@Jen, On our Animas Ping, we had the date/time resetting on a battery change (which also twice resulted in reversing the AM/PM), we had the screen very dim and would no longer brighten normally as it is supposed to and a serious case crack on the battery compartment.
Any one of these would be enough to get a replacement pump under warranty. Even the date/time reset was enough to cause a warranty exchange as that is not supposed to reset on a battery change.
Our pump was about 2 years out of warranty so we switched over to the Tandem.
Good luck with your pump - I think in previous posts you said you also have all of these issues now?
Yup, all those issues, plus the paint is peeling off quite badly. Unfortunately, my pump was already several months out of warranty when things started acting up. It’s now been out of warranty for two and a half years. I’ll jump on a new pump as soon as I see something I like (not too keen on the Medtronic 630G, although the OmniPod I’ll check out if there’s a way to do so cheaply). I’ve heard mixed information about the t:slim coming to Canada, some say early 2018 and some say they ahven’t even completed applying for Health Canada approval yet. My main quandary with all of this is that my insurance through work only covers one pump in a lifetime, so whatever pump I get is the one I’m stuck with for the foreseeable future (not just four years).
Facebook: Tandem Diabetes Care
October 6 at 9:28pm
We are preparing to file for CE mark and to Health Canada by the end of 2017, and are planning to initiate sales of our t:slim X2 Insulin Pump outside the United States in 2018. We have not yet disclosed which countries we will be going to or in what order.
I had one of those dual bomb days last Wednesday… high BG numbers so I kept bumping up my basal (only got to 50% increase for 6 hours) and my first ever POD failure. Both on the same day.
To add to the fun - this happened the day before my last Endo appointment (the first one after starting on a pump)! I actually had a good discussions with my doctor about sick day protocol, carb sensitivity, ketone testing and basal rates. She was helpful and informative (she doesn’t shame/ berate patients).
@Jen, I had to do some deep cost analysis for our UHC appeal. On a 3-4 years basis, Omnipod looks really good. But, on a longer-term basis, t-slim and Medtronics may be more attractive. The yearly supplies cost less with them, whereas their upfront cost is high.
So, if you can get the upfront cost taken care of by your insurer, from a cost standpoint it may be more efficient to go with t-slim or Medtronic.
On the other hand, I remember reading that, in Canada, the cost structure for Omnipod is radically different. So possibly my input is not really valid.
I was wondering how it works for @Jen. It is only the pump is once and done but all supplies are still covered? So for example if you get a pump next year that is covered and then six years down the road you pay out of pocket for a pump from a different company, will all your supplies from your pumps including the new out-of-pocket pump still be all covered by insurance?
The Tandem t:slim X2 pump seemed less costly than I would have expected. The insurance contracted cost for the Tandem t:slim X2 was about $4100.
Four years of supplies (cartridges and infusion set with 40 sets per 90 days for a 2~3 day infusion site length) for the X2 (using insurance contracted pricing) comes out to just a hair over $10,000.
Are you able to get pods covered with omnipod? I’ve heard the way it’s done in Canada, the PDM is crazy expensive, but you can get the pods covered for cheap. If you are interested in that route, I can get you a U.S. PDM for U.S. cash-buy cost, which I think is now less than $300. I’ll just buy you one and send it to you. The only issue would be that if I got a U.S. one for you, the BG measurements are in mg/dL instead of mmol/L. But on the plus side, it’s about $5700 cheaper, from what I have heard.
They do not have two different makes of pods. They do not sell enough in Canada for it to be worth the extra manufacturing cost.
Insulin units are insulin units. The pods deliver the same units. The only difference is the BG stuff, and the calculations for BG corrections, which is entirely on the PDM.
But this would actually be very easy to prove…
Anonymous Canadian, what would you say to a pod swap? What do you think, something like 2 U.S. pods for 2 Canadian pods? I am game if you are.
It would be easy to do by SW though: pod ID number ranges could different for CA and US, and PDMs could programmed to link to pods of their own country only.
Checking interops would be perfect. We would know for sure.
Pump supplies are not a problem. The government covers them for me, and my insurance would cover them as well once I got pump coverage through them. I don’t see any reason why that coverage would ever end as long as I needed supplies.
I’m going to investigate the OmniPod and see if I can try the system out to see if I’m allergic to the pod cannula. Since I’m not under warranty with Animas, the free 30-day trial they are offering to others is not automatically available to me. Otherwise, I’m going to continue using my Ping until it dies and then switch to my backup pump, and hopefully by the time I’m out of supplies for that (I have enough cartridges for 15,000 units, so they should last quite a while) something like the t:slim will have arrived here.
definitely check out the OmniPod (EH’s just arrived in the mail, faster than I ever would’ve expected). I will say that our experience with the OmniPod customer service has left something to be desired (and that is putting it as nicely as I possibly can). However, you have us here willing to lend a hand where applicable. ( by that I meant, we could send you a pod, we are not the right people to ask about how it works yet.)
even though you’re not under warranty with the Animas, if feels like it would be worth a phone call (or 6) to see if they would still extend you the offer.
I do hope you get it sorted out in the easiest possible manner for yourself. I find it so frustrating that they’ve left the market. While it wasn’t something that EH wanted to try, it certainly feels like a loss for many others. Less choice isn’t better.
It has to happen that way doesn’t it 