will send it to someone in need 100% free anywhere in the world.
That is so very kind of you to offer that!
I'll share my experience that hopefully sheds some light on why I believe it is important to not only self check, but best to own your own meter than to borrow it from your insurance company.
As many here know, upon release from the hospital I was put on amiodarone, which caused my INR to shoot from 3.1 to 9.7 in 3 days following my release.
How this happened.
I was supposed to be tested 2 days after my release, but was dependent on a blood draw from a home visit 3rd party nurse, who ended up being truly incompetent- did not draw enough blood on said day and Quest rejected the sample when he turned it over later in the day. So now, on day 3 after release he comes again, and this time could not get more than a drop of blood- for some reason he was trying to draw it from the backside of my hand. The Coumadin Clinic says not to worry, and, as I had been so stable in the hospital, it was ok if we wait a few days before I get tested at Quest. I did not feel ok with this, and asked them to send the lab order in that day. They sent the order to Quest and even though I was not supposed to drive yet, drove myself down to get blood drawn. Glad I did INR= 9.7. I document my wild ride here beginning midway down on this page and in the couple pages that follow. You will note that I indicate my INR was 9.6 in the thread, not 9.7. Not a typo- the clinic verbally told me 9.6, but the lab reported actually indicated 9.7 FWIW.
https://www.valvereplacement.org/th...re-and-need-to-make-a-decision.887879/page-15
So, my wild week was 3.1 to 9.7; down to 1.6 with vitamin K, then two days later at 5.0 and in range a few days later.
Pellicle steered me towards an auction on Ebay and I was able to buy my own lightly used meter in the midst of all this for $220, which is actually a very good value. The meter arrived soon, and I was able to take control of my testing and with guidance from Pellicle was soon in range.
Here are the advantages of having my own meter:
1. First, if I had it sooner, I would have tested right out of the hospital and would have been alerted to the amiodarone driven INR spike sooner, well before it hit 9.7 and could have probably started correcting the ship before it reached the level at which I had to take vitamin k.
2. It was a pain going to the lab daily, even twice daily at one point, and to have control over when I tested.
3. Once vitamin K overcorrected my INR down to 1.6, the next day was Sunday, the clinic agreed with me that it would have been ideal if I had my home testing device to see if vitamin K was still pushing it down, so that this info could be incorporated into warfarin dosing for Sunday. If I had my own device, I could test any day, even if the lab is closed.
Here is another reason why I believe it is important to buy and own your own device rather than wait several months for your insurance company to approve to let you borrow one that they own:
So, here I was testing and staying in range for the previous 6 weeks, now 8 weeks out of surgery and self dosing my warfarin. The Coumadin Clinic has me call them weekly with my INR results and each time tells me: "Good job, keep doing the same." Then, I start checking the Explanation of Benefits reports from my insurance provider and discover that each time I call the clinic to give them my results, they were billing my insurance $ 500. The insurance paid it and I felt none of the financial impact, as I was way beyond my deductible. But, I feel this is over billing in the extreme. My insurance provider is a small cost sharing group, not a billion dollar company, and if I am being over billed, this hurts other members ultimately by resulting in higher premiums. Regardless, I feel it is morally wrong to allow for this type of over billing to occur. So, I cut the clinic off and stopped calling them with my results.
Four weeks pass and I get a call from the C. Clinic. I was honest with them and told them that I could no longer give them my results in good conscience, now that I know that they charge my cost sharing group $500 each time I do. Here it comes:
Coumadin Clinic assistant: "If you don't keep giving us the results, we are obligated to inform your insurance company and they will take back your home testing device."
Me: "They can do no such thing because they don't own it. I do."
So, if you own your own device, you will not need to yield to any threat from anyone, the Coumadin Clinic, or your insurance carrier, that they will take it away from you.
I get why some people don't want to come out of pocket and are willing to wait months to have it approved by their insurance. In my view, it was well worth the $ 220 to take control of my testing and INR right away. $ 220 was an excellent value to have this control. But, a device for $10? That is the deal of the century.
So good of you to pay it forward and give such a gift to someone who can't afford to buy their own! Well done sir!
