Dexcom informed me back in April that they were no longer supplying eqp direct to users. They transferred my account to Edgepark Home Med Supplies. I read not so favorable reviews from customers but thought I would give them a chance. After 2 mos of spinning mine and their wheels, they called to tell me they cancelled my order (for Dexcom G6 sensors, transmitter) because of non-response from my healthcare provider. My provider disagreed and immediately reached out to them. The order immediately got reinstated and I’m waiting for the supplies to be shipped. So far, I have not been impressed with their representatives or the screwy way they’ve handled this order. I’m curious if others have had experiences they’re willing to share about this provider.
I was with Edgepark for about 2 years. Every order was a struggle. They would say my physician did not send the required paper work. I would call my doctor and they said they sent everything that was requested. They always had one excuse after another why they couldn’t send my order.
I have been with Wellstart for about a year now and so far, so good.
Edwards has been great for my wife going on 3 years
I have not been with Edgepark for a few years, but I liked them when I had them.
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@George49 I am new to the Dexcom game. When I first contacted Dexcom it looked like I could get supplied at Walgreens. There was a lot of confusion for my doctor’s office in getting things right. Turns out we couldn’t deal with Dexcom direct for orders, but had to do through Solara. There was a lot of run around with Solara trying to fax to my cell phone instead of my doctor’s fax.
That happened 3 times. As a former telecommunications tech I recognized the sound of a fax trying to do a handshake. After several calls I deduced it must be Solara. Oh yes, the calls came in without an ID. I would call Solara direct, be stuck in voice mail/response Hell and finally get a real person. They would see, “Yes, we have your number as the doctor’s fax.”
Finally it got straightened out. When I started Solara had a app called Trace for ordering. Then they came up with a new and improved app called Plus. Plus is built and administered by a 3rd party. It has problems such as informing that I am ready to reorder when I am not, and to indicate the wrong number of transmitters that can be ordered.
It seems the more things are simplified the more complex and prone to errors they are. Running into the same thing with my doctors. They are all associated with a large hospital and should be able to share the same records, but there’s just a lot of miscommunication problems.
A couple of weeks ago I was scheduled for an ultrasound of the lower aorta. I got a call from the hospital off-site radiology department confirming my appointment. I showed up and the desk clerk said, "This shows you are supposed to get this scan at the hospital.
Knowing I will never make it in time, I protested as I had been told it would be here. Bless her, she fixed it and got me in and out. Good news no aortic aneurysms. The doctors and staff are competent the IT people need to have a better understanding what their clients, doctors and staff need. My experience with IT is that they think they know what their clients need, so they provide something totally inappropriate.
Sorry for the rant, George49. Wishing you good luck with Edgepark and even more with managing your diabetes.
Edgepark is horrible. They never send Dexcom supplies on time but they send me too many pump supplies (even when I stopped wearing it and told them to stop sending it). I think they are paid more for pump supplies.
I am also really frustrated by every customer service agent telling me exactly what I want to hear but documenting something different. They then have you take surveys and I’m always unsure how to answer the survey. If the person does exactly what they promised, they should get a perfect score but that happens less than 5% of the time? I think they depend on those scores to get contracts with insurance companies but you as the patient can’t go back and change the score, after you’ve discovered they lied.
I had to use Edgepark for only a year or so when one insurance I had did not contract directly with Medtronic. I didn’t have any problems but I have read many horror stories! I was still relieved when insurance changed again and I was able to go back to Medtronic.
I’ve been using Edgepark for 11 years with little issue.
Re Dexcom CGM supplies: are you sure you NEED a DME supplier? You should check whether you can get them as an ordinary prescription item from your pharmacy. I’ve been getting mine from Walgreens for quite a while. Pretty hassle-free.
Re Edgepark: I’ve been with them for quite a few years for pump supplies, with few problems except for one that seems to crop up every year. My yearly copay for my health plan is met in July, so starting August through EOY they don’t require one. For some reason Edgepark has a hard time getting their heads around that. I think they get “no copay required” from the insurer and their system interprets that as “no authorization” and they start hassling me about getting re-authorized before they’ll send the order. First couple of times it was a major SNAFU, but now that I understand what’s happening I can straighten it out in one go, though it usually requires bouncing the issue up to the supervisor level. OTOH I’ve had occasions where I need them to expedite a shipment when it looks like I might run out of infusion sets before the upcoming order arrives, and they’re pretty good about that.
I used them for many years for my pump supplies. Everything was done there online ordering and I never had any issues.
I was switched to Pump It in Texas. So far so good.
DrBB, you mentioned a good point about not using a local pharmacy. As a side note to your comments, a local specialty pharmacy used to handle my Dexcom Rx’s (for the G5 supplies). At one point, that Rx had expired and I asked the pharmacy to query my Dr for a new Rx. The pharmacy mgr then tells me in a very diplomatic way that they didn’t really want to handle any Dexcom Rx’s. I was surprised to hear that. She told me that they make almost nothing from filling Dexcom Rx’s. She said it costs them more to fill those Rx’s than the piddling amount that they get on that item. So she asked me to take future Dexcom Rx’s elsewhere. Other than the problem with the Dexcom Rx being filled, I have been very pleased with using this pharmacy for other Rx’s. I had never experienced anything like that before. The owner of this pharmacy had a discussion with me one day and basically said the Pharmacy Benefit Managers were the devil (they keep the pricing high on many drugs).
Anyway, I’ve gotten great feedback from everyone. In the interim, Edgepark has shipped the supplies and I’m waiting for delivery. I’ll see how they are, going forward. I’m also going to look around for another local pharmacy, as you’ve mentioned.
Thanks!
My local pharmacy is the same way. They only carry one brand of diabetes supplies, Sunmark. I can’t even get real test strips or syringes here, just these Sunmark things. Which best I can tell, is some company exploiting the expired patents on 20+ year old tech.
The meter was just terrible. Took something like a full 60 seconds for results (doesn’t sound like much, but it’s 10-20 times longer than modern meters), which were less accurate even than the OneTouch Verios I considered random number generators.
I don’t even think I used syringes that terrible 20 years ago. They were weird, one piece construction that had nothing to grip, so your fingers would slide right off when trying to push it into your flesh. And they couldn’t be destroyed afterwards. The tip didn’t snap off.
But that Sunmark brand is the only one cheap enough that the pharmacy doesn’t lose money carrying. All of the insurance companies pay less than it costs the pharmacy to order.
If we want anything different, we have to drive 140 miles round trip to the next county over, which has a Walgreens and a Walmart. Or the 5.5 hours to the nearest Sam’s Club, which seems to have the best cash prices for medical supplies.
I’ve had a great experience with my local pharmacy. In my early days of getting Dexcom from them there were snafus but they spent the time straightening things out. The owner always welcomes me and makes sure he is available when I come in.
The owner once stuck around for me and let me in for a refill pickup an hour after the pharmacy closed.
I’ve tried the chain pharmacies in my area and did not feel like I got the same level of attention to my orders. The pharmacy tech stares at the screen during the entire order and never thinks about whether they are making sense as they read things off to me. The whole experience felt the same as a phone call with Edgepark.
Oh, I love my little pharmacy! They know who I am. They know what both I and my partner take. They recognize our car, and have everything pulled for us before we get in the front door. Trust me, I’m not knocking small pharmacies. I was just agreeing with @George49 that it can be hard for small pharmacies to provide what the large ones do when they can’t order in mass discounted bulk.