22 months ago

stephiegirl1968 • 30

@stephiegirl1968

I am close to buying an at home tonometer. My doctor is on board now. However, I was reading a pdf geared towards doctors and practices about how to bill for long term at home tonometry. Here: https://www.corcoranccg.com/digital_files/monographs/Icare%20Home%20Tonometer_090119.pdf I do NOT want my doctor billing my insurance. I am the one who is pursuing this, I have been in the dark about my pressures except for when I am at the office. I have lost vision despite the care of monitoring every 3 months, drops, SLT. It was my idea to explore getting my own tonometer, finding fiteyes was based on me googling about at buying ahome tonometer! I am really happy to have found this group and discover, that yes, people do buy them. I am going to be paying a lot of money for the device. The results I get will tell me (and I can relay the results) and will help the doctor with my case, but to be honest, it would be like a doctor billing for a patient taking blood pressure readings at home. And, if the doctor bills my insurance, due to the type of medical plan I have - high deductible - it will be an added cost out of pocket cost for me.

If there is chance that I will be billed (even if this is in future type of thing- like, doctors start getting wind of how to maximize profits) I won't be purchasing, or I will try to find a way to get hands on one without sending results to my doctor.

Does anyone have any insight into this?

Thanks!

Steph

23 months ago

John M • 10

@john_m

Hi Steph, My wife had glaucoma and she purchased an iCare 1 Home tonometer. She found it very useful to monitor her own pressure and not rely on going every 3 months to the MD's for a pressure test. Also she discovered how the eye pressure changed during the day and was able to get a much better picture of her eye pressure instead of once every 3 months. The iCare unit is easy to use once you get the hang of it and it will download the results to your own computer. It does not need to connect on-line to your MD and you can just print out your readings and take to the MD. Fiteyes also has additional software available for the iCare - I think. You can look up iCare home tonometer on line and in fiteyes. I am contacting you as my wife has passed away and I wish to sell this iCare Tonometer. If you wish to follow up with me then please contact me by email: mckie.john@gmail.com I am in New Zealand but will be travelling to the USA in March and can bring the unit with me. I can also send you a photo of it. I am planning to sell it for around $1200 which is a big discount to a new unit. John McKie

22 months ago

Daywalker • 240

@_245

Rest assured you will not be billed for long term monitoring of your IOP at home. As a matter of fact, if you purchase a home tonometer like the Icare Home 2 (highly recommend you purchase or rent through Enlivened) you have the option of creating an account (your own account) and when you transfer your IOP measurements from the ICare device to the cloud it will go to your account. Only you will have access to see the data. You do NOT have to get your doctor or insurance involved. Perhaps during your visits with your glaucoma specialist you can take a printout of your data and show them, but otherwise the device is purchased by YOU to be used by YOU and only YOU see YOUR data. The only time your doctor is involved is to write you a prescription to get the device and then if you choose to share your data with your doctor during a visit.

Many, many FitEyes members have been through this before (purchasing and using a home tonometer) without any one of them or their insurance being billed. You have nothing to worry about.