Solara usually works ok for me for simple reorders. But, as said above:
–Only a phone call order with a real person works, not a message or web order
–If you don’t wait to speak to a rep and leave a message they do not call back.
–If you try to place an order any other way the seem to ship what you last ordered.
I ordered 4x6 Tegaderm for shower covers and got 2x3 Smith and Nephew instead. Called to get the thing I ordered and the rep took no responsibility for helping me but said the order was done by (name) and they would call me back. I am assuming they are using some outside contract personnel. Never got a call back, of course, so I ordered Tegaderm tape from Amazon.
My second of a pair of G6 transmitters is expiring, but they can’t ship until the period specified by insurance has passed. That’s why I have hacked a transmitter and added an external battery holder, ready to go.
I have had worse than Solara in the past. You just have to recognize their limitations.
Sam, I had similar trouble with Edgepark, who was the only vendor my insurance would allow me to use. I documented all of the snafus with dates and emails and, after a month or two of frustration, sent a well-documented complaint/grievance to my insurer basically saying that Edgepark was unable to perform and they were obliged to come up with an alternate supplier. I also documented the rip-off pricing that Edgepark was charging compared to retail prices charged by Dexcom. That worked great…the pharmacy services dept. from my insurer got me set up to order Dexcom at my pharmacy but still paying the DME co pay.
To my delight these orders via pharmacy have been smoother although there have been hiccups that take a few phone calls to resolve. The biggest benefit of ordering via pharmacy is the pricing is much more reasonable compared to the marked up prices I had seen from Edgepark.
Does anyone use USMED ? After I complained to dexcom they did another benefits inquiry or whatever they call it and came back with a recommendation that they refer me to USMED instead… which either wasn’t an option before or I didn’t understand that it was
Similar experiences here, I tried to order supplies and their rep was pretty aggressive in telling me that my doctor of 30 years didn’t fill out the prescription properly and after he wrote another one even more detailed that one too was cancelled without providing any clarity.
Welcome to the nightmare that is Solara. Back in October i called to order sensors. Sales person mentioned i was eligible for switch to G6 from my current G5… cool. She said would ship next day overnight (even if sent 1st class I’m just up the coast here in California). Even better… sooooo, no text, no email… ni nothing. Gave them a week, called again - more promises and platitudes. Again nothing, mind I’m out if sensors at the time, Oct 5th, of original order. Repeat process over 4 weeks. Finally last person i spoke with was very helpful. His name was Jose. He didn’t understand why nothing had been shipped. He asked to call me back so i wasn’t just on hold and he could locate the right person to get the reason. He called back before he went to lunch just to tell me the manager hadn’t gotten back to him and he didn’t want me to think he was blowing me off… That was great CS. He finally got the details about 15min before going home. Turned out, Solara didn’t have enough in stock so would i be ok with sticking with the G5 another 90 days. Sure, what other option did i have but to agree. He placed order…anyway it too another 10 days before i received my sensors. I had no sensors for almost 2 months. That would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
My experience with Solara was they were great setting me up with my insurance and getting the Dex5 to me…since then every order is a total crap shoot. I want to get the G6 then my local pharmacy said they can get supplies for me moving forward. The capper is Dexcom actually told me it might be easier if i got my pharmacy to fill my Rx. I have that in writing from Dexcom.
Oh, to be honest i also learned Dexcom was actually having logistics issues and the inability for Solara to fill the G6 was due to issues at Dexcom.
Oh, and if you want to really laugh, check out Solara’s android app, called Trace… it is so sad and, well, pointless in what it does.
Is this price out of pocket or before insurance? The insurance companies in the US play some weird game with medical stuff. For example, a 3 months supply of sensors from Solara cost $6750 US. Then the insurance company says that the amount allowed is $1237.50 with the remainder being Audit PO Savings. That’s 81% decrease. Of course it’s still $1237.50 out of pocket until my yearly deductible kicks in. After that, it’s 20% out of pocket.
And yes, I know you can buy direct from Dexcom but the other part of the insurance game here is to force you to buy through a medical supply company.
This is the price you pay for the sensors out of pocket. In Canada there is no difference between the out of pocket price and the insurance price.
We have a provincial run insurance plan (called Pharmacare in BC where I live) which provides basic drug coverage. The deductible is income tested so if you are low income the deductible is low and high income the deducible is high. Most people also have private health insurance to cover the amounts not paid by the government plan and to give more coverage.
For example, our government plan covers insulin pumps (with limits) but does not yet cover CGMs, but my private insurance covers the CGM costs.
The provincial program caps the amount payable for each drug to a customary amount. So if a pharmacy charged more than that amount, the customer would have to pay out of pocket. Because most people like to save money, people will naturally choose pharmacies that charge less than or equal to the government rate set. Naturally all pharmacies charge the same amount for the drugs. The private insurance companies also use the same maximum prices. In this way the pricing is pretty transparent.
Here is an example for maximum charge for Novolog (which for reasons unknown is called Novorapid in Canada).
Sounds kind of confusing but I’m not used to it. I don’t know the current exchange rate between US and Canadian dollars but it looks like you are paying quite a bit more for a one month supply of sensors than my 20%. Of course by the time I pay my $1600 US deductible at the beginning of the year, the price is probably comparable.
Curious about the list you are showing and the Novorapid insulin. Never heard of that.
Sorry, didn’t read your post close enough where you say that NovoRapid is the same as Novolog. Even Novolog doesn’t always react fast enough for me and next week I’m going to start on Humalog U200. Twice as concentrated so I only have to use ½ the pump supplies.
Much to my delight I just discovered that dexcom is now as of 2020 available directly through my pharmacy benefits so I should never have to deal with the supplier nightMare again… so I just emailed my new NP and asked for her to send the rx to Caremark mail order for the g6 system…
This is good because it should be a lot less headache going forward cutting out the dysfunctional middle man and also a good opportunity to test out my new provider’s responsiveness
Sounds like you have it much better in Canada. I have to buy my sensors from a independent reseller because my insurance company doesn’t deal with Dexcom. I just placed my order for 3 months of sensors and 6 months of transmitters for $1670 US. My insurance isn’t going to reimburse anything up to $1600 because that is my yearly deductible that I have to cover at the beginning of each year.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve tried USMED and Byram and neither of them are contracted with my insurance.
My insurance is Cigna, but somehow the medical supplies go through carecentrix. If anyone has any other experience with Cigna/ carecentrix id love to hear
- I see… BUT I do not understand the whole US insurance system. It seems like there are a lot of inefficiencies built in to the system.