Thank you very much for your input. It will prevent me from chasing ghost and more importantly not replicating the huge amount of time you must have spent on the phone lines with Medicare to get an answer.
Animas users may now have an additional option.
For people still with an Animas Ping or Vibe pump which is in-warranty as of May 15, 2019, Animas now has a program which is running until June 30, 2019. Animas will provide $750 for the return to Animas of the in-warranty Ping or Vibe pump. Details directly from Animas are available:
https://www.animas.com/pumpreturn
Tandem is explicitly and directly pointing out on this page:
That the $750 could be used towards the $999 for the X2 program which Tandem is running. That program has been extended a number of times and currently is shown to be running through the end of this year.
This is the Tandem Upgrade Program as posted previously:
However with the Tandem offer now extended through the end of this year, 2019.
I still think that Tandem is the best option out there. But have some questionsā¦
Why is a defunct Animas offering $750 for the return of a Vibe or a Ping? It is obviously an attempt to push those Animas pump users to get a new pump. But why offer the $750 if, as their full-color postcard indicates once again, supplies will no longer be available through Medtronics after September 30, 2019, only 4 months away? Will supplies be available through other means? This entire thing puzzles me.
In addition, I have heard rumors that there are people working on non-commercial market loop systems possibly based on the RF-enabled Ping. To my knowledge, the Vibe had no remote but it did link to the Dexcom.
Any thoughts on this?
I think original deal with Medtonics was that they would continue support and supplies for Animas pump. Then medtronic switched to saying Animas supplies would not be available at some point, but users could switch to Medtronic pump for reminder of Animas warranty.
We can speculate why Animas may want to help those NOT wanting to switch to Medtronics.
I just went to the site given on the postcard from Animas:
https://www.animas.com/pumpreturn
On the bottom of the Terms and Conditions for the pump return it says:
āReturn of an Eligible Pump to Animas through the Program terminates the pump warranty.ā
With a terminated warranty, Animas pump users are free to get any pump they wish! I interpret this as freeing those on Medicare as well.
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HI @Willow4, I think this is the answer to your question. If they buy back the pumps, even at a loss, then they no longer need to supply those consumers with consumables. It decimates the market for the needed Animas supplies.
Wasnāt 9/19 the date for the end of all supplies? I need the $$ so Iām thinking I will turn my Ping in. Have an in -warranty Revel 723 and using Omnipod for absolutely as long as I can afford it. Still I was planning to keep my Ping for use.
No.
That is the date when Medtronic and Animas have said they will stop providing supplies.
Which is not quite the same things as the end of all supplies.
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To the best of my knowledge, Animas (a Johnson & Johnson company) is gone. Medtronics took over the servicing of Animas pumps until 9/30/19, which they stopped as of November 12, 2018 instead, opting to swap out the faulty Animas pump for a Medtronics until the end of the Animas warranty. They will stop selling supplies on Sept. 30, 2019. If you were on Medicare which bought you the pump, it was illegal for any other company to sell you their pump until your warranty expired. Now Animas (or is it really Medtronics?) is saying that they will pay you to turn in your pump and that will also terminate your warranty, which frees you to purchase a pump from any company you wish.
This whole thing makes little sense to me. Of course, we donāt know what the conditions were on the arrangement between Animas and Medtronics. Maybe Medtronics thought they were going to get a stampede of Animas customers wanting their new 670g pump, which I donāt think they got. I donāt think they expected to have so many Animas customers opt for the Tandem. Puzzling. Wish I knew the answersā¦ But right now I donāt see any downside to this return offer. Do you?
@Willow4
I concur with your reasoning. This seems a very good approach.
The cut-off date (as of right now) from Animas for this program is June 30,2019 so if somebody wants to do this, they should consider and decide without undue delay and then act upon it.
I suspect that Animas would not be anxious to give money away without very good reason. They are a business. If they were all about being there for the customer then they would never have left the pump market with 90,000 customers (world-wide) who actually really like their products (Ping & Vibe). So, I think it safe to assume that for Animas it is strictly about the bottom line. Cash.
So, if Anims has now decided to give $750 away simply for the return of a pump ā¦
Perhaps one of the legal geniuses at Animas has discovered some sort of liability that Animas actually has which significantly exceeds $750 per pump.
Perhaps hugely exceeds $750 per pump.
Perhaps Animas is concerned that this may become public knowledge. It does seem that if one person finds something out there is a tendency for people to talk about things on the internet.
Perhaps Animas is hoping the sooner and the more pumps they get returned, the lower their potential liability becomes.
Or perhaps the Animas CEO just woke up one morning and decided to be a nice guy.
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Hahahaha!!! That would be the day!
Yes, there must be a huge liability of some sort. Animas did exit the market in a hurryā¦ and handed over 90,000 customers to their competitor. Just wish I knew the inside story! SIGH
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For those of us left hanging with an Animas pump (Canada, where I assume supplies will also be cut off in September), where else can we get supplies if we have no choice but to continue using our Animasās?
Even though the fine print on the offer says Animas will terminate the warranty when the pump is returned, my insurance will not actually cover a new pump until 4 years from the date I purchased my Animas pump. A rep from Tandem told me, āThat means that it terminates the warranty with Animas. That has nothing to do with your insurance company.ā Which stinks. The $750 is too much for me to pass up, but it looks like Iāll be on MDI for awhile after returning my Ping until insurance will cover a t:slim. Unless anyone knows a way around this?
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@Liv28 - Let me be the first to welcome you to the TU forum.
This is the same scenario Iām in here in AB Canada. My insurance coverage is until November, and the only pumps available here are Omnipod or Medtronic.
The Medtronic I could swap the Animas for, but I donāt want a Medtronic. Looks like I might be going backwards to the needle as well 
The Omnipod wouldnāt be covered until Nov, but I want the Tandem which may or may not be approved provincially any time now (or not if the government proceeds at the speed they usually do)
Would the $999 offer from Tandem be relevant for your situation?
Yes, but Iāll be eligible for a new pump in October. I canāt justify giving Tandem $999 to lease a pump for a few months. If they would allow me to apply that money toward the cost of a new pump (which was their initial offer to Animas users), Iād jump on that in a second. But diabetes costs me too much as it is, without parting with $999 unnecessarily.
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Totally. I would take the $750. You have 90 days from registration to return the pump.
So if you register on June 15th and return the pump on Sept 1st, you still leave a two week margin to avoid a mishap. If you are able to get a pump via your insurance in October then that only leaves the month of September to do MDI.
Feasible perhaps?
Yeah, I think thatās the plan. Iām actually going to wait until June 29 to sign up for the program and wait until late September to return my Ping. Itās just my luck that the timing doesnāt quite work out in my favor. I think OmniPod offers a trial with a free PDM and 10 free pods, so Iām considering that route instead of MDI to bridge the gap. Who knows, maybe Iāll end up loving OmniPod and just stick with them. (Though the Basal IQ is really temptingā¦)
Well, I know. I think Byram had told me they would still have supplies for awhile. But I switched to the pods and lost track of the dates I had asked them about. I think the Cleo sets are still being made, that was what I had planned on using.
That really bums me out! I have an email out to the Tandem rep. Will see what the response isā¦