Saturday, July 22, 2006

Now Covered by Insurance

Jenny says:

Human Resources called today. They have overroad the two denials from the insurance company. They have told the insurance company to cover the Guardian RT and the sensors from now on! Oh Happy Day! We are so thankful to our employer!!

Our rep. told us that a handful of adults have also gotten 80/20 coverage from their insurance agencies! Why is it that everything that comes out about Continuous Glucose Monitors from the experts says that they are not currently covered by insurance. Shouldn't they now say that "some, but not all are being covered by insurance." Shouldn't the people that are trying to get coverage be able to say, "I know of a lot of companies that are covering them." Wouldn't that make it easier on them?

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Tricking yet another sensor
Jenny says:
It has been our practice lately to try to get more days out of the sensor than Medtronic allows. The Guardian RT automatically turns off after 72 hours, but if we unplug the sensor from the transmitter and do another search, it will reinitialize. We always check out the skin around the sensor to make sure that it doesn't look red. I read somewhere that the sensor sight is less likely to get infected because insulin is not going through it. So, with a little caution, we have been turning an $11/day sensor into a $8/day sensor.

The other morning, Tommy woke up with a reading of 74 on his Guardian, and a 73 on his meter. It is starting to get hard to know which device to trust more.

I have been talking to a Mom in Canada whose son is on the Medtronic 522 pump and has designed a transmitter pouch. She is going to be sending me a couple, so we will be experimenting with them next week. We are excited that there might be a way to avoid all the transmitter tape.