I received my new PDM and one box of pods on 8/6. I was advised that additional boxes of pods (regular 90 day order) would follow in about two weeks. As of today, I had not not received the additional pods or an email confirming shipment. I get my pods from Insulet and I have four pods left. I called customer service today, waited 25 minutes to speak to someone. The rep told me that two boxes were scheduled to ship on Tuesday 8/27. She then asked me if I changed the pods every 72 hours and I said yes, provided that they did not fail. She then advised me I would only be receiving one box because they are having supply availability issues. I told her I had only four pods left and would have to change them two times before Tuesday. She then offered to overnight the box so I would receive it Wednesday but that was the best she could do. I have no idea if the supply problem is currently affecting or will affect distributors. Insulet's immediate answer is to ration the shipment of the pods that they send out. The biggest and fastest cure for Insulet's poor business management would be competition from some other tubeless pump but that doesn't seem likely in the near future. I have been a Cosmo user. Because of the things I do I can easily damage a conventional pump and that is why I chose the Omnipod. But if there were any viable alternative I would be gone because I have very little confidence in Insulet's business practices.
I've got similar info from them and also a single box. Hopefully they'll get the issues resolved soon.
I think this whole process has been overwhelming for them as well. I had to have 4 old pods overnighted to me bc I was to receive the new pods the following week. I had little faith that this would happen but it did. I am on my last two new pods and just received my last two boxes a day ago. Please have faith that they will catch up. I don’t think that they knew what they were getting themselves into. Trust me, I was in your shoes 4 years ago when I was lied to about having the smaller pods in 6 months. I was angry but hindsight is 20/20. I am thankfull that we live in an age that we are on pumps and easier to manage.
Indeed, we are very lucky. Considering 1972 when I was diagnosed with Type 1, things have drastically changed. I feel that I am very lucky, indeed....
I just received my first shipment of new pods yesterday. I received three boxes, all with a manufacture date of July .
EllenR- I am in a similar situation. Got my new PDM and ONE box of pods at the very end of July, and even then it was only because we called to have them shipped a bit early because we were going out of the country. No email from them and I think between my husband an me we probably called 5 times to get that far. I was so disappointed when only one box of pods showed up!
I have tried a few times in the last week to call because now I only have 2 pods left; left a voicemail last Friday--- nothing. I just switched to Omnipod in February and have gotten very frustrated with this company. to top it off, I just got an invoice from them today for a bill that I paid in July! Their "overwhelming call volume" can't possibly be thousands of people switching to the new system every single day; I just don't understand how the customer service can be so bad. And I really wish they had a way to contact them besides sitting on hold for an hour listening to that same depressing piano song over and over! :D
Haven't heard anything about the supply issue, but I did have to call a couple of times to get the remainder of my 90 day supply shipped after I received my new PDM and a box of 10 new pods.
I did had to wait on hold for a bit, around 20 minutes more or less, each time, but I did get through each time I called. First, I was told 3 days then, after waiting an additional week after the three days had passed without an email confirmation, I called again and was told they would be shipped the next day. That was on a Thursday and, again, when I had not received an email confirmation, I called back the following Monday. I was told that they had already shipped, that they only sent email confirmations with the initial 10 pack and PDM (which I did receive, and I was given a Fedex tracking number to confirm shipment the previous Friday.
Not the smoothest delivery I've had, but, at this point personally, I'm gonna cut Insulet some slack while they work through the issues that rolling out a new design has brought upon them.
I'm not married to either Insulet or the Omnipod, though I do feel like the product is my best option currently. I'm certainly not holding my breath or hoping for a better tubeless pump to hit the market before Insulet works through their issues. I anticipate a return to normalcy over at Insulet at some point but, with my next endo appointment, I plan to renew my long acting insulin prescription and prepare myself for the possibility of having to go back on MDI should something happen to my next 90 day supply of pods.
I must be one of the lucky ones who has never (knock wood) had a problem with Insulet. Called on Monday of last week to change over to new system and had new PDM with 4 boxes of new pods on Thursday.
After reading the various reply posts it appears that Insulet has treated this entire situation in a manner similar to what happens when an internet clothing vendor becomes overwhelmed because (surprise) everyone has ordered the popular red T shirt and the vendor suddenly finds that its supply is lacking because it didn't order an adequate supply from the manufacturer. What a vendor does in that situation is notify its customers that the shirt is on back order for a few months-not a practical option for diabetics, but apparently the fix adopted by Insulet when rolling out the new pods. Here, Insulet knew or should have known before starting the changeover what quantity of new pods would be required to ensure a steady, adequate supply. I am sure that Insulet can reasonably estimate how many diabetics use their system based upon orders from both individuals and distributors and there should have been no surprises when calculating the ultimate quantity (with back ups for failures anticipated in a new product) required to protect their customers. Instead, Insulet chose to send its reps around to endo offices to troll for new customers by promising all of the new customers the new system and thus (prematurely) expanding its market share. All of the different pump reps regularly go to the larger endo offices to push their system and by promising the new pods Insulet was simply trying to get a leg up on the competition. All of the Insulet rep talk about new pods was why my endo thought that I would have had the new pods in March. He was surprised when I showed up again in July without them-his new patients had them. Insulet should not have been not have been seeking new customers or, in the alternative, have provided the new customers with the old pods so as not to burden the apparently unknown supply stream of new pods. The fact that Insulet was/is overwhelmed by this changeover is caused almost exclusively by their quest for new business, poor planning and faulty management. In addition, Insulet again cut corners because they were also in a rush to cease manufacturing the old pods. The rep told me (when I recently called about my "new" pod order) that distributors no longer have the old pods. Apparently, Insulet decided to stop making the old pods before they knew that the new pods were relatively defect free and before they knew that they had an adequate supply of new pods. What is also annoying is that there seems to be (see post below) no consistent reason why some people are getting multiple boxes of the new pods from Insulet and others are not. If Insulet is going to limit pod orders so be it-but they can at least do it in a consistent fashion.
Hi Ellen - I think your frustration is completely understandable, but I will say that I am NOT a new customer/Omnipod user and as I noted above had zero issues upgrading from the old system to the new.
I do feel very fortunate that I've not had any issues and hope that you can get yours resolved quickly. Good luck.