Continuous Glucose Monitors Save Lives! Medicare Should Cover them!
- by: TImothy Petersik
- recipient: U.S. Congress
Making Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) covered by Medicare will save lives. CGMs read a person's blood sugar every five minutes and provide feedback. It can warn the diabetic when his or her blood sugar is dangerously low or high. It is invaluable, but it is not covered by Medicare.
I have had diabetes for more than 60 years. About 10 years ago I began to suffer from a state call “hypoglycemia unawareness” in which the sufferer ceases to have bodily feedback to excessively low blood sugar. In my case, this condition led to seizures - usually in the overnight hours, but occasionally during daily activities. Once this happened while I was teaching one of my college classes, once while driving my daughters on a freeway. It is life threatening to experience any seizure, and the more seizures the greater the risk. I cannot easily convey how terrifying going to sleep is, knowing you might wake up on the floor with overturned furniture around you....if you wake up at all.
Thankfully, my daughter became my advocate and petitioned both my insurance company and my doctor for approval for me to get coverage for a CGM. Now I am awakened before my blood sugar drops too low or rises too high. This happens almost every night.
When I go on medicare in about five months, however, I will have no coverage for these life-saving sensors. To pay out-of-pocket will cost me an extra $5,000 each year in addition to the cost of Medicare's part D and a supplemental policy. With planning, I may be able to cover this cost, though it will be “iffy.” I know others who have simply gone off their CGMs when they went on Medicare and couldn't cover the cost.
During every session for about the past five years, there have been bills brought before Congress that would label CGMs as durable medical devices, thereby warranting medicare coverage. These bills have gone nowhere, which is why I have taken the step of creating a petition. Congress has been inactive on this issue too long. Please sign this petition to demand that Congress introduce and pass legislation allowing CGMs to be covered by Medicare.
Making Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) covered by Medicare will save lives. CGMs read a person's blood sugar every five minutes and provide feedback. It can warn the diabetic when his or her blood sugar is dangerously low or high. It is invaluable, but it is not covered by Medicare.
During every session for about the past five years, there have been bills brought before Congress that would label CGMs as durable medical devices, thereby warranting medicare coverage. These bills have gone nowhere. As a result, many people who have come to depend on CGMs to regulate their blood sugar have been forced to stop using them. The out-of-pocket cost is just too high. Please introduce and pass legislation allowing CGMs to be covered by Medicare.
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