Tag: tips

4 Tips on Navigating a New Job and New Health Insurance

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This blog post was originally published on Hugging the Cactus on August 4, 2021. I’m sharing it again today because I’m starting a new job! I’m thrilled about this new opportunity and as I was planning to make the switch to a new healthcare plan, I found my own advice to be pretty helpful. Read on for all 4 of my tips…

Hi, my name is Molly and I have type 1 diabetes, and although I am extremely grateful for health insurance, I also hate every aspect of it.

When I aged out of my parents’ health insurance plan two years ago, I was completely lost and overwhelmed by choosing my new plan. How much would I have to pay for my supplies? Would everything be covered? Could I keep my doctors? How much money should I put into my FSA? The answers to these questions took me a good chunk of time to figure out, and I only started feeling good about my knowledge of my old job’s health insurance plan in the last year or so.

As a result, the only thing that made me less excited to start my new job was the burden of having to figure out a new health insurance plan. And for good reason, it turns out, because it has been a challenge to say the least. But there are a handful of things I’ve learned along the way that I don’t think I’ll ever forget so that I can have an better experience the next time I need to change health plans. Here are my tips for making the transition from one health insurance plan to another as easy as possible:

1. Take stock of ALL my supplies before starting the new job (and before losing my old job’s health coverage). This was, without a doubt, the best thing I could’ve done for myself before I started my new job. In my last few weeks with my former company, I looked through all of my diabetes supplies and inventoried them. I kept a running list of the most important items (things like insulin, Dexcom sensors/transmitters, and pods) and decided that even if I had plenty of those things, I would still place an order for them before losing my health insurance. This ended up being a fantastic idea because it took me a solid couple of weeks at my new job to figure out which health plan would work best for me, and in that span of time, my supply stash was dwindling. On top of that, it took several more weeks for me to get all my prescriptions straightened away (more on that in tip 3), so I was especially grateful that I had seriously stocked up before leaving my old job.

2. Compare plans extensively. Like I mentioned above, I spent a couple weeks reading through my plan options before I finally settled on one. It took me so long because I wanted to feel 100% comfortable with my new plan, and I knew that I had a 4-week period to complete my research before committing to a new plan. Plus, my new job uses a website that offers a health insurance plan comparison tool (a super cute one, to boot, that explains all things insurance in layman’s terms) that I was happy to take advantage of during the decision-making process.

3. Send as many messages and make as many phone calls as it takes until everything about the new plan is crystal clear. For me, this including calling my local pharmacy and sending toooons of online messages to my doctor’s office, as well as my new health insurance provider. I honestly felt like I was playing a game of telephone – you know, that game that kids play where they have to whisper a message into each other’s ears as a test of listening and communicating effectively – because it seemed that nobody would take accountability for sending my prescriptions to the right place or understanding exactly how I needed help. So in the last few weeks of July (leading into the first few weeks of August, really, ‘cuz I’m still working on this), I made a vow to myself that I’d get to the bottom of everything and get my prescriptions fully straightened away. I’m happy to report I’ve made substantial progress, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t require a lot of my spare time and energy.

4. Talk to coworkers and ask for their feedback on plans. This might be unique to me because I work for a diabetes organization and my colleagues have an intimate knowledge of health insurance hurdles combined with a chronic illness, but even so, I remember asking coworkers at my previous job about their thoughts on the health insurance offerings and I got some solid feedback from that. So that’s why I decided to ask around at the new job, and of course I was met with helpful replies that made my transition a little smoother.

The biggest lesson I learned throughout this process? I realized I need to give myself a little grace. This stuff isn’t intuitive to anyone (unless you’re some sort of health insurance guru). I shouldn’t beat myself up because the system is more complicated than it needs to be. And bottom line is that I need to focus on the fact that I have choice when it comes to health insurance, period, because I know that there are too many people out there who can’t say the same.

So I guess in a way I am glad for the challenges presented to me by my health coverage.

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3 Tips for Maintaining Good Blood Sugars on Vacation

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As promised in my last blog post, I’m going to share how I kept my blood sugars (mostly) in range while I was on my trip to California a few weeks ago!

I’m not going to lie and say it was easy; in fact, I had a couple of not-so-fun nights where I was stacking insulin like crazy due to some post-dinner highs. But the vast majority of the time, I was really proud of my diabetes management when I was away. It can be tough to take good care of diabetes when in a new place and thrown off schedule, but it can be done, and these are the three biggest tips that I used that were most helpful to me:

Pro tip – Going on long scenic hikes where you can take in views like the one above AFTER eating a huge breakfast is an amazing way to keep blood sugar in range.
  1. Split meals with travel partner(s). I don’t know about you, but when I’m on vacation, any self-control as well as the idea of eating super healthy/clean goes out the window. I want to indulge when I’m in a new place! I want to try new foods and enjoy them rather than stress over how they might impact my blood sugar levels. So I was thrilled when my partner suggested we split any meals that we ate out at restaurants. We figured this was a smart strategy because most restaurants serve ridiculous portions of food anyways, and this also meant that I could order a carb-heavy item from the menu and automatically split the carb count in half because I was sharing the dish. This worked out so well and I got to eat foods that I normally don’t dare to touch, such as a fisherman’s platter (consisting of 3 different kinds of fried seafood) and garlic french fries (these were beyond incredible).
  2. Stay as active as possible. This is kind of a no-brainer – most vacations that I’ve ever gone on have involved lots of walking in order to sightsee and get from point A to point B. But it’s worth mentioning that getting in any other types of activity in addition to walking can reap benefits on blood sugar. For example, I started off one morning with a 25-minute yoga practice soon after I ate a heavy breakfast and my blood sugar levels were stellar for hours. On the night of the wedding that we flew out there for, I balanced sampling every dessert at the reception with hitting the dance floor, which worked wonders for my blood sugars. And generally speaking, I found that sneaking in at least 15 minutes or so of extra exercise after meals was a great way to keep my blood sugars in check, even if it was just walking around the block for a bit.
  3. Keep a consistent eating schedule. Traveling can make it difficult to maintain a regular meal schedule, but with a little extra effort it can be done. Within hours of landing in California, we made a trip to Target to stock up on a bunch of extra snacks and drinks so that we would always have something within reach, whether my blood sugar was going low or one of us just needed an extra energy boost. We also made sure to take advantage of complimentary breakfast provided by the hotel we stayed at for the first couple of nights – the fact that they stopped serving it at 10 A.M. automatically put us on some type of schedule. And on the day of our friends’ wedding, we ordered pizza and timed it so that we’d have it about an hour before we were due to leave for the ceremony…because as anyone who’s ever been to a wedding before knows, guests sometimes have to wait a looooong time before they’re served food. I didn’t want either of us to have an empty stomach for potentially hours on end, so ordering food before the wedding pulled double-duty as a late lunch and as something that would keep our bellies full until we were served dinner at the reception.

But what made it the easiest to take care of my diabetes while on vacation was the support from my partner, who always put me and my blood sugars first and checked in on me frequently (but without being overbearing). That alone goes a long way in making diabetes management a breeze when my normal routine is disrupted, but when combined with all the tips above, it’s practically like taking a vacation from diabetes itself.

3 Tips For Anyone Turning 26 with Diabetes (and Switching Health Care Plans)

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Do you have diabetes and will turn 26 in the near future? Will you be forced to switch from your parents’ health insurance to your own plan? If the answer to both of those questions is “yes”, then you’ll definitely want to take a minute to read my tips on how to make the transition as smoothly as possible. And even if you answered “no”, you still might find this to be a worthwhile read because chances are, either you or someone you know will have to go through this process, whether or not you/they have diabetes.

Here are the three most valuable tips I have for anyone who just turned, or is about to turn, 26 years old and is concerned about switching health care plans:

HUGGING THE CACTUS - A T1D BLOG
I figured out these tips the hard way. Save yourself a lot of frustration and time by following them A.S.A.P.

Tip #1: Ask your doctor for copies of all of your prescriptions. Do this well before your actual birthday. That’s what I did, anyways – I had a scheduled appointment with my endocrinologist at the end of April. That’s when I requested a copy of every single prescription she’s ever written for me, including for medications that I don’t really use anymore (e.g., Lantus, the long-acting insulin I used prior to my insulin pump). Then, I made multiple copies of these prescriptions, taking care to separate the originals from the copies. This tip really came from my mother, who told me that having the prescriptions now would save me trouble later. And she was right: When I did send in my Humalog prescription to Express Scripts, I did so with more confidence because I didn’t have to scramble to request it from my doctor.

Tip #2: Start the process of reordering supplies as soon as possible. Even if it means starting to reorder things on your actual birthday…do it. I’d say this is especially important if you’re running low on supplies. It took me nearly two months to start receiving stuff. Part of this was my fault because I procrastinated, and was also at an advantage because my mother took the time to order me plenty of extra supplies before I made the switch. But it was also the fault of the companies I was ordering from, who, for various reasons, didn’t send out my supplies on time or needed a longer period of time to review my orders before shipping them out. I’m lucky that I can say that I was never truly worried that I was going to run out of supplies, but the thought did cross my mind a few times, and it was unpleasant. So save yourself from aggravation and just get the ball rolling as soon as you can.

Tip #3: Keep records of everything. I keep a physical folder that contains receipts, prescriptions, photocopies, notes, and various other documents related to my health. I can’t say for sure what I’ll actually need to keep or throw away in the coming months, but I do know that it’s smart to hold onto this stuff in the beginning. That way, during my company’s next open enrollment period, I’ll be able to make informed decisions regarding things like how much money to put in my flexible spending account (FSA). Plus, any notes that I’ve taken during phone calls have already proved immensely helpful as I’ve needed to track down specific customer service representatives in order to take care of issues that have come up. It can be a little cumbersome to remember to keep all these papers, but I know it’s the right thing to do and that there’s no way that I’ll regret it.

BONUS Tip #4: Advocate for yourself until you get what you need. At first, I felt extremely awkward for calling Dexcom and Insulet every single day for a week. But then I realized that I shouldn’t. They weren’t going to make sure that I had my supplies: I had to depend on myself to do that. I also felt a bit stupid asking just about every customer service representative that I spoke to how everything works, but I eventually got over that, too, because it’s vital to understand this stuff, even when it seems extraordinarily complicated. So I’d tell anyone who’s going through this process, or who is about to go through it, to keep up the hustle. Don’t ever feel shame for asking too many questions or calling too many times; when it comes to all this, the limit doesn’t exist. Ask others for help when you need it (I spoke with all sorts of people in the DOC about my issues, and goodness knows that my mother provided me with all sorts of advice and support throughout this) and, with their assistance and a little determination on your part, you’ll get through this tiresome transition.