I thought I’d share this, as although it won’t impact me, unfortunately I am too old, for many people in Australia this is a big change!
Perhaps now it’s time that Australian private health insurers looked at giving rebates back to patient’s using continuous glucose monitors!
Quoted from the first paragraph
The Australian Government is now providing access to fully subsidised continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) products through the National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS). Subsidised access to CGM sensors and transmitters is available through the NDSS to children and young people aged under 21 years, living with type 1 diabetes, who meet specific criteria. The NDSS also provides subsidised access to insulin pen needles and syringes, blood glucose test strips, urine ketone test strips and insulin pump consumables.
Oh so it’s not for adults?
Np, not for adults.
No it’s not, which is slightly disappointing, but for parents of T1 diabetics no doubt this will be a big positive. Frankly, I can potentially see why the government can’t simply fund completely CGM technology at this stage for all diabetics, given the cost of the technology as it currently stands.
What frustrates me to no end, is that private health insurers in Australia continue not offer any form of rebate or recompense.
Having said that, I think it’s also short sighted of a lot of governments, to not offer better public funding for technology like continuous glucose monitors, as the reality is it will drastically increase peoples risks of complications down the track, and would in the big picture save money.
I would even like them to continue funding low level technology. As a T2 I no longer get subsidised test strips. There is no point in my joining the NDSS again this year, I suspect a lot of their funding will dry up.
I briefly read about that, what exactly was the change for Type 2 diabetics, is it no funding for test strips at all?
This is very similar to this new coverage law approved in Chile. They finally approved insulin pumps although not for everyone, there are interesting criteria to be met. In general terms, it is only for people with serious diabetes related complications and hypoglycemia unawareness plus frequent ketoacidosis episodes.
Still, compared to some other countries in Latinamerica, including where I live this is a great success.
@Donman, as a T2 I no longer get any discount for test strips at all. I have to pay over the counter prices. My dr. won’t give me a scrip for them, he says it is not necessary to test more than the once a a year he does my bloods. I managed to get some old stock strips, but will have to be careful of the dates. I have heard they tried this in the UK but it ended up costing the govt. more money than subsidising test strips.
It’s really disappointing that they’ve done that. I’m assuming if your taking Insulin, and type 2, you can still get strips subsidised through the NDSS?
Frankly, if you look at the cost of hospital visits due to poorly controlled diabetes, I’m sure it far outweighs what they would spend on subsidising test strips. The problem is, they can quite easily take money out of the NDSS, but it’s a little more complicated trying to take money out of the public hospital system, or to project the costs of poorly controlled diabetes into the future.
Yes, you are right, it is no subsidised strips for T2s not on insulin. A disappointing decision.
As a T1 since age 3 I know for sure teenages will not want to wear CGM and see it as another form of control and I am angry the government feels T1 goes away at age 21. Dr Ponder gives actual uptakes of 10-21s as the lowest user uptake age group in his book sugar surfing. They have chosen the smallest subset of users who will least likely want to use CGM. I am fortunate to be in a position my partner and family can afford CGM for me (as I am now over 21) but most are not, even employed people can still not afford it. It is one of, if not the most important technologies now for diabetes and should be available to every T1. T1s make up less than 10% of the population of diabetics. The politicians are using the ‘we are helping the children’ to spin the voters. Ministers are taking home salaries in excess of 200- 300K plus enormous money spent on flights, transport, automobiles, and property investment in Australia but with less and less each year on citizens health and education, it is a sad state of affairs indeed.