly what I thought they would be.  For some reason though, I didn’t know Scott Johnson was so damn tall, now all this basketball playing makes sense.  It’s also great to see and hear Kerri’s funny ass personality in person rather via tweets and posts.

It is events like this that bring people together with a common cause and that’s when things can get scary for the people and things on the other side of the cause because ideas start happening, plans start coming together, action starts taking place.  You are also building friendships with these people.  I will now have memories for the rest of my life from hanging out on the rooftop Hard Rock bar, or watching George kick some serious karaoke ass, and watching Bernard rock out on the guitar of some Guitar Hero.

Building relationships with members of the DOC is an extremely important factor in the movement to get more funding for a cure or advocacy or anything else that we are trying to accomplish as a group.  I feel more confident calling these people my friends and not just “some people I communicate with on twitter.”  I’m excited to schedule some meetups with people because I love to travel and I want to come see some of ya’ll more frequently than just once a year.  Midwest and West Coast, I’m mainly talking to you!

How have you been able to take the relationships that you started online and take them offline and continue to build them. I will be writing another post shortly about the idea of taking the “O” out of DOC and making us just a diabetes community and not just online.  I think we are close to it and some of us have done this already.

Until then, I’d like to hear your diabetes relationship stories.

 

Booked for Roche Social Summit

Chris Stocker 4 Comments

Unfortunately, I have gone through one of those stages where I haven’t been online at all.  No blog posts, no tweets, no Facebook updates, nothing.  I hate when I go through these time periods, but sometimes it just gets tough to fit all this stuff into the schedule.  I have so much that I want to blog about and talk about, but just wish I had a little more time in the day to do it all, don’t we all though?

Onto other things, I finally got my travel schedule booked for the Roche Summit.  I am excited and can’t wait to meet all of you who are going.  Unfortunately, I have to cut out a little early on Friday because of the time of my flight.  I have never been to San Diego, so I look forward to seeing part of the city.  I’m still pissed at Budget car rental for screwing up my plans last night by not allowing me to rent a car to get to the Roche Social Media Summit.  Guess what Budget, you can’t stop me this year!

Well, this may be one reason why I haven’t had much of a chance to blog or tweet as much.  My dog needs to go to the bathroom and the Heat- Mavs game is on, so it’s off to watch that.

Have a great night everyone!

Diabetes First Responders

Chris Stocker 4 Comments

As I talked about in yesterday’s post I had a lot go on within a few days and there was so much to blog about, but as you know from reading my blog, I don’t like writing long blog posts, so I’ve decided to break it up into several of them.  Today’s post I want to talk about Diabetes First Responders.  I do not mean in the sense of an emergency or medical team, but in the DOC.

For example, the other night when I first tweeted about my Medtronic insulin pump issue, the first responder that night was Jen, @jenloves2travel.  It was then followed up by Stacey, @StaceyDivone.  It is so comforting to know that when you tweet something, you are going to have somebody there for you almost instantly.  Another first responder that I can pretty much count on is Mike Hoskins.  If you look at my comments on my blog, Mike’s name is usually the first one there, and I’ve noticed this on other blogs as well.  Don’t worry, I’m not saying these are the only people I appreciate, don’t get upset DOC, ha.  I’m sure you all understand what I am talking about and all have multiple stories about the same instances.

I have thanked the DOC so many times, and I will continue to thank you all.  I was very freaked out knowing that my only source of insulin was not working, and you were all there to help out with advice on what to do and let me know that some others have gone through this before and it will be ok.

*Quick update, I did receive my new pump. I will post more about that tomorrow*

Have a great night everyone.  Happy #dsma, can’t make it tonight.

 

I am a Diabetes Hoarder

Chris Stocker

Currently I am watching this Hoarding: Buried Alive show, and I am seeing myself in this a lot, in many different ways.  One, I hate to throw things away and get rid of things, I like to hang onto things.  The other part is that the hoarders are constantly making excuses.  I am a diabetes Hoarder.  I hoard bad blood sugars and bad habits.

Unless I make drastic changes, then I am going to continue to collect these bad things and all the bad things that go along with all the bad diabetes related things, which I don’t think I need to tell you all what those things are.

I have been getting so much support from all of you in the diabetes community and I thank you all so much, because it means a lot.  It shows me that I can do these things because you are all doing it.  It’s almost a jealousy thing, I’m jealous when I see you all showing your Dexcom numbers and when it’s 180 you are like, OMG I can’t believe I went up that high.

I have been eating a lot better so far this week, I know it’s only Wednesday, but still.  For dessert tonight I am having some strawberries and kiwi.  As opposed to ice cream with a lot of sprinkles and syrup and whipped cream.

Well, I’m off to eat this and then relax and go to bed.  Have a great night everybody.

Missing the DOC

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

This is pretty sad that I couldn’t even remember what my password was to log into my blog because that is how long it has been since I last blogged.  My new design was supposed to go live today, but I had a few issues with it and it some how did not save correctly and the theme was all screwed up, so here it is, still my own design.  It has been a crazy weekend and week so far.  I started to move into a new house with Amanda this weekend so I have some stuff at the new place and some stuff at the old place.  I hate having things in two different places because then when I need it, I don’t have it, especially when it comes to my diabetic supplies.  For example, on Sunday, I was sleeping at my old place and I had to insert a new infusion set, only problem is that my little blue injector buddy was over at the new place.  Luckily, I have two of them and one of them was in Amanda’s purse so I could just use that one.  But things like this make it annoying, but I work all day and am gone from 8 am – 7 p.m. every day during the week, so it makes it difficult to actually move after work.

I have not had many other things change since the last time you all have heard from me.  I am still not exercising like I should be, and still not eating healthy, but I am getting a little better at it.  Amanda and I have an office / exercise room in the new house, so it will definitely be getting used a lot more often now.  Amanda and I had been living in different locations since we have been together, so it was always a hectic life, now that we are living together, I think that it will give me a lot more time to cook healthier, exercise more, blog more, and get more things done.  I feel so disconnected from the DOC that I don’t even know what the heck is going on with everybody.  I’m losing Twitter followers everyday it seems because I am not on there that much anymore.  I have still yet to complete a #DSMA because there are always things going on Wednesday nights for me.  Starting next week however, I am going to be completing all #DSMA’s.

Well, it feels good to write a blog post, and I am going for as many posts a month that I can get.  As long as there is something to talk about then I am writing.

Have a great week everybody.

Caring Diabetic Online Community

Chris Stocker 8 Comments

Over the last few days, even months if we go back a little further, it has really dawned on me how caring and how awesome the diabetic online community is.  I have been dealing with an issue with CVS pharmacy this past week and so many of you on Twitter and commenting on my blog were really helpful and gave some great advice.  The advice was great, but what was even more awesome was how willing everybody was to send me strips because I was in a bad situation with not having any.  Several people sent me e-mails and asked if I needed them to send me strips.  You know who are you for those that did.

I am part of a few other online communities and we help each other with information about how to do something in WordPress or some new social media tips or affiliate tax information, but I haven’t had anybody ever ask me if I needed them to send me testing strips or something else to help me manage my diabetes or my business, anything.

I just want to take this time quickly and say thank you.  Thank you to all of you.  And that is it.

Thanks.