If you really want the One Touch meter,call Lifescan customer support and tell them you are having meter issues. My experience has been that they can’t wait to give you a new one. You could also go on the One Touch website. Most manufacturers are more than willing to give you a “free” meter to lock you in to their brand of test strips. Barring that, Amazon or your local drug store will regularly run specials on the meters (avg $ is 16.00). Amazon also offers a “generic” test strip that works with One Touch meters for when you run short and insurance won’t cover more.
My Insurance also favors the One Touch for some reason. I went out and spent $12.00 on a Freestyle Lite (which I love) and even though the test strips are a Tier 3 co-pay for me, I use a co-pay card from Abbott which enables me to get 300/mo for $30.00 instead of the $150 my insurance wants. Their rules…my choice.
I have to tell you I have had a rash of losing my meters. When I went to the Lifescan site I now see that they no longer ship you a free one but instead give you a voucher that will reimburse you for a prescribed meter.
I just got a onetouch verio setup delivered from my insurance… long story and a disappointing one… the truetest strips I’ve found to be excellent were discontinued… their replacement the truemetrix are hit or miss from one vial to the next and I’m not finding them to be a good fit for me, although I truly like the true metrix go meter…
I am skeptical given my last experiences with onetouch but will give the verio an honest shot and see what I think
I just switched from One Touch Verio to Bayer Contour Next in October (insurance preferred brand, of course). So far, I’m far happier (and more confident) in the Contour Next readings. The Verio Flex meter itself was quite convenient (with bluetooth integration and whatnot), and the software was really nice, but I trust the Bayer product more when it comes to accuracy and precision.
Good news is that the Contour Next is getting a bluetooth meter early this year (Contour Next One) in the US, and is already available in the UK. Looks like they’ve made massive improvements to the software, convenience, etc. Looking forward to that, and my pharmacist already has an order in for me as soon as they release it or get it approved by the FDA.
That One is available now in the USA. I spoke with Ascencia in late January, they asked a few questions about my Contour Next USB meter, and then shipped me a One for free. I’ve been using it now since 1/31 and like it a lot.
I broke down and got the one touch verio flex… its the only thing my insurance covers, because I was having random number generator issues with the true metrix cash purchased…
The verio flex is pretty convenient and easy to use, and I do like the Bluetooth app. It reads appreciably higher than the true2go of used historically… hard to know what to make of that though. Maybe that’ll be a good thing. It’s much more consistent than the old one touch ultra was for me. I really with they’d make a strip tube-top model like the true2go that’s just a superior concept… really surprised how much it irritates me to have to carry this meter and the strips separately, and of course the case that came with it is way too big to actually use…
So, I got the Ascesia Contour Next One today and paired it with the Contour Diabetes app on my iPhone. I have to say, I’m very, very pleased with it.
It appears to be very accurate like other Contour Next products (I compared to Contour Next and OT Verio Flex).
It has the form factor of the Contour Next USB (i.e., small and compact).
The phone pairing over Bluetooth has worked flawlessly.
The online portal, the software for PC, and the phone version seem comparable or better than One Touch’s (which I liked a lot; haven’t yet tried sending data to my doctor or anything, but analytics are solid).
It has removable/replaceable batteries!
I called Ascensia and they sent it for free and had it here in two days.
I’m very, very pleased so far. If you have insurance that covers Ascensia (formerly Bayer), it might very well be worth checking out, especially since they’ll send you an entire kit free in the mail just for asking.
Hey, i agree on the Next One - I’ve also been really pleased by it!
I got a Contour Next One to replace my “backup” meter which died (which happened to be my Libre reader, which still works as a reader but stopped reading test strips). It doesn’t take much blood and I really like the ability to have 60 seconds to add more blood if needed. So far I haven’t had a single test strip error, which was not the case with either my Freestyle or Accu-Chek meters. The bluetooth sync is cool too. I even like the lancet better, it seems a little softer than my others. 100 test strips are only $22 on amazon and the meter itself is only $20 or free with a little effort.
The only gripe I can come up with is that there’s not a convenient place to grasp and remove the bloody strip from the meter so it sometimes takes grabbing it on the end which leaves some more blood on my fingers to lick off.
I have been using the freestyle meter forever and I’m trying to find a mail-order supply place that carries freestyle and him having a hard time because I have Medicare I don’t know if I should switch the other one that I like is the Accu-Chek Aviva does anybody know which one is better
Medicare had 25 mail order suppliers when they first introduced the mail order program. All the different brands of test strips were available. Currently, only 11 mail order suppliers are still willing to deal with Medicare.None of them carry One Touch test strips and only 2 of them carry name brand test strips.
I have been forced to go back to getting my supplies from Walgreens.
I have been using the Accu-chek Aviva meter since 2009 and my lab results from Quest are always within 2 - 3 points. I really like the small amount of blood required for the test strip. MLG
I was issued a One Touch Verio IQ meter when i ordered my Tandem t:slim x2 Pump in January, & my insurance only covers the One Touch, Verio Strips… i finally got it all sorted (3 months later) and recieved my first 200 strips… took less than one day to realize something was not copesthetic. … back to back tested strips the other night and there was ±70mg/dl variance. (although my BG was really high) 240-307-251-310 … NOT a great way to calibrate my CGM or make treatment decisions>>>basically blind! – i went back to my Freestyle Lite - 264-264-267. On the money. I was prescribed 180 per month of the Verio strips … :o) … but they gave me 200 anyways. (obviously they know theres a ±20 strip B.S. trash can variance.) And i really liked the look of the meter, the case, the little molded plastic thing that held everything in place… but, JUNk Junk junK!!! darn!!! im going to try to get a preauthorization to go back to the freestyle strips. luckily i have… ± 14 old backup boxes of 50 lying around (of the freestyles) to hold me over til i get my approval…+ 200/mo of the crap ones i can resort to in a emergency. or use them as toothpicks.
I’d like to suggest a process when we are doing side-by-side comparisons of two or more meters. First, all tests should be done from a large, single drop of blood. That means that a fresh fingerstick for each meter is NOT a good idea. You can do multiple fingersticks to get enough blood, but that should be all well-mixed together. I believe you will see less variability if you do it this way.
Here is my data for several meters tested in this way.
Sorry, I couldn’t get the columns to line up in this text file. But there were 6 tests on each of three meters. For example, test #1 gave results of 107, 120 and 113 respectively
I did this over several days in order to get a range of blood samples, but each column represents a single, large drop of blood. I’m not endorsing any of these meters, it’s just what I had.
Of course, each meter has it’s own error bounds, so for any given test, the result could be at the high or low end of these error bounds. A larger number of tests would be required to be really precise.
So, if these were your results, what would you conclude?
I wasn’t able to get a USB in October, and would like the new one.