The hoops you've had to go through, when this should be a simple process, which should have been handled by the Dr's office, but everyone involved dropped the ball, which meant you've had to do their jobs for them... UNBELIEVABLE!!! Wow, give o'care a round of applause!!
This sort if bull is inexcusable. There is no accountability, no genuine effort exerted by those whose job it is to perform these tasks and see that they are actually done. How have you not gone postal? Hang in there. Keep us posted. }-(

Just amazing. I have heard horror stories about this with other med devices as well but they don' t take this long to resolve. This is aserious medical issue for them to be dicking around like this. Unfortunately it looks like you 'll need luck on this one since competency isn 't part of the equation.

From my experience in health care pumps retail for about $6,500 (Insurance charge). They wholesale for about $700 on the high end. The margin helps pay for all of the bureaucracy you are dealing with. That makes perfect sense right? (I'm being sarcastic of course)

This is total insanity and incompetence at all levels. I hope they have run through all the excuses so you're son will finally get what he needs. What a nightmare.

That is pure craziness. Sorry you have to go thru all that. Good luck.

Wow LS... This is true insanity. I am really hoping for a good outcome to this... The pump is excellent in helping to control, although not entirely. I know your son is doing everything he can to keep his levels under control... That should be the number one qualification for an insurance company to approve... What an unbelievable ordeal you are being put through :-(

Hello LS,
Sorry to hear about such a load.
Best wishes for a positive outcome.
O.A.

I am not a diabetic yet, but I am borderline.
My dad and all of his ancestors had diabetes. I am working on inexpensive tissue scaffolding and am seeking a Midas Mulligan to fund the specific type of tissue to engineer. I certainly could culture one's own Islet of Langerhans pancreatic cells to make an implantable pancreas if I can get money to pursue that. Such an invention would have to stay inside the Gulch, at least for now.

As for insulin pumps, try EBay at
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&...
for a Medtronics pump. The ones for $600 should do the job.

Educating future Galts,
jbrenner
Floirda Tech Chemical & Biomedical Engineering
jbrenner@fit.edu
http://my.fit.edu/~jbrenner

a bocare horror story category seems like a very useful thing. Perhaps just healthcare in general? I am probably on the short list of folks who know exactly what you are going through, Ok, I don't need a pump for my son.. But, I will be having the pump discussion with my endo in a few weeks. Yes, I am looking pretty close at the medtronic with the cgms built in. I had been thinking about waiting for the fully closed loop pump that will probably ( hopefully ) be available when the next next gen pumps are released in a year or three.. But, heh.. I woke up at 440am a few weeks ago with a sub 20 blood sugar and my wife feeding me honey. That pretty much sold me on the idea of a pump that could at least shut off dosing when the detected blood sugar has dropped below threshold. Used to be that getting approval for a pump was a nightmare in and of itself. But, thanks to Lantus and Humalog ( manual Basal and Bolus ) dosing average A1Cs have been dropping all over the place. Of course along with the lowing of the A1Cs is the increasing odds of low blood sugar events. Anyone that claims that lows are not a problem has their head up .. Umm.. Anyways, lows are bad the insurance folks use nocturnal low events to trigger the ok for pump+cgms which along with the current level of control means that getting approval is at least not the nightmare it used to be. Of course now we have had the billing for it turned into a new special kind of Kafka nightmare.
In the meantime, your son is having control issues.. I know how that goes as well. Especially when working out is added to other stress makers. I had a long discussion with my endo about the gym and targets. Sadly, even a pretty good endo kind of sucks at providing much advise on this.. So, he suggested that I need to double down on me using me as a science experiment. More data is more good.. Workouts that have a good and much sought after burn effect can/will/do occasionally mess me up late at night or the next morning. So, since I spend _a_lot_ of time on the road, in the air and living out of suitcases or hotel rooms by myself. I have also spent a lot of the last couple of years being fairly paranoid about inconveniently times lows making things more of a mess than is needed. So, I have spent some fairly serious time working on self conditioning to automatically take action when the early symptoms of a low start to manifest.

Oh.. and finally.. lets all keep in mind that ocare/medicade/medicare are not built to handle chronic illness. So, as a rule they all pretty much suck at it.