Medicare Part B Test Strip Refills While Traveling

[Arch Hoagland]

Anybody using Metformin? I'm on two tablets a day.

 

[John From Detroit]

Anybody using Metformin? I'm on two tablets a day.

Yes but be aware it can have what I call "After effects"

(As in frequent and powerful trips to the "after room" where you sit and think)
had to cut my dose I thin to one-a-day.

(Some of the med's I take list side effects all the way from constipation to diarrhea. All for the same med). What can I say it's a blast. Sometimes. A real blast (From the past).

 

[Larry N.]

Anybody using Metformin? I'm on two tablets a day.

What dose each? I take two 1000 mg tablets, one at breakfast and one at supper, and am not aware of any specific side effects for me, though once in a while I get a tad of heartburn- I don't think it's related, but I'm not sure, and it's rare. I do urinate more frequently than I used to but I suspect it's age as much as anything.

Better diet control likely could reduce my medication, but that's another tale.

 

[RayIN]

Have you done that? Paid for them out-of-pocket and submitted a claim for reimbursement to Medicare?

Thankfully, no. My retired military/ Tricare for Life handles everything. My cost is $14 for 3 month supply of any medication or medical devices like strips.
Medicare(original) has been very prompt and knowledgeable when I've called them, and offered to talk me through anything I've called and asked about.
BTW, I call medicare about 11pm, no "on hold" usually.
If I'm not making sense it's due to trying to setup an brand new W11 laptop and do this at the same time. I suspect I've messed up both at this point.

 

[RayIN]

Yes but be aware it can have what I call "After effects"

(As in frequent and powerful trips to the "after room" where you sit and think)
had to cut my dose I thin to one-a-day.

(Some of the med's I take list side effects all the way from constipation to diarrhea. All for the same med). What can I say it's a blast. Sometimes. A real blast (From the past).

FWIW, Dr. put me on metformin. I was on it for about 2 weeks and had an asthma attack. Dr. said it must have triggered the reaction and said stop taking Metformin.
Sent DW and me to diabetes classes to learn how to cook and eat to control diabetes without drugs. It worked for me! my daily numbers fell within 60-90 and I lost 21#. It took me a week to learn how to control my hunger though, the small food portions take getting used-to.
Medicare paid for those classes and they gave me a new meter

 

[Edd505]

Anybody using Metformin? I'm on two tablets a day.

I was but that kills the kidneys for stage 3 CKD.

 

[UTTransplant]

As a summary, I ordered 100 test strips from Amazon for $50. Better than my local pharmacy, and a lot less grief.

 

[Trivet]

The shift in this discussion has brought up something that had me wondering about the original post. Diabetes seems to be well represented among RVers, so I was surprised that difficulties getting test strips covered by Medicare while traveling hadn't been brought up before. Filling regular prescriptions gets brought up all the time, and getting pain meds has been brought up, but this is the first I've seen of diabetes supplies.

 

[Arch Hoagland]

What dose each? I take two 1000 mg tablets, one at breakfast and one at supper, and am not aware of any specific side effects for me, though once in a while I get a tad of heartburn- I don't think it's related, but I'm not sure, and it's rare. I do urinate more frequently than I used to but I suspect it's age as much as anything.

Better diet control likely could reduce my medication, but that's another tale.

500 mg I take both after supper in the evening. If I know I'm travelling the next day I don't take them as they often times give bathroom problems.

 

[John From Detroit]

Just so you know Back in the day when we all had octal ID's like 73455,43 (MY compuserve ID)

I was one of the staffers, in fact one of the last staffers. in the Diabetes Forum.

 

[Larry N.]

Back in the day when we all had octal ID's like 73455,43 (MY compuserve ID)

Poor assumption, John... Having never been on Compuserve, I had no idea of the form of their IDs. We weren't ALL on Compuserve.

 

[John From Detroit]

Poor assumption, John... Having never been on Compuserve, I had no idea of the form of their IDs. We weren't ALL on Compuserve.

Which is why I explained the octal ID (My Compuserve ID) Yes I know not all have been around that long.

 

[Larry N.]

when we all had octal ID's like

This was the phrase I objected to, John- "WE ALL", not the rest of it. Forget it- guess lotsa folks exaggerate...

 

[UTTransplant]

The shift in this discussion has brought up something that had me wondering about the original post. Diabetes seems to be well represented among RVers, so I was surprised that difficulties getting test strips covered by Medicare while traveling hadn't been brought up before. Filling regular prescriptions gets brought up all the time, and getting pain meds has been brought up, but this is the first I've seen of diabetes supplies.

Me too! I actually did a forum search before I posted because it is hard to imagine this hasn’t been discussed multiple times. I couldn’t find any previous mentions of the problem, hence the post.

 

[Trivet]

Me too! I actually did a forum search before I posted because it is hard to imagine this hasn’t been discussed multiple times. I couldn’t find any previous mentions of the problem, hence the post.

I looked all over the internet and didn't find any discussions about refills at a different pharmacy while traveling. I did run across an interesting subreddit for pharmacists (although I'll admit that I pretty much always find subreddits for various professions interesting). In one thread, they were talking about requirements for prescriptions for diabetes supplies under Medicare Part B, and one person had a list of specifics, including: "The script must be 'new' as in no transfers."

Not exactly definitive, but it's at least SOME smoke for this fire. And it's all I could find.

 

[8Muddypaws]

I've always thought somebody is making a ton of money on diabetic test strips.

Not so much these days. Continuous monitoring has killed the market. J&J sold LifeScan to a holding company a few years back. Finger stick testing is dying a long death.

 

[UTTransplant]

Not so much these days. Continuous monitoring has killed the market. J&J sold LifeScan to a holding company a few years back. Finger stick testing is dying a long death.

You can only get a CGM is you meet a number of requirements; they aren’t paid for under Medicare for my situation. For example, you have to be insulin-dependent, and I use only Mounjaro to control my blood sugar. I can’t even get Medicare to pay for more than once a day testing! I actually am going to get an OTC monitor to use for a couple of weeks to understand my response to different foods, but it will be out of my own pocket.

 

[Larry N.]

Finger stick testing is dying a long death.

I doubt it. At least not for type 2...

 

[8Muddypaws]

If finger stick testing was a viable and profitable long term business J&J would still be in it.

Johnson & Johnson completed the sale of LifeScan to Platinum Equity on October 2, 2018, for approximately 2.1 billion. The deal marked J&J's exit from the blood glucose monitoring market, with the business becoming an independent company under the Platinum Equity portfolio.

Lifescan’s corporate headquarters (where I worked) was located in Milpitas, Ca. It was composed of 4 large multi story buildings and a single story leased building that housed Sales & Marketing.

As of this afternoon only one wall of the 4 buildings remains. (Spousal unit drove by it today.)

The US is only part of the diabetes care world. A big part, yes. But still not 100%. Other countries have different rules and policies. Other insurers have different rules. I have friends who are not on Medicare who got Dexcom monitors. Sooner or later some smart statistician at Medicare will compute the cost savings of providing better diabetes care on lifetime medical costs per patient. The same thing that drove the acceptance of finger stick testing.

Since I retired from LifeScan/J&J I no longer have insider access to what’s in development/testing/trials related to diabetes care. But I’m certain there’s something coming that will change things drastically. I worked on two major projects that were canceled because of ‘market changes’. It happens all the time in medical devices and diagnostics.

I’m betting there are new devices and pharmaceuticals ‘in the pipeline’ because there always is. Maybe even something game changing.

 

[poohbear]

when on the road if I need any otc med or test strip I use the Flex card that comes with my Avantage Plan. It is reloaded every qtr but I think its just $50 per qtr..
I also am on the mounjaro med. I had been on metformin for several years and was having 3 major side effects, low iron, low b12 & anemia and all have improved since switching