Speaking of this "strip usage verification" for Medicare.
At one time I could just call in to my pharmacy and by the Rx number on my script...order lancets and test strips and have them delivered free without having to talk to anyone in the pharmacy. I was on Lantus and was asked to test 3 times a day.
One day I ordered new strips, lancets, Lipitor and Lisinopril. All that was delivered was the lancets, the Lipitor and the Lisinopril...with an attached note to call the pharmacy.
I called and the pharmacy said that Medicare now wanted the pharmacy to have their Medicare patients bring their meters in and download the strip usage and send it off to Medicare in a file. At the time I was using a Nipro TRUEresult meter. Easy for them to download the information...they had the equipment to do that. That "equipment" consisted of a "docking station" that only this meter uses. I asked them if I could download the information into a document and email it to them to use as proof for Medicare. They mulled that over for a few days, called me and said "yes".
Sooo... I went to Nipro's website, ordered the docking station for $25, downloaded the 640+MB software program from their site...and everything clicked along like a well-oiled machine. I'd go to the TRUEmanager Diabetes Management Program, download 30 days from the meter, save that to a document file and send them the email; call to see if they got it...then place a new strip order.
4 months into this...the pharmacy gets a new manager, the girl I usually talk to to place an order says the new manager wants me to bring in my meter from now on...that she's afraid Medicare might catch onto what I'm doing. WHAT? What I'm doing? I tell her, look...I don't drive. When I go to town to get groceries it's in a cab and that's $20 round trip. In other words...it would cost me $20 a month to come and get my free Medicare test strips. She empathizes, which is cute, but changes nothing.
By this time my diabetes is all but non-existent and I'm testing once a week on Monday mornings to keep a check on it. That's one 50-count vial of strips for 50 weeks. On eBay I can buy a vial of TRUEtest strips for $9.98 - Free Shipping. So, let's do the math: $240 a year for free test strips from Medicare...or $9.98 a year off eBay...plus...I don't have to sit around a pharmacy full of sick people waiting for them to freakin' download my meter and fill my order.
/rant