What should you pay attention to when you switch?
Usually, diabetic patients use medication and aids. It is of course very nice if these are reimbursed by your health insurer. In addition, some insurers view diabetes as an increased risk and may therefore limit or exclude you from certain coverages.
Your pancreas produces insulin. This hormone activates your body cells so that they can absorb the fuel glucose from your diet. If you diabetes you make too little or no insulin or your cells are less sensitive to insulin. As a result, the glucose does not enter the cells, so that the body receives too little energy and the glucose level in the blood is too high.
There are different forms of diabetes. The best known are type 1 and type 2. The Netherlands has an estimated 1 million people with diabetes, of whom about 85-90 percent have diabetes type 2 diabetes struggles.
Therapy
Diabetes will not go away. Fortunately, you can treat the symptoms well with diet or medication, depending on the type and severity of the disease. Type 1 diabetes is treated with insulin. You can also influence the amount of glucose in your blood by watching the amount of glucose in your blood and exercising regularly. By regularly measuring blood glucose, you can find out when your blood glucose rises or fall and you can respond accordingly.
In type 2 diabetes, usually only blood glucose lowering taking medicines. In addition, losing weight is an important point of attention in type 2 diabetes: if you lose weight, you sometimes no longer need to use medication.
Choose health insurance
Health insurers are obliged to accept everyone for basic insurance. An insurer may refuse you for supplementary insurance. Many insurers view diabetes as an increased risk, so they sometimes restrict or exclude you from certain coverages. So do not cancel your current insurance until you are sure that the new insurer will accept you.
Insulin users their medical aids are almost always reimbursed by the health insurer, such as the test strips, lancets, insulin needles and, when using an insulin pump, the insulin pump supplies. The number of test strips that are reimbursed varies per insurer. Only a few insurers reimburse sufficient test strips to people with intensive insulin treatment. Non-insulin users have to pay for their devices (for the most part) themselves. In addition, there are aids that are not reimbursed for both groups, such as skin care products, cooling bags and alcohol wipes.
Before you switch, always check with your health insurer whether the care, aids or therapy you need is actually reimbursed. The Diabetes Association Netherlands (DVN) concludes collective contracts with various insurers. You will be accepted as a DVN member without a medical examination at these insurers, including for additional health insurance policies. The group health insurance policies of DVN also offer premium discounts and additional reimbursements for people with diabetes, such as test strips, courses and reimbursement of the membership.
Sources):