Please take a moment to sign this petition requesting to our US Government mandating that medical insurance companies and Medicare cover insulin pumps and CGMs for all insulin-dependent diabetics! With today's technology, we all deserve a chance at a complication-free future.
Feel free to share this in other places as well. Thank you so much — perhaps together we can make a change!
Petition to mandate insulin pump and CGM coverage for all diabetics
I like this petition. I broadened the focus and included my opinion that the US Government, Insurance organizations, the AMA, ADA and any other organization colluding to restrict access to diabetes testing equipment and blood sugar management supplies are jointly and severally liable for damages done to any claimant(s) due to such restrictions. I'm sure they're quaking in their boots? Oh wait, it's Sunday. They don't work Sundays...
Signed it! This sounds like a good petition to me.
Thanks Jean! Love it AR :)
not sure what you mean by insulin dependent diabetics (again, another reason we need a diabetes name change and clarification), some type 2's on insulin believe they're insulin dependent but haven't done the lifestyle changes to see if they can get off insulin. so, from my understanding Medicare (as well as other insurance companies) require a fasting cpeptide and documentation of either type 1 or a very low cpeptide. medicare DOES cover insulin pumps, everything but the Omnipod..they don't cover the omnipod because of how the FDA has coded the PODS, it's not a code recognized by Medicare...it's the durable goods coding. Medicare does not cover CGMS but for some, apparently, from what I hear, they have been able to get the CGM's covered. Many get a long fine without the CGMS...it's not a mandatory 'device or tool'.
And many patients with type 2 diabetes despite making appropriate lifestyle choices still are unable to achieve goal blood sugar levels. They should not be penalized because they need the assistance of meds or in this case insulin to control their blood sugars.
In my opinion criteria for pumps should be based on stuff like would it help with dawn phenomenon, are variable basal rates needed/ beneficial, etc. CGMS should be determined by frequency of hypoglycemia below 50, and hypoglycemia unawareness etc which can also occur to type 2 patients on insulin also.
You start looking at primarily C peptide you start going down a slippery slope with type 1 also as more and more type 1 and LADA patients are diagnosed earlier while they still have beta cell function left. These are exactly people who would benefit from smaller doses of insulin available in a pump. Also what about those who are antibody negative or have reduced pancreatic function because of cancer, trauma, or HIV? As yet undetermined types of diabetes?
Criteria should be based on the total clinical picture and not just a diagnosis code in my opinion, or necessarily wait till beta cell function is totally lost either to qualify.
hi Jan, thanks for posting the petition and for your enthusiasm! However, I would like to disagree with the idea that the government should pay for pumps and CGMs. In the US, health care is not a right. The CGM and pump would help a lot of people, but the government should not force people who won't benefit from these devices to pay for them for those who will.
Health care is a basic human right.
these are the recommendations, as I understand it, for medicare. not my recommendations. if you're a type 1 diabetic, medicare will pay for under the guidelines noted above. type 1 is an autoimmune disease, no lifestyle choices will change anything for a type 1 diabetic. LADA is type 1, plain and simple, there's no Dx code for LADA, it's still autoimmune disease type 1 and they too can get a pump because he/she was diagnosed LADA (TYPE 1) either by a cpeptide or positive antibodies test(s). i have no idea about other pancreatic functions when it comes to pumps and medicare. Also, it's my understanding a type 2 can get a pump, as noted on this website before, but they too have to follow the medicare guidelines and recommendations, low cpeptide levels..or something like that. Yeah, well...a diabetic dog would help a lot of us too, but...that's not gonna happen. People have lived years with type 1 with simply peeing on a stick and dosing insulin, no pumps and no CGMs
ah, isn't medicare what we get when we retire...we've paid into it. i don't believe you're paying for someone else's insulin pump.
I agree, health care is a right and not a privilege. I think pumps and CGMs should be covered. I don't feel my lows until the 40's and can't imagine life without my Dexcom. Unless things change, a CGM will not be covered under the current plan.
Any increase in coverage will translate to an increase in costs, which means that everyone would have to pay more including those who do not benefit from the pumps and CGMs.
You can legitimately argue that health care should be considered a basic human right, although that would be a new idea from a historical perspective. However, health care is not a constitutionally guaranteed legal right. Any new rights that we want to enumerate should be added as constitutional amendments.
well, many 'things' have changed since the 'constitution' was written.