I'm on my very last infusion set and it's taken them 24 days this time...Still says "processing documents". I had nearly a full months supply when I placed the order (This is what they told me to gauge things on to allow enough to for ordering).
God...I really want to go to a different company. Can anyone shout out any pluses with onetouch and the ping? I don't even truly think they'll be considerably better, but I hate handing over so much money to such a seemingly faceless and uncaring company. :(
I just went through a huge fiasco with Animas and their supply dept, including things like them telling me the eStore was undependable (dont use it, after I used it) and them sending my order through a third party when I dont use or need them. A manager told me it didnt go the wrong route, an employee said it did, and sure enough it did. It took four weeks, and then the order was messed up. So, just sayin.............. Can you contact your local rep for extra supplies?
I edited this, but I dont see my edit. I wondered if you also had contacted your insurance co and doctor's office to make sure they were not the ones holding things up? That can happen too.
It just seems to be such an odd system. They have a rush option, but this requires you contact them by telephone, which is like. Telephoning minimed is always a last option.
It does make me wonder why they don't just do this anyway. Obviously people don't have colossal reserves to allow them to take over a month per order and it isn't the first time it's happened.
According to their system it's already cleared insurance at this point, and if it hasn't and their 5 step thing it has to go through is stalled somehow, shouldn't I be contacted with a heads up?
I've contacted my rep. It's a holiday weekend however. We'll have to see what this last set can do, eh? :)
I'm becoming such a grump about this whole thing. I just wish there was more competition in the market so I could give my money to a company who actualy pretends I exist.
Since Animas has gone down to sending half boxes of things and limiting how much you can order, some folks are using third parites like Edgepark, or Liberty. You can try that next time. My incident revolved around a third party telling me that if we were trained properly on a pump we would never need spare supplies....so you can see how frustrated I got, and how I can relate to your frustrations!
I think type 1's must be the most annoying patients for anything, so I can kind of, if I really try and squint my eyes and turn my head to the side, understand how they might build up that toughened exterior to us, but that said, we do know our stuff. We live it 24 hours a day and surely that has to count for something?
I think that's why it's such a rampant insult when they do something like this. To just ignore me and not send my provisions or contact me isn't like amazon doing it with a new television. This is a diabetic not being able to deliver insulin and it isn't a luxury.
The sad thing is that Amazon wouldn't do it over a TV, because I could go and buy that TV from someone else :(
I think that there may be an "invisible hand" of your insurance company lurking in the shipping department? I have called them a couple of times wondering where stuff will be and they'll go "oh, it's not due to be refilled until [future date]" and ship it then.
Refilling prescriptions and delays and lack of the straight story from the vendors and, particularly, insurance companys totally gets me cranky. I've asked people at Blue Cross "do you have any records that I don't have diabetes any more or that they've discovered a cure?" Usually then I get transferred and they end up getting whatever needs to be approved approved. Recently the test strip order took 8 days from when I got the "your order shipped" call to when it got to my house. Do they pay extra for the world's slowest shipping? Even when Amazon says "it might take 7-8 days" it often shows up in 2-3 days. Why they are allowed to put stupid barriers in the way of medical supplies that, in the long run, lead to public safety concerns, is beyond me.
Laura wrote:My incident revolved around a third party telling me that if we were trained properly on a pump we would never need spare supplies....
I think I would have told this untrained , pompous, telephone answerer:" You do not know what you are talking about, Maam".( or "sir"). Please connect me to a supervisor". And I would have repeated that over and over until I got a response. Then I would have told the supervisor or the supervisor's supervisor that all who work in medical supplies, need training on the products that they sell; as they are life-sustaining to their customer base..But even I, Ms. Sugary Sunshine, may not have kept my cool( My username on another diabetic site is sweetnstormy), How did YOU handle that, Laura?. I have disovered variabillity in how quick MM sends out orders.:. Usually within 1-2 days, but I have had to wait for up to a week sometimes.
I will be getting supplies through Edgepark now, a third party supplier, so I do not know how it will be when I reorder in January.I do know it will cost me more now that I have retired.
I really wish you could just get pump supplies from your local pharmacy. My insurance is changing first of the year and I will have to use Liberty Medical for mine. Hope it goes smoothly. So far I haven't had to order my supplies through Medtronic, cause I just got my pump late Oct/first of Nov and have only just had pump training this last week. So I still have plenty of supplies that came with my pump, but so far everything has went really smoothly for me in dealing with Medtronic.
I was conferenced in on a call between Carecentrix and Animas. Animas has started cutting supplies down to the quick anyway, and they did it without my knowing what was going on. I guess I was one of the first to experience it. Carec. called them to find out why my usual five boxes was cut to three. Animas said the government was cracking down on how many boxes you could have. While on the call, the Animas employee admitted we need spare supplies, but the Carec. employee said no, properly trained pumpers never need spares. I turned her in to my HMO, and to higher ups at CC. I also turned her in to the head of my HMO's parent company, and the local CC reps and nurses. It still had taken four weeks for Animas to even send anything, and so that was not good in my opinion. And they had sent my order to Edgepark and I dont use Edgepark because my orders have to go through CC.
I have no unrealistic expectations of things always going smooth with MM, but I am happy with my new pump. God was good, I obtained financial assistance from CC for my entire $3000 co-pay. I am blessed, but, I was clearly very very upset by that lady. I almost lost it on the phone, asking her if she had not heard of earthquakes and emergencies, and sets going bad etc. She didnt care. And the Animas worker said you know we replace a set if it is bad, which made me more upset because if you have none left in your house, it doesnt do any good!
Yeah but I'm sort of a slacker about saving the little card thingy to send them to get the next order going. I usually just toss the supply box in the closet and get the card from last month's box when the next box comes? I also couldn't help but notice the subsidiarily arranged BCBS mail order Rx warehouse adjusted my test strip rx from the 17 the doctor wrote to 14, no EOB, no phone call, no nothin'...
I recently had orderd through their (MM) website (i routinely order my supplies through there instead of the auto ship)...about 2 weeks later it was still processing. I called them, they expedited it and it shipped out that afternoon. I had plenty of infusion sets, but also had ordered sensors in the order and needed them as extras on our trip 3 days later. My experience is that if you call, they will help you. ALso - maybe you can get your endo to have the prescription changed for every 2 day site changes (although you may still change every 3)....allows you to have back up supplies.
If my prescription doesn't need to be renewed with my doctor, I have found it goes pretty quick. But the minute they need a prescription renewal it will then take weeks. You end up with the trifecta of mini med, doctor and insurance company.
I don't think this is an insurance issue like some suggest. Once your insurance company approves you for a pump and related supplies, there is nothing else that needs to be done by the insurance company, provided you have a valid script on file. This sounds like a delay on Medtronic's end to me. I have a Revel, but have only ever used Liberty because that's who my insurance company contracts with. Knock on wood, I've had relatively few issues with Liberty. I order about 3 weeks before I run out, but always keep extra infusion sets and reservoirs on hand (had to pay for these out-of-pocket, but I was able to order them relatively cheaply through DLife). Liberty ships quickly and has been great at dealing with my insurance company. I also use them for my Humalog and, again, no issuses. Maybe you can get everything through them?
In my case though, the HMO had accurate paperwork, Animas went against it and so I did involve them. In fact, they saw fit to have one of their nurses watch and work on my situation because it was such a mess. It cant hurt to involve them, if you are having problems, depending though on the circumstances it may not help.
It does work great! No card, no calls, no nothing. They call YOU and let you know your order is on the way, every three months without fail the supplies come right to the door.
So I got a reply from my rep who dropped off some supplies at my doctors office.
I then got an email later that day that my supplies had shipped out, and so he must have jogged it along. I asked what the hold up was and he said there wasn't one. It just hadn't been dealt with.
