No Description
Insurance craziness. I can't get Freestyle covered by BCBS of MA. They only cover Accucheck and One Touch. They get a disscount and could care less what their clients want.
That made me lol insurance craziness is right. You want freestyle can’t get them I want accucheck can’t get them, go figure. Thanks for the imput.
Insurance companies negotiate prices with test strip companies. They really don’t care about what people want.
Sad but true. Thanks appreciate it.
Hi Karchah and welcome, I live in Southborough and am Harvard Pilgrim member. They will only cover Freestyle strips if you are not using a pump or some other integrated D device that uses a different strip, or if you are physically or visually handicapped and need a different strip because of this.
I had 4 One Touch meters, the computer cable and software that hooked them to my computer and still HPHC said, too bad. My doctor wrote me a letter of exception but they did not agree and so now I am using FreeStyle strips.
The only reason they did it is purely economic. HPHC made a deal with the Abbott company to purchase a certain number of strips at a set price. Abbott made them the best deal, so that is who they went with.
In the end though, I like the FreeStyle meter. It uses less blood than my OneTouch meters, the meter won't start until there is enough blood on the strip, so you don't throw away strips as often, the company is fairly responsive when I have called them. They have now sent me I think 5 meters only one of which I use regularly. They also sent me a software cable so I can download the meter readings to my computer. They also have a different meter called an Insulinx which uses the same strips. It is a fairly crude touchscreen model, but some people like it.
My doctor also wrote me an exception letter for the number of strips I can use in a day and currently HPHC covers 12 per day or 1100 for a 90 day supply. So long as your doctor says you are hypo-unaware or you can't drive without checking you should be able to get around the limit of 206 per month that HPHC imposes.
Thank you very much Clare, I feel a lot better about the change. The accucheck, was so easy never a problem at all. A little piece of mind knowing freestyle will be the same, or close. Thanks again.
No problem at all, I have had a number of different meters over the years and in general one is pretty much like any of the others. Some claim to be more accurate but Consumer Reports did a study and they were all within percentage points of one another, or they would not have gotten FDA approval. I used to use 3 different FreeStyle lite meters one at home, one at work, and one I put in my gym bag. Problem was one day I got a reading of 62 on the first, 80 on the second and 74 on the third all from the same drop of blood. So instead of driving myself crazy and on the advice of my CDE I chose the one that read 74 and that is the ONLY meter I use. The rest are gathering dust in the kitchen drawer. The lancet devices differ as well. I use a lancet that came with one of my One Touch meters, the delica. It uses 33 gauge lancets so it's very fine. Some people find it is too fine, but I really like it.