What Are Your Monthly Insulin Requirements - And What Will Your Insurance Actually Cover?

Me & The Elixir of Our Life @ Breakthrough, The Dramatic Discovery of Insulin Exhibit @ The NYC Historical Society, 2010~

photo courtesy of kerri Sparling

So my questions to you Diabetesalicious readers are: How many insulin bottles per month does your insurance cover versus how many insulin bottles per month you actually require.

I’ll start the ball rolling. My insurance will cover two bottles per month and pay only 50% of said bottles.

My insurance only covers 50% of non-generic prescriptions and only 60% of generic prescriptions. Also, the price that Caremark works out with my insurance company isn’t a desirable one for the end user of that insulin, me.

I need my insurance to cover more bottles and give me a better price on said bottles because insulin is the magical elixir of my life and I need to live - AND SO DO YOU.

Also, my insurance will not allow me to order my insulin through the mail, PERIOD.

Look, sometimes I need more insulin than 2 bottles a month and sometimes 2 bottles are OK - Not great, but OK.

Seriously, it all depends on the month& the circumstances (both regular and unforeseen,) that that particular month brings.

For instance, sometimes when I get my period, I eat more carby foods and need more insulin, even though a few days before,

I barely eat anything and require much less insulin - Hormones are all types of tricky - And Aunt Flow can be quite bitchy when you add diabetes to her monthly visit.

Then there's the whole exercise thing. On days I exercise, I might need less insulin,in less of course my bloodsugar drops super low post workout and then rebounds towards the 190s later. Then it's pretty much an insulin wash.

What if my insulin goes skunky? Magic Eight-ball says YES there will be times when my insulin absolutely will,(and has,) gone skunky - especially if there happens to be a heatwave my area.

And there's been those unfortunate times when one of my insulin bottles has met an early death because it accidentally smashed onto a tile floor. Yep, its happened, multiple times. In my home, in the bathroom at a hotel, in my friends homes - both close by and in New York City.

Speaking of NYC, when I travel I have to bring extra insulin with me and there I times I can’t keep that extra bottle chilled, and I end up SOOL (Shit Out Of Luck) regarding that bottle. Most times I travel with the bottle I’m already using, but if it’s an extended trip ( like when I went to Hawaii and Europe) where I had to bring two bottles, not one. Good luck explaining travel plans/diabetes requirements to the folks at your insurance company!

And how about the times when I’m fighting some sort of infection during cold and flu season and require more insulin daily?

Of course I’m going to run out of insulin before my insurance allow for a refill - You don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist to know that!

Lucky for me, I have an Endo who is generous with the Insulin samples and I seriously don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t ask him for some backup bottles when I need them.

As PWDs (people with diabetes,) our daily insulin requirements aren’t an exact science, even though we try our best to count the carbs and test our blood sugars even more than our insurance allows us to.

And it would be wonderful if insurance companies actually covered all of our daily insulin requirements, not the text book versions that never seem to reflect our real lives.