So if you’re taking a financial hit trying to manage your diabetes, here are three tips that can help you better manage the costs.
It’s an expensive disease to manage. While the price of insulin continues to increase, the personal monetary cost of diabetes, particularly type 1 continues to rise. In some cases, depending on whether a person is covered by a medical insurance, it can result in additional expenses of more than $1,000 a month.
The estimated 30 million American suffering from diabetes have more than just insulin to purchase. There are test strips, lancets, syringes alcohol swabs, glucose monitors and insulin pumps and emergency drugs like glucagon that a diabetic requires to live a healthy life. And the fact that the price of insulin has spiked by triple-digit percentages over the past 20 years does not ease the financial burden many diabetics face.
These costs are particularly difficult for low-income Americans making it difficult for them rise out of poverty. With the average medical expenditures reaching about $13,000 a year, a person with diabetes spends to two to three times as much on their health compared to a person who does not have the disease.
Sufferers of diabetes who do not have health insurance pay 79 percent fewer visits to a physician and make 55 percent more visits to emergency rooms than diabetics with health insurance. So the cost isn’t just a pocket book issue, it also takes a toll on people’s health. Especially the poor.
So if you’re taking a financial hit trying to manage your diabetes, here are three tips that can help you better manage the costs.
– Buy from bulk suppliers. Hirsch notes that Freestyle Lite Strips from the store can cost up to $2,000 dollars a year, but can be reduced to $1,000 if you purchase the strips in bulk from online suppliers like eBay and Amazon.
– Shop around. Prices for diabetes medicines vary from pharmacy to pharmacy.
– Pharmaceutical companies offer financial assistance programs. So check out some of the major suppliers of diabetes medications and supplies and apply to their assistance programs.
