Getting a Pump: Part 1

I met with the CDE at the my clinic. She was great.

Bottom line, she thinks I can get a pump, and may even be able to bypass the insurance company's "on insulin for 6 months" rule. The clinic supports all six major pumps currently on the market. She said that the insurance company recently told two of her patients that they were no longer going to pay for the Omnipod because it is not "durable medical equipment" in their opinion. But the CDE thinks that they have straightened it all out.

Next steps are for me to:

1. Go pump shopping. I left her office with product brochures for each of the six pumps, and am reviewing those and surfing the 'net for other reviews. Other bloggers' stories have already been incredibly helpful in navigating what each of the features mean in real life
2. Meet with my Endo in a couple weeks. He will start documenting my medical record with all the tidbits that will help get me through the insurance process. Things like: being sensitive to insulin (I'm still at only about 40-50 units for my TDD); Dawn Phenomenon; going hypo and hyper; my preferred method of excercise (biking).
3. From there, he sends of the prescription for the pump of my choice to the pump company, who then sends it to the insurance company. From there, lots of wrangling I suspect.
   

In the end, I might have to wait the 6 months (late October), and even then I'm not sure if the insurance company requires all this extra rationale or not.

In the meantime, she interviewed me at length about all D-related activities, meds, insulin and eating, and carefully reviewed my meter history. Based on that, she calculated my carb ratio (2 units per 15 carbs) and my correction ratio (40), and had me adjust my basal (take night time dose later, and reduce amount of morning dose). I'm carefully logging everything, and will fax her my info in a week and adjust more from there.