SassyBlonde

According to the CDC, it is estimated that over 20 million people in the U.S. are living with some form of diabetes. If the disease is not controlled, this section of the population can look forward to complications like heart disease and stroke, blindness, kidney disease, neuropathy, amputations, and other complications with certainty. The NUMBER ONE preventative method for controlling these complications is tight blood glucose control.

However, yet again the government has decided that we as the managers of our own care, are idiots. According to this post, about the state of reimbursement for CGM devices, the main reason that these devices have not been approved for insurance coverage is that they provide "too much information" to the patient, which must then be interpreted by a trained physician or educator at great cost to the healthcare system.

All right, this pisses me off. Let me roll off some info for y'all: I test my blood sugar about ten times daily and use the information from these tests to determine what action to take to control my blood sugar. I do not call my physician every time I stick my finger. I do not call my diabetic educator every time I'm out of range to ask what to do. I went through fifteen hours of in-office training to learn all that stuff. I've had three years of daily experince in the ins and outs of insulin therapy at this point.

The more testing I do, the better my picture is of what my treatment strategy should look like. From these tests, I get a graphic representation of how my trends look over time. I use these to adjust my dosage strategy to better control my ranges. This is an everyday process.

By contrast, I see my endocrinologist four times a year, for half an hour each time. This consists of weighing in, having her look at my lab results, and showing her my charts. She looks them over quickly, asks if I have any questions or concerns, makes suggestions of small changes to my dosages, and sends me on my way. In short, no different than what I do every day.

So who is really interpreting the data in this situation, me or her? That seems really clear-cut to me.

Now, another question: what seems like a more responsible way to make decisions: data based on snapshots of where my blood sugar is ten various times during the day, or a composite graph of over 288 readings taken at five-minute intervals throughout that same time period? If a doctor made treatment decisions based on such a sparse spot check as the former, malpractice would be at an all-time high. Why is it any worse for me to have to make those decisions on my own? I would think it makes my treatment MORE safe and effective to have access to the latter.

Opponents argue that all of this data may be too much for us to handle. In a world where people are constantly barraged by information on television, PDAs, Blackberries, cell phones, and most importantly the internet at large, I would think that this isn't so much of a concern. "But it's new technology, and will be hard for some people to grasp," you say. Bullfeathers.

The majority of people using the technology in question are insulin-dependent diabetics. Many, if not most of these patients, are diagnosed as Type I diabetics. By and large, people with Type I diabetes are diagnosed at a young age. These are people who have grown up using computers, printing and graphing information, and using portable electronic devices. If this is a challenge for them to manage as opposed to all of the other gadgets they manage, I'll eat my shoe. I really will.

The point here is that all we're asking for, as diabetics, is the ability to have access to the best information possible in an affordable manner. Coverage for this technology by our insurance plans will mean better control and less payout for medical bills down the road. This is not rocket science, folks. Treat us as if we were already responsible patients, because after all, if we're asking for this technology, we already are.