Infinite Hold Times

I hate to sound like a baby, but does anyone else get major anxiety from all the extremely long hold times for each diabetic product? I’ve felt this way for at least eight years. It seems like the hold times, especially for any insulin pump product takes away so much of my life. How do y’all work desk jobs and not stay on the phone all day without getting in trouble? I’ve always wondered if there’s a work around for people who are “supervised” and need not be on the phone ALL day.

Generally did not have long hold times. However during initial COVID, I did experience longer wait times, or longer times for email responses. I think this was due to many work from home folks, and different ways their support centers routed calls.

Are you calling different companies, or do already know what pump you want?

When it is available, I take advantage of the option to "hold my place in line’ by providing my phone number. Dexcom and Tandem have always called me back–although once with Tandem, the callback was at 2:00am. (That was during the initial rush to get upgraded to Control IQ.) I use Solara Medical for pump and CGM supplies and don’t trust them to return calls. If I call on Mondays, I rarely can get an agent. But midweek things are usually better. I also take advantage of online options. You can report sensor failures online with Dexcom and I think most people have good results with that.

But yes, it shouldn’t be so difficult to get our needed supplies. I am a senior and on Medicare. I always joke that Medicare is for retired folks because we are the only ones with time to deal with our suppliers.

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This is solely for ordering supplies. I’ve had many different insurance plans and it seems no matter who the supplier is I wait at least an hour or two. Ordering online poses other challenges as their is usually an error from my doctors office which is always denied by my doctor. Just an endless circle.

Thanks for sharing your story Laddie. I’ve not once received a call back when pressing the option. I’ve tried multiple different suppliers and that’s a failed system as well. The suppliers do not care because they know we need it and are extremely over staffed. The middle man (who I usually talk to) is always put in the hard spot. The “ghost” who actually ships the order usually doesn’t follow through.

I generally only have issues/delays when getting initial order set up, but reorders are shipped automatically without my intervention. With past employer plan, I used Byram, which was great, and most correspondence done online with minimal phone calls.

Fortunately my doctor has pretty good staff that has never caused any problems.

@Elyssia_Reedy

I certainly synthesize with the problems you are experiencing. While I’m an old, retired duffer, I hate wasting a bunch of time, particularly when it takes 6-10 calls to get a single order placed and, ultimately, shipped.

The two things that have worked best for me:

  1. Getting up sufficiently early to call within the first two minutes of their published opening time. Of course, that all depends on time zone … and I am on the west coast … but if someone opens at 8 am eastern time, I’m dialing at 5:01 pacific time. If the are a west coast operation , they often start at 6 am pacific to accommodate east coast folks, so I’d be dialing at 6:01 pacific time.

Not only is there less of a queue at the very start of their day, but I figure there is a greater likelihood that the order gets properly placed when they are fresh. Of course, we have no control over when an order actually leaves shipping …

  1. I’ve tried very hard to get everything set up as a 90-day, rather than 30-day, allotment. That’s an easy way to cut aggravation by a factor of 3.

Best of luck,

John

I can never time it right.
I cant spend an hour on the phone at work and both dexcom and tandem stop taking orders at 5 and neither are open on the weekends.
So I end up freaking out that I will run out.
Tandem is hell to order from cause you need to wait for ever. Then they wait 3 days and call back for payment info.
They will call during the day and I play phone tag and same thing, gotta wait in the phone for45. Min.

This last time I had to insist she take my copay info right there because I didn’t want to deal with the craziness. So I’ll be doing that from now on.

Dexcom is usually 30 min but is switching me to a distributor. Uuugh.

Maybe your supplier has a text to reorder option? Mine somehow stopped texting and I had to ask a customer support person to add me back to that option, but I love it. I can usually reorder with a single button press. Sometimes I also have to confirm how many days of supplies I have on hand, though.

Either way, I get supplies as soon as my insurance will allow with nearly no effort on my part.

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Thanks John, my husband always goes to the doctor early for this exact same reason.

Thank you.

I never had any problems until I switched to Medicare in July 2020. Since then I believe I have had every single imaginable problem and a tremendous amount of wasted time and needless anxiety. Hopefully, your luck will change.

I am being switched as well. Everyone one is.

Funny reading this today. My Dexcom expired yesterday. After many phone calls, all I got from Edgepark was the promise, “don’t worry you will get your supplies on time.” The tracking shows the package hasn’t been picked up yet.

John

I can sympathize with you a little. My neighbor is on Medicaid and I call for her services. I sometimes think they just make up alternate phone numbers to call!