Honestly, the last time you went to the endo and had a lab done, who do you think saw those results? The insurance company sure as heck did. Or they at least know about the labs AND that an endo ordered them. (I’m assuming it was billed to them.) They already know (from prescriptions/doctor’s visits/labs) that you are a Type 1 diabetic.
If you are uncomfortable with it, ask if they can use labs you already did with your personal doctor or see about using your own doctor’s lab.
You are correct, insurance companies almost always look in detail on individual health insurance applications. But they rarely will look at your detailed medical history with group insurance. Generally, you are asked to provide disclosure about basic conditions (including diabetes). They will check your record in the Medical Information Bureau (MIB), they may contact your doctor to confirm the basics, but they wont’ get copies of all your records and dig around asking about the details of your control or complications history. I refuse to give any ground for free, my privacy is my own and I won’t give it away.
ps. Don’t forget, you can get a free copy of you MIB report and if it is in error, you can request that it be corrected, just like with a credit report.
If it’s a work sponsored plan in the U.S. it’s covered by ERISA and the insurer cannot selectively rescind coverage from some employees and not others, retroactively or not.
Because of the benefits ERISA offers to insurers, the insurer has to insure everyone in the plan to the same extent and without regard to pre-existing conditions. It can offer tiers of coverage but it can’t restrict coverage on an individual basis.
This information is most likely going to be used to determine the cost of insurance to the employer and thereby what costs the employer will pass through to it’s employees.
Your distrust of insurance companies is understandable, if not well deserved and well earned by their behavior. But if your group is large enough, the insurer is unlikely to single out your condition (or that of anyone else) as a means to make the price prohibiitevly expensive. As far as you know there may be someone else in the plan who is even more expensive than you. And if it’s part of a “wellness” program they are probably looking for ways to hound you with phone calls, mail and newsletters full of unneeded advice. My insurer’s wellness program keeps sending me stuff about losing weight and exericising because my blood sugars indicate that I’m “at risk” for developing Type II diabetes. I’m Type 1, exercise daily and have a BMI of 23, well within normal.
You’re not going to gain anything by refusing this test. But if you really don’t want to do it, ask if they’ll accept your most recent test in lieu of this on on the grounds that you want to avoid as many pin pricks as possible.
MHO,
Terry
You’ve made some valid points, Terry. Thanks for reminding us of Erisa. Maybe it’s just me, but I am still very uncomfortable any type of health discussion taking place at the employer’s office, even though they promise confidentiality. On site testing/screening could give employers way too much information (I’m sure they are promising strict confidentiality, but how many times have you been able to hear exactly why the patient in room 2 is there to see the doc? I know erisa also addresses some of this, but most states are employee at will at you can be let go without much explanation. I would be a little less peeved about this if it were taking place in a physician’s office.
Well regardless of what was the right thing to do, I now wish I would not have followed through.
Good point Kari, my insurance company knows all my drugs and that I am a Type1 as they call and send me letters and emails constantly to offer assistance in my health care.
I do know this will directly effect our insurance rates but I am not quite sure if it will be individually or as a group, and any questions that were raised, corporate responses were very vague. I do know that you can opt out of the test and automatically be put in at the highest rate anyway, a rate they don’t know yet, oy vey.
I had a very very rough morning as I suffer from dawn phenomenon every morning and try to conquer it with extra bolusing at breakfast, I have tried changing my basals, but that just makes me way low, I still need to work on it. Well anyhoo, I woke up a bit high this a.m., because this is my hormonal week, TMI, at 168 and I bolused and got it to 132, then bam my dawn thingy kicked in and I was 239 at 7:30 and my bloodwork is at 8:00, so I was totally stressed told the blood girls with other coworkers around that I did not want the draw and they said I could go offsite at a later date, but I know it will happen again, it happens everytime I see md or have blood drawn. So I mega bolused, waited, walked up and down the stairs at work, tested, bolused again, drank tons of water and then just before the lab people were going to leave it was 148 at 10:30 and I feel totally drained and stressed. I said screw it and told them to do the test.
They took your height, weight, measured your waist and two tubes of blood.
Don’t know if I did the right thing, but now everyone knows, they still don’t get it as my boss said aren’t you on the pump, and then they offer you ideas to improve bad tests and we have another blood test in October.
I am sad and stressed and just sick of it all and now I feel like I have to pass a test to get good rates for something I have no control over and YES I HAVE A PUMP AND INSULIN, but that is not a cure 
The insurance company is supposed to keep you healthy. How can it be healthy, if their screening process and (especially this one) the paranoia here makes you stress out over a blood test in the way you describe?
You and me both have had diabetes a long time, long enough to remember the guilt and shame of having a “bad” urine test, and the thought of feeling guilty because of a blood test is something we all have to move past. It’s just one of a bazillion bg numbers we accumulate, and somebody else might give it a lot of weight, and undoubtedly at some point some mindless doc will give the wrong number too much weight, but we can’t freak out like this in the face of something that’s supposed to be there to help keep us healthy.
If we become so scared of “looking bad” on a bg test then the usefulness of the bg test in making our lives better, may have been lost.
I have been Type 1 for 44 years, but I know a raised bloodsugar on any lab test I have had has always raised a red flag even with the nurses at the MD office.
I just know all my other bloodwork over the years has been normal, and that I have always stressed over the loss of medical insurance though that cannot happen with group insurance, but I still feel very singled out because of this disease.
I hardly ever have normal bloodsugars for a whole day, even though I have done many fasts over the years to check on basal rates, for me it is just the way it is, but for insurance companies who knows.
I feel bad this was such a nightmare for you. Perhaps your employer just wants to be helpful, but they would think twice about giving all the blind people vision tests and the deaf people hearing tests. Giving a diabetic a blood sugar test for “wellness” is just stupid.
I might have to use your post at a later date, when I send more emails to corporate
Worst case? It’ll come back with a note asking you to check with your doc about the possibility of you having diabetes. I’m guessing they’ll see an A1C higher than a non-diabetic too no matter what your bg was at the draw (unless you’re one of the wonder kids who has A1C’s in the 4’s or something…! I’m not that wonderkid myself! Besides I’m no kid anymore either.)
Really, there’s been a lot of paranoia in this thread. I’m no stranger to paranoia when it comes to health care, it’s kept me from seeking the help I needed in the past. We all have to move beyond it otherwise we regress to living in the concrete bunker and afraid to go out. That’s far sadder than just having diabetes.
I’ve had some bad experiences in the past, where I get berated for showing up at a doctor’s office and admitting I had diabetes. It scarred me with paranoia so bad that I withdrew to the underworld of cash-only insulin buying and giving fake names when I bought syringes, and for years afterward I lied out and out to docs telling them that I did not have diabetes out of fear of being punished or berated again. That was a bad place for me to be, and I don’t want anyone else to feel they have to regress to that state either.
Move to Canada - we don’t have this sort of thing … yet … for our work medical insurance. We have other issues - like wait times for medical procedures, seeing doctors, frigid temperatures in winter in some parts of our country BUT sometimes I’m glad I’m Canadian!.
Sorry Karen, I can understand how you feel. Kinda funny how people think the pump makes all the insulin decisions for you.
No offense but paying cash for needles and insulin and lying to your doc about being diabetic is completely different universe than someone not wanting to participate in a medical screening at their workplace. Avoiding disclosure of health issues in the workplace doesn’t strike me as paranoid, but as a wise preventative measure. After all, if she were to lose her job she also loses the health benefits she needs. JMHO.
Yes, but that is after you have a policy in hand. This could be for a brand new insurance company who has no medical history on file. Also, insurance companies don’t normally look at individual medical info BEFORE they commit to a rate. You normally fill out a form AFTER you are eligible for group health which discloses your med history. The main objective of these screenings is to help the insurance companies identify the risks of the group and control costs.
Of course they do – all the more reason to keep this out of the workplace.
The issue is whether you should be forced to participate in a workplace medical screening, not whether your insurance company knows you are a Type 1.
But rates can change yearly. At that point they HAVE already looked at your medical info.
Rates are not static. Premiums, for the most part, are increasing.
Sorry this was such a bad experience for you 
A bit off topic…but have you tried delaying breakfast by a few hours? I have horrible dawn phenomenon as well. It helps me a lot to not eat until at least 9am (I wake up at 6am, so that’s a nice long 3 hour delay). If it’s possible, with your work schedule, see if it works for you…?
The OP did not say this was a new or old insurance company. It could have been either. Think about it, if the group comes back with for example a higher amount of diabetics than avg, the policy can be written to minimize benefits for this disease (test strips, cgms, etc). The screening will catch all the undiagnosed T2’s as well.
Would you want all diabetics automatically excluded from participation in any “wellness” programs? By definition would that put us beyond any ability to achieve “wellness”?
Remember when we were kids and we were never invited to birthday parties because there would be cake there, and everybody knows diabetics can’t have cake and they didn’t want us to feel bad?
No, but I object to mandatory oversight of my health which I consider private matter. If my office gives out voluntary free “wellness” screenings, that is fine. But don’t force me to line me up with all the other employees for a mandatory screening. And don’t dock my pay because my fasting blood sugar is high or don’t meet some arbitrary definition of a healthy weight. I don’t need to hear any message that I am “unwell” person just because I am glucosally challenged (sorry for the technical term).