As I was watching my twitter feed today, I noticed several tweets from people I follow using the #ppdchat hashtag.  This tag is used for postpartum depression, and while I am certainly no stranger to depression, I am definitely out of my league with that particular type.

One particular tweet caught my eye, tho.

@unxpctdblessing RT @MinnesotaJoY: Help is just a tweet away. Just use hashtag #ppdchat & the entire #PPD Army is here for u. You are NOT ALONE. #abcDrBchat

In the DOC, we use those words all the time, but this amazing support group has taken it a step further: using their #ppdchat as a signal that someone needs some help right then, right now.

As I started to realize what that really meant, it occurred to me that the DOC doesn’t really have such a mechanism in place.  We have #diabetes which we use to talk to spammers, #dblog when we write a blog post about something,  and #dsma when we see an advocacy or social media angle on something.

But when we’re just looking for a little support, we DOC members tend to just throw it out there and hope that some one will reply.  There’s usually enough tweeps around for us to at least get someone asking what’s up, but sometimes not.

I think we should take a lesson from the brave folks over at #ppdchat and start using #dchat when we just need a little help from our friends.  I think I will.

As I was perusing things health related, I came across the US Department of Labor’s webpage on The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  As I was looking things over, the Uniform Glossary of Coverage and Medical Terms caught my eye.  Glossaries can be interesting things so I looked a little closer and the the definition of Durable Medical Equipment (DME) coverage caught my eye.  It reads (italics mine)

Durable Medical Equipment (DME)
Equipment and supplies ordered by a health care provider for everyday or extended use. Coverage for DME may include: oxygen equipment, wheelchairs, crutches or blood testing strips for diabetics.

Now documents like these tend to become statute (i.e. Law of the Land), so seeing test strips in there really concerns me.  Plans that I am aware of all have test strips as prescription items.  And honestly, I always found that odd as they seem to fall more into the category of medical supplies.  Medical supplies, by the way, are subject to the maximum out of pocket expenses limit of my plan, where there is no maximum for prescription items.  So there is a way that insurance has leveraged test strips to cost me more.

Personally, my DME coverage is limited to 3,000USD per year, where my prescription coverage is not.  That is an absolute limit, my maximum out of pocket does not apply to DME items.  Looking at things, it appears I would bear the full cost of test strips around the end of summer.  Unless of course, I need a new pump or CGMS which would cause that date to arrive much earlier in the year.

Combine this with the fact that flexible spending accounts are being limited to 2,500USD in 2013, I am not only looking at an huge additional cost burden but also an additional tax burden.

There are several things in Obamacare that I think are needed, such as no pre-existing condition exclusions, but there are even more, such as this one, that concern me greatly.

What the hell else is in here that people haven’t noticed yet?

©2011 Scott Strange, Strangely Diabetic and http://StrangelyDiabetic.com