How do you reduce your medicine/test strip/lancet costs?

[Mothernature]

I am very sorry if this is a repeat.

What are you doing to reduce your costs?

I trade rebates and coupons to non-diabetics for their 10 ct test strips and lancets from their for profit meter purchases. I also purchase Relion 200 ct lancets for free after trading coupons for Walmart gift cards.

I use CVS $9.99/90 day non-prescription for Metformin.

I look on freecycle and craiglist (I take sealed products only)

My husbands company pays for everything but co-pays. I really do not want to lose these benefits so I am trying to take the stress off of insurance.

[Amberyl]

I'll point out that you are paying for that health insurance. As long as you are on a group medical plan, like a corporate health plan, and not an individual risk-based plan, the insurance company cannot drop your coverage. You might as well make use of the benefits that insurance offers you. (They probably won't cover the full cost of your testing supplies if you test often, though.)

You can re-use lancets. I've found that changing lancets once a day is fine, unless I've accidentally bent the tip or something. Some people have said they only change once a month.

[Mothernature]

I realize they can not drop me. The company can change the plan where we have to pay monthly for the insurance plus 80/20 with co-pay. With all my visits and tests this year, the aforementioned scenario would have really strained our budget.

[butterflykisses]

It's great that your husband has insurance that pays for everything. Is this a small company? Unless it's a tiny employer I don't know why they would have a problem with your supplies. Its unfortunate that you feel you need to worry about this. I do understand though. My husbands employer did change insurance companies and policies and I know that at least some of it had to do with me. But he also works for a fairly small company.

I do look for things things like rebates or offers from companies...like recently, free humalog pens. But that's more to keep MY costs down, but that helped the insurance company too I guess.

The best way to keep costs down is take care of yourself so that you stay as healthy as possible avoiding complications that will cost a lot more than day to day management.

[Mothernature]

It is a medium to large non-profit. Key words non-profit.

[Josselyn]

I am very sorry if this is a repeat.

What are you doing to reduce your costs?

I trade rebates and coupons to non-diabetics for their 10 ct test strips and lancets from their for profit meter purchases. I also purchase Relion 200 ct lancets for free after trading coupons for Walmart gift cards.

I use CVS $9.99/90 day non-prescription for Metformin.

I look on freecycle and craiglist (I take sealed products only)

My husbands company pays for everything but co-pays. I really do not want to lose these benefits so I am trying to take the stress off of insurance.

I buy my extra strips from eBay. Just make sure they are sealed and not outdated.

[gettingby]

My hubby's insurance has a 20% copay on my strips. What I have done is purchased a Wal Mart Reli-On meter and strips, then input the results into my One Touch program. It takes some time each day but saves me a ton each month. Especially when I need to test more often.

[sridder]

One thing I've recently done is switched to using my insurance company's mail order pharmacy rather than my local pharmacy for my long term meds. It's reducing costs for both my insurer and for me. The cost for 3 months supply of meds is the same as it was for 1 month from my local pharmacy.