Oh, yeah…they give away the meters because they make their money from the strips. I keep hoping someone will invent a meter that doesn’t need strips…like a permanent probe that you just clean off or something.
Oh, and the way my insurance covers test strips is really messed up. They’re not covered by my regular medical, they’re not covered by my prescription insurance, and they’re not directly covered by my medical supply insurance. I have to jump through so many hoops to get the supply place affiliated with the supply place that’s primary-affiliated with my medical supply insurance to send them to me, or else pay for them out-of-pocket. I STILL haven’t figured out exactly which hoops, so I’m paying for them myself right now. Ridiculous…
Why? It’s proven in this thread that that’s where the money is! Has any company anywhere in the history of anything done something because it saves their clients money while at the same time is quite detrimental to their bottom line?
Kinda like printer ink for your inkjet, eh?
Walmart has the Relion Ultima that has 50 strips for $20. The others are ridiculous.
I get information on every electric bill about how to use less (and actively encouraging me to do so), and occasional similar info on other utilities.
Some new company will come along, see that the market for readers+strips is saturated and making a ton of money, and start offering generic strips, or a reader that doesn’t need strips. Kind of like what has happened with printers and either generic ink cartridges or refilling old cartridges.
But that doesn’t cost the electric company anything, as a matter of fact it helps them. If people are saving too much electricity, they will apply for a rate increase from the utility board claiming that they are losing too much money from frugal consumers. Then, their profits skyrocket because they make the same amount of money selling less electricity.
I’m not even joking.
I concur. I recall that happened a few years ago in California.
They do have continuous glucose monitoring devices, which attach for a week at a time and send results to a remote unit you wear on your belt. Unfortunately, it needs about a daily calibration by testing your blood with an independent meter and inputting its readings.
My insulin pump, a Ping, is planned to have a CGM addition, but FDA testing has delayed its introduction by about 2 years. 
I have a CGMS. It was useful and fun for a while, but overall I quit wearing it after about 4 months. Overall, the hassle outweighed the benefits.
First off, they’re not accurate enough (yet) to obsolute a real meter. Seeing as the meters are only accurate to 20%, that’s saying a lot. The one I had needed a calibration (from a meter) at least twice a day.
If it was just that, it still would have been useful. But the stupid thing was wildly, crazily inaccurate for the first 24-48 hours after I changed the sensor. Like it kept waking me up in the middle of the night telling me I was at 40 (which is really, incredibly dangerous) or 400 (also dangerous, though not quite as horrible as the 40). When the reality is that I was at a nice, safe 90, that wasn’t all that fun.
It’d get more accurate for a few days. You’re only supposed to wear the sensors for a week, so that was 2 days out of each week that were a pain. I’d push it to 2 weeks, but still, 2 days out of 14 days was enough that I never quite trusted the thing.
Then add in that it was yet another thing stuck to my body, and another electronic gizmo that I had to carry around all the time, and overall, it just wasn’t worth it.
I still have it, and might use it again if I start having issues, but the technology has a long way to go.
If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of insulin? Most of the ones I can think of are either cheaper than that or more expensive than that.
Maybe they meant “We buy diabetic test strippers.”
Reported.
(bolding mine)
No.
They buy unused strips.