WWTBAM Bored

My medical insurance is going over to a new drug provider in Jan. I have no control over this, naturally. As that is how insurance works. Drug provider is supposed to work silently in the background while you pick up meds at a designated local drug store (having to have a designated drugstore is itself an inconvenience, of course).


So they mail me to tell me that I will no longer get my prescribed diabetes test strips at the full insurance discount because they prefer other strips. But supposedly I will still get insurance to cover prescribed strips, though at a higher rate, which no-one will tell me until after Jan 1 when new plan takes effect. Believe me, I've tried to get this info.


The next bad news is that the strips they want me to get are stuff the designated drugstore never heard of. I go online to look them up (suretest products) & find out there's a reason for this; they're only available when ordered online. What's worse is that they want you to give them a delivery schedule. Looks like you can't order them without a delivery schedule. Which means stuff will either pile up & I'll be paying for stuff I don't need yet, or worse, I'll run out.


And of course I'll have to buy, out of pocket, because the insurance doesn't cover it, a new meter too to go with the diff brand strips.


Crap crap crap. I'm keeping with the current strips (Freestyle) if I possibly can afford it.

If it's like mine, my insurance covers two test strips a day - which seems to be about average for me. I usually test first thing in the morning and right before dinner, but have been known to forget. That frees me up for a few extra test strips to use on those times when I 'feel' like my blood sugar has gone out of whack. It's on an auto renew at my pharmacy - wouldn't make any change to my schedule if it switched to on-line. Mine is also the Freestyle though.

If you have to change styles of meters, check with either your doctor or pharmacy (of possibly even your insurance company). Both doctors offices and pharmacies will give the meters away for free as all the money is made in the exorbitantly priced test strips. Can't hurt to ask for a good chance at a free meter.

I had a chance at a free meter (from the current insurance provider) after I had already shelled out $19.00 for the Freestyle meter, as it wasn't covered, though the strips & lancets were. And I'd bet that free meter doesn't go along with Suretest's strips. Literature is probably in the house somewhere. I guess I'll see what happens when it happens. This week I suddenly have the alarming results of way-too-high blood sugar in the am, followed by more normal readings a few hours later. After I've taken that morning's meds, but not that long after. Possibly the body-wrenching attempt at readying myself for the failed colonoscopy has something to do with this. Especially since I didn't go for the electrolyte-balancing Gatorade, since I like that about as much as the polyethylene glycol that is the actual osmotic crap for the prep.


I figure I can save money on lancets by sterilizing them myself & reusing them, if need be. I'm serious about that. I'd be sticking my finger with a sewing needle I'd held in the stove fire 1st before I'd shell out extra money for lancets, if they're not going to cover them either.

Maybe I'm stupid in this, but I'm not concerned at all with the lancets. I'll give them a quick alcohol wipe from time to time but use them over and over. I figure that I'm the only one getting stuck by them so there is 0% chance of any transfer. I don't think the lancets are covered by my insurance but I'm still workingon the original package.

I thought the lancets were covered, because, well, my NP wrote a prescription for them. Then when I was recently looking for this Suretest stuff at my pharmacy & not finding it, I saw the Freestyle lancets being sold over the counter for I think the same $15.00 I've been paying for a box of 100 on prescription. Either that or it was $19.00. My doctor gave me a bunch free when they were 1st training me to use the Freestyle stuff, too.


Its not a good idea to stick yourself with non-sterile stuff, even if you are the only person being stuck with the stuff. The worry is bacterial growth, not transfer of your own blood products back to yourself, of course. Having said that, I am about to embark on a "home sterilize & reuse" policy with my $15.00 boxes of lancets.

Turns out there are $6.99/100 lancets in the drugstore that claim they "fit most devices". I will be trying these out, I think, if I don't wanna reuse the Freestyles indefinitely. I sure as shoot wish there were $6.99/100 tests strips. I just ordered what may be my last $15.00/100 Freestyle batch this morning. Wouldn't want to run out during Thanksgiving.

ghostjmf wrote:Turns out there are $6.99/100 lancets in the drugstore that claim they "fit most devices". I will be trying these out, I think, if I don't wanna reuse the Freestyles indefinitely. I sure as shoot wish there were $6.99/100 tests strips. I just ordered what may be my last $15.00/100 Freestyle batch this morning. Wouldn't want to run out during Thanksgiving.

Yikes. You would think, that something so basic as diabetes testing equipment, would be better covered.

Test strips, without a prescription, cost over $100.00/100. They are of course the important part of the test.


Written on my sister's I-pad by the 1-finger-hunt typing method. Remind me that when I eventually buy an internet device, it has to have a real keyboard. I have been lured lately by cheapee tablet schemes, but noooooo!

I know I was stunned when I found out the price of the test strips. More so when I was getting recommendations from nutrition people to test 5 to 6 times a day. When I found out that they were something like $115 for a box of 100, I went back to my doctor to get a script for them.

On the bright side - I've had so much medical crap go on this year that I have reached my maximum out of pocket expenses for my insurance coverage. So everything I've done since October has been 100% covered.

I'm amazed the Dr. didn't prescribe them in the 1st place. Sometimes they just don't think.


From our experience with my Mom, I asked for test strips, not a meter you put a roll into. But I didn't need to beg for that because rolls, which can go bad all at once, are apparently out of fashion. Thank G-d.