I would rather stick myself with a blunt lancet over and over than talk to the insurance company. I have never liked dealing with insurance companies because apparently there’s all sorts of subtext in policies that no one gives the insured.

Recently, we applied for an additional life insurance and I was denied based on “type 1 diabetes and a history of insulin use” (redundant much?). Then to add insult to injury, we received a denied claim from our health insurance out of the blue.

My husband and I have had fantastic healthcare coverage, until another branch of the company started administering the EXACT SAME POLICY that we had before and started denying coverage for my testing supplies.

More pleasant than fighting with insurance

I want to scream at both companies. I want to shove my 5.9 a1c in their faces. I want to tell them that I’m healthier without a pancreas that I was before. I want to make them DO THE RIGHT THING.

Diabetes is expensive and I’m grateful to have insurance. But I don’t feel like I should have to suffer in order to stay healthy when the companies would rather pay for complications than the supplies I need to avoid them. We already pay an exorbitant amount for insulin that I would die without and it makes me cringe to have to throw out an OmniPod that still has precious units of liquid currency in it. We incur additional costs that didn’t exist before diabetes for things like ketone test strips to make sure that I’m not peeing acid, low carb options at the grocery store and a lot more gas used for going to the doctor’s office frequently. (Oh yeah, we pay for the insurance too!)

Three months of my test strips cost nearly $1,000. I have them sent to me every three months along with all of my pump supplies from a medical supply company. Now I’m supposed to go through my prescription provider… for something that doesn’t require a prescription.

Things just don’t make sense when you’re dealing with insurance companies.They cover my insulin pump, they cover preventative care, they would cover a CGM, they would cover complications, but not testing supplies.

I’ve been considering starting on a continuous glucose monitoring system, but I don’t want to make that decision simply as a way to stick it to the insurance company (I bet the test strips they don’t cover are cheaper than the CGM supplies they would cover).

I’m not the only diabetic facing insurance company skirmishes. I’ve been active in the diabetes online community for only a few months and I see the problems that others have with their own insurance (and those are just the problems people talk about). Not that I never expected it to happen to me, I just never expected it to be so intensely aggravating.

It’s like a war is being waged between people with diabetes and insurance companies. Gee… I wonder which side is winning.