Our company insurance provides for one yearly “paid for” Glucose Monitor as long as I get a prescription written for it and as long as it’s added to one of our usual order pick-ups where we are picking up the full subscription we pick up every 90 days.
They are only allowing me to get the ones that THEY allow, though…OneTouch meters. Here’s the letter I received:
So, given that it appears they’re only letting me choose the freebie from the 3 choices that are dictated to me, which one would you take and why?
BTW, I see why these are the only 3…if you look at the bottom of the first image, it reads, “Blood glucose meters are provided and funded by LifeScan Inc (OneTouch).”
Is this instead of FreeStyle, or in addition to FreeStyle?
I mean, is the insurance taking away your FreeStyle prescription? Because those types of things are usually winnable with appeal, based on the pump you are using.
In addition. This would be an “extra” meter…I just want to collect and horde everything I can honestly. lol. I love free stuffs. His primary is / will remain his PDM / Freestyle.
I used an UltraMini forever prior to Omnipod/Freestyle. I liked the small size of it. I had a Verio IQ meter and 10 sample strips at one time, but it was bigger than I wanted to mess with. Just my preference.
@ClaudnDaye I would skip the “free” meter. What is on your formulary as a Tier 1 option, and what strip from either Tier 2,3 or 4 can you get and get a copay subsidy card for? Meters are dirt cheap, it’s the strips that matter. Using a copay card I buy from the Tier 3 selection and pay less than Tier 1 prices. Using this method I get the equipment I want and not because of what is being given to my insurance company as a “free gift” in exchange for the insurance company pushing some manufacturers products (strips) that I will never use.
If I add the free meter strips for whatever meter I choose, to my current 90 day prescription, they would be 100% free to me. So I can have two meters and strips for free.
When I bundle everything I pay only my copay on the insulin and everything else on my prescription is free.
@ClaudnDaye Harold, they want to sell you strips. You can get a free Verio meter at the One touch website by filling out a three question survey and your name and address.
Insurance companies are not in the habit of giving away anything for free.
As I said, the above meter and all strips would be free to me if they were added to my prescription. I’m really just trying to gauge which one people would select from the three listed!
Although, now that I read it, perhaps it’s saying I need an existing prescription already set up for the strips. I will ask my benefits center for clarification.
Thx all! If still love to hear which of the three is the best option!
I used one for quite a while about 5 years ago. I still have it in a drawer somewhere. I also used the Ultra 2 but the form factor of the ultra mini was nicer.
The UltraMini was more repeatable than the Verio in my opinion.
I also used the Verio IQ for a while. It had to be recharged all the time using a USB cable which was a nuisance.
I actually have about 3 Verio IQs that I got free with 100 test strips. They come with a really nice 120 VAC to USB charging adapter which are quite skookum. I still use the adapters to charge USB stuff.
So, maybe go for the Verio IQ for the 120 VAC to USB charging adapter
I wouldn’t take the free meter, because I’m not willing to use an inferior meter. And I especially dislike that a company is dangling the free meter as bait to entice you to use inferior technology not for your benefit, but only to increase their profit.
I’m not going to get it to use it honestly. Would be getting it because a) its free as are the test strips and b) to have for Liam when he gets older to do with whatever he wants. One never knows what the future holds so if I can have as many supplies saved up it opens up more management opportunities later down the road when/if I’m not fortunate enough to have the great insurance I have now which enables me to obtain the tier 1 supplies.
If you need a meter one day, any is better than none!
Extra meters are great for Emergency Go Bags…and for when your PDM falls in the dog water bowl. I live in Tornado Alley and we’ve had enough close calls that I do keep a Diabetes Go Bag in my closet at all times. I refresh supplies in it every year/as needed. Seeing local families trapped in their homes or completely displaced due to tornadoes made me finally put one together.
I don’t believe in not taking free things when they are offered to me in an era where a sizable portion of my paycheck goes to the greed that is healthcare and big pharma.
If it were not 100% free I wouldn’t be considering it.
Reminds me of when my older sister was an engineering student and toured Eli Lilly as a part of some special program. The Lilly tour guides spent the whole lunch talking in front of the students about how much you could charge for different drugs depending on the severity of the disease and the need for the drug. I think we all know that intuitively and empirically, but she wasn’t thrilled with the callousness of it all on a tour.
I second this. It was really, really, really, really annoying. If you’re planning on using this as a backup meter, it’d probably be better to have one that doesn’t need to be charged frequently.
I haven’t used the other meters, but I’d guess that either would be better than the Verio IQ.
The “free meter” is kind of nonsense because you can get any of those for free from your doctors office or CDE anyway. The real underlying message I think (I have Caremark too) is that “for formulary option for strips is limited to OneTouch, here’s a meter as a consolation prize”
I assume you were able to take advantage of their exception for freestyle since you were on the omnipod…
Of those options, the ultra mini is ok for an adult but it requires a massive amount of blood… I do like it’s compact size.
The verio meters are about the size of 1997 cell phones but they are easy to use and their tracking software is decent. They also use a tiny drop of blood which I like.
