>_o i’m giving my insurance company the stink eye today as i unite my voice with the many other diabetics out there who wish for insurance to cover a CGM for their diabetic treatment. i have crap-tastic medicare who budges on nothing and cares for no one. to be honest i was actually quite surprised that they covered my pump, especially after a two day stint in the hospital at the begining of this year left me with a thousand dollar base hospital bill that i’m still paying off. plus a load of bills for tests, ambulance, doctors poking their heads in at me, and probably every diet ginger ale they brought me.
i was put on the pump in march of this year. in realilty it wasn’t so long ago that i was on MDIs and suffering an A1c in the double digits. fast forward to now and i have already dropped down my A1c so much that my endo (who i thought had no soul and frozen facial muscles) smiles at me when he looks at my numbers. i see a lot more good readings than bad. i’ve also suffered more lows in a months than i used to in a year. now i want to add more to my diabetes care - a CGM.
CGMs (continuous glucose monitors), while still not perfected, are an incredible boon to us diabetics. knowing that there is something there to monitor my blood sugar at all times and can infact tell me which direction my blood sugar is heading can only lead to even more tight control. so why do so many insurance companies deny their members’ claims? because of the cost and that oh so precious bottom line? look into the future. twenty years from now i will be in my fourties and have had diabetes for thirty eight years. without every tool availible to give me the control i need, where do you see me and what cost will the insurance be paying then? how can they put a price on my life and my health?
no, CGMs may not yet be perfect and they may not be cheap, but once upon a time neither were insulin pumps. i remember when i was diagnosed in 1990. while i was in the hospital (i was there for a very long time) they had me as part of a trial for insulin pumps they were developing. i was six years old and this thing was HUGE. but i wore it and they monitored me and many others and because of people trying it and testing it they were able to develop pumps into the great little gadgets like i have now. there is a man on another group i belong to who had one of the very first pumps that was so archaic that it diluted the inulin with saline or water to control how much was going into your system. no, CGMs may not be perfect yet but rarely is anything perfect the first time. that doesn’t mean it still won’t help.
i think we’ve gotten used to being denied. i was denied eating lunch at school without going to the nurse for my shot first. i was denied cake on my own birthday. i was denied a life without freedom from a team of doctors. i amcurrently being denied even entertaining the thought of having children without everyone i’ve ever met freaking out about my health. i’ve lived a life filled with hospitals, carb counting, medical supplies, and worry. every new piece of technology brings us a step closer to the life we were denied and there sits the insurance company with their big red “DENIED” stamp.
when you deny me this now, you also help to deny me of my future health, my unborn children (and if i am able to have children without all the tools i can muster, perhaps you’ll just deny my children their mother), you deny my future husband a wife who can look at him lovingly and take walks with him in our neighborhood, you deny me the life that i deserve and you take for granted.
i see my endo on 28 july. i am going to try to make an appel to my insurance. they may deny me, but i will do all i can. i will not give up because i know that i am more than just a claim number.