The best BG glucose meter that your insurance will pay for

@Tony - Highlight the text you want to quote and a “Quote” balloon will pop up. Clock on it and it will open a new message with the quoted text in it.

3 Likes

Got it

@Tony, this is very interesting. I believe that the ReliOn Premier is a brand new meter, that I was not aware of, that Walmart just introduced. I cannot find any reviews of it online by a reputable diabetes site, and I also notice that Walmart lists is as a highly accurate meter, in terms that are stronger than the Relion Prime.

I will ask @Michel to split the thread and start a new one with that info.

[EDIT] I now think it’s best to leave the ReliOn Premier posts here to make sure the thread is better understood. I’ll reference @Tony’s post in a new thread on the ReliOn Premier.

1 Like

What does this mean “ability to recognize some bg patterns”. One touch is the only option my insurance covers. I don’t particularly like them. I notice that they consistently read higher in many situations than all of my other meters. Your phrase makes me curious…

1 Like

Same here. They sent me a Verio IQ, but I bought a Verio Flex because I prefer keeping readings on my phone and I like having a battery. The IQ is quite small.

But they both consistently read 20 points higher than my Freestyle. They read about the same as the iHealth meters.

3 Likes

“Every time you test, OneTouch VerioIQ searches for high or low glucose patterns.”

“Automatically spots patterns. The meter uses results tagged as ‘before meal’ to find high patterns. Tagging is not necessary to find low patterns.”

@Sam, I can ship you one if you want to experiment.

We used the OneTouch Verio for almost 2 years. While they may not have been as accurate, they worked very well for us. They may have been sligthly higher on average than our Freedom readings. If anything, they improved the resulting A1c :smile: We found them very repeatable in most circumstances: when we took two readings, they were almost always very close. So I would not discount them.

We also used the Ultra: less accurate but very compact, and the shape is good for carrying a fastclix lancing device with.

2 Likes

Mine are way, way higher than my other meters if they’re anywhere above about 100. If the meters I trust read 130, the one touch will say 200…

2 Likes

This illustrates how different each body is, I think. When we switched from the Verio (which we found more precise than the Ultra) to the Freedom (Omnipod PDM), we sampled both on the same drop of blood for a series of readings. We found that the Verio has a sligthly higher average then the Freedom, but the difference average was more like 5-7 when my husband calculated it (although it could occasionally be much more in a single reading).

You can see my husband is an engineer :smile:

2 Likes

This is the exact opposite of my switch. I did the same experiment.

I will say I prefer the Freestyle, but with my Dexcom calibrated to it’s numbers, my A1C tends to run higher than predicted by the Dexcom. As such, I can’t say the Verio isn’t as accurate for me. As long as it is consistent, I’m ok with it.

3 Likes

That makes sense, since the Dexcom would read a little lower with the Freedom calibrations as compared to the Verio, so it would make your A1c higher. it is interesting that the Dexcom correlates better with the A1c when you are on the Verio: unexpected.

2 Likes

After a couple months of usage, I have changed my opinion on the Verio Flex. For a while it was rock solid (albeit higher than Freestyle). Now it is all over the place. It measured 160 the other day, and the Freestyle (and my head) told me I was below 60.

3 Likes

This is clearly a topic very important to many of us…that is
“The best (fill in with specific diabetic supplies, test strips, specific medications…etc) that your insurance will pay for”.

In the past, I had a very collaborating endo who helped and navigated the pre authorization, enabling me to obtain the test strips, Freestyle Lite, and the numbers of strips. Unfortunately, because of the change in insurance policy, he is out of network. I’ve contemplated seeing him and paying the cash rate. However, I’m not positive that the current insurance company would accept his pre authorization.

I wonder if it’s worthwhile to have a separate discussion on how some of us have succeeded in having our doctors write pre authorization to circumvent the “formulary”. @Michel What do you think?

I agree, I’d be surprised if whether or not the physician is in-network would be considered for PA purposes.

My insurance is a self funded plan, they just contract Caremark to manage the prescription plan—- there’s a person at the plan office who can just PA anything upon request whether Caremark likes it or not… eg for afrezza I just sent her an email and said “I’m a type 1 diabetic, this stuff works way way better than other options in many cases, can you PA it” and she punches it into the computer and makes it so…

I think a lot of people would be surprised how much latitude the organizations that are footing the bill actually have when dealing with PBMs

2 Likes

@Thomas - thanks. So, if my current, in network, doctor refuses to write a PA for test strips up to 10x/day, but if my former, out of network doctor is willing to, it could make sense to see him, despite having to pay out of pocket for the doctor’s visit.

Not only it’s the number of test strips per day, but rather the brand too that can require PA. My formulary only allowed One Touch, which we all agree is not one of the best. Freestyle Lite seems to be a good compromise of quantity of blood required and accuracy. My previous endo wrote a PA that enabled me to obtain Freestyle.

kmichel, i’m T2DM. used to be hypoglycemic. if i get below 80 or 90 now (which is seldom) i’m very uncomfortable. how do you handle 60?

1 Like

@MaryPat I just bought a Premier this weekend 02/09/2020. I’ve been using Confirm and Prime for a couple years now. The Premier seems like a good deal. I can’t yet confirm how accurate it is but it feels like right. It requires a small drop as compared to Prime, and the test strips are half the price of Confirm.

1 Like

Welcome @telecomtom, thanks for posting. I am sure @kmichel and @Tony will answer shortly. Until then have a great day.

1 Like

Welcome @telecomtom! Sorry for the late reply, but I am overseas at the moment.

Handling 60 usually isn’t a problem for me, but I am VERY aware of what my blood sugars are by feel. I normally try to run around 70, so 60 isn’t that far off my norm.

I get to feeling yucky in the 50 range, which requires an immediate treatment - which is usually an overtreatment :stuck_out_tongue: It is all what you get used to. Some people are used to running in the 180-200 range, and feel crappy when they get to a normal range.

Note: I do not recommend living on the edge of hypoglycemia like I, and others, do. It is risky, and most doctors do not approve (mine actually does).