I’ve been coasting along with my Diabetes care for quite a while, not worrying too much about my Dexcom G6 costs because I’ve been able to successfully restart my sensors. However, restarting has not been successful for the last two. That, coupled with the outrageous cost of the transmitters caused me to take a hard look at the actual charges. It’s insane! My insurance requires me to get one transmitter at a time and the allowed billable cost is $590 every three months. The allowed cost for three months of sensors is $1180. Although my out of pocket cost after my $1000 deductible is paid is only 20% of the billed amount, it’s a tough pill to swallow! (Oh, if only we could just take a pill for this.)
Does anyone know how the Libre cost compares? I don’t really want to give up Dex, but if the price is right and my insurance will cover it, I might be ready to make the jump at the end of the year.
The costs on the libre are much lower, they are covered by most and mine (like alot of others) are covered under pharmacy benifits so I just go to my pharmacy and pick up. I don’t remember the cost of the reader though. The libra can be purchased out of pocket with coupons like goodrx for under 100$ a month also.
I’m not sure if you are In the u.s. or not, but the libre In the us is like a Glucometer compared to a dexcom which is a Cgm. There are no alarms with the libre, so it is rather useless at night. When the us 14 day libre stopped working with the blucon and miao miao Bluetooth devices, I switched to eversense and it is my favorite Cgm so far. Eversense has a bridge program, so you pay 99 for the 1st 3 month sensor, and 99 for the 2nd. I’m currently on my 2nd sensor, and so far I’ve paid 198 and have 80 days left on my 2nd sensor. Looks like there are only 2 of us on this forum (john58) using it And posting, but I prefer it over the Dexcom. The transmitter recharges daily, and is guaranteed to work for a year. You can also try to find someone who will swap out the battery in the Dexcom, I’ve tried it and failed, but only had one at the time and its a little tricky…you also need to buy the correct silver oxide batteries, but I’d look into that before switching to the useless u.s. libre glucometer, at least until the libre2 is released.
My insurer kept telling me the same thing, forcing me to buy Dexcom from Edgepark (the only in network DME supplier). Finally I got fed up with Edgepark dropping the ball on prior authorizations etc. as well as Edgepark’s prices (which bumped up my 20% DME copay) that I raised a stink with my insurance company via emails. phone calls etc and basically told them I had to have an in-network alternative supplier. The pharmacy benefits dept. at the insurer set things up in their system so I can buy Dexcom from my pharmacy and it is still run through the insurance as DME with 20% copay.
What I learned from this whole run around was that pharmacy prices for Dexcom are way lower than DME suppliers. My 20% co-pay for 4 G5 sensors at pharmacy is $116, not sure what G6 would cost.
Me too! Eversense is not for everyone but it has some features that really mesh with the way I want/need to use a CGM. I am getting ready to get another discounted Eversense 90 day sensor inserted later this month. I tried the 10 day Libre when it first came out and it seemed fine…but it did not do a few specific things I wanted such as alarms. I also could not get a reading through my hockey arm/shoulder pads which was a big drawback to Libre.
My advice to your original question is keep trying alternative CGM’s (if possible) until you find the one that’s right for you from both a cost/availability standpoint and from a usefulness standpoint.
Thanks for all the ideas and information. I’d pretty much dismissed the Eversense when it was first announced because I don’t necessarily like the idea of having to go to the doctor for the insertion. However, given these comments, I’m going to look into it a bit more. Honestly, I think I’m just tired of spending so much money on T1 maintenance.
I agree 100%, but like john58 said, it is always better to research and find out what’s best for you…rick_sadick posted on a diabetic forum that he went diving in the Caribbean and the libre gave him a false reading due to the salt water…the libre is OK in water for a depth of 3 feet and 30 minutes, and I know if I went diving, it’d be longer than 30 minutes, and deeper than 3 ft…the Eversense is the only Cgm where you could easily remove it,go diving for a few hours at whatever depth you want, and stick it back on to see your glucose…plus the transmitter recharges and is guaranteed a year, unlike the Dexcom where you have to rob a bank every 3 months because in 2019, they can’t figure out a waterproof housing to change the battery, but Ambrosia blucon can…and the miao miao can…when the dexcom g7 comes out, you’ll have the libre2 and the Dexcom libre g7 both will last 14 days and will send Bluetooth data to your phone, and both will fall off in 3-5 days in The summer. And winter, and both companies will tell you to use mastisol, skin tac, grif tape, iv3000, flex fit tape, arm sleeves, stickers over the devices…actually, seeing the Dr every 6 months for an eversense sensor Insertion sounds fine to me…
Daisy123: I guess I am very fortunate since my provider does not charge me for the cost of the Dexcom supplies. The reason they only ship one transmitter is because of the battery life. If they shipped two or more at a time the unused transmitter batteries would still discharge. It is however to not use a new transmitter. I have been very successful in replacing the batteries. I know my provider would eat the cost of a new one but I like to save the $$ my provider would have to pay. The transmitter time limit is not recognized by the application I use. It is not a Dexcom application but xDrip+. You can use another application to reset the time stamp if you want to use the Dexcom app.
I forgot to mention that the last regular Dexcom transmitter lasted 144 days. Of course that was way past the regular 90 days. If the batteries are replaces with silver oxide batteries you can get about 1 year on a set. I say a set since I am using the G5 Dexcom system. A sensor lasts about 14 days. I only replace a sensor when the system noise level goes up or the accuracy goes down.
I was using the eversense for 2,5 years - it’s a cgm system which you can use for “normal” T1D treatment, but if you plan to use a Closed Loop System in the near future you should prefer Dexcom. Eversense readings (with their original up/down hopping) are better smoothed with an addtional app for displaying the readings (and all other treatments) on xDrip+. But that’s off label use and you decide what you want.
Eversense works great for me, however, I can’t stand pumps, and it seems like half of the omnipod users on the forums use long acting with the omnipods due to the insulin lasting less than 3 days. I started eversense using xdrip, I was never impressed with the eversense app, lack of custom ringtones, lack of predictive insulin calculations, etc. Lack of watch faces really forced me to use xdrip, but I was already used to xdrip from the g4 and g5, then the 10 day us libre, and if my Cgm isn’t shown on my watch, I’ll research and tinker until it does, I’ve also told eversense how useful and important The watch faces are to me, and they told me they appreciated the feedback…they keep babbling about the non adjunctive indication app release which will probably still lack useful features… my removal/reinsertion was past the 90 days, so the eversense stopped working, but my next appt is on the 85th day or something like that, so I’m planning on showing how useful xdrip is, and how it compliments their product.