Insurance
Medicare Covers Weekly Home Testing
Friday, May 20, 2005
PTINR.com Staff
Do want to improve your safety margin on warfarin? Medicare has stepped up and is covering weekly home testing to increase time in target range.
Welcome to this Special Edition to PTINR.com. We will be providing you three articles in support of Medicare's coverage policy for weekly home testing.
May is Stroke Awareness month and PTINR.com is bringing you an opportunity to take advantage of a Medicare program that will cover the cost of a home INR monitor and provide 80% of your costs for training and testing supplies.
Many patients on warfarin have the same questions when they begin warfarin (Coumadin ®):
• How can I stay safe and not have any problems with bleeding?
• How will I know if my warfarin is where it needs to be?
• How will I know if my diet is affecting my warfarin?
If you've ever asked yourself any one of these questions then weekly testing might be for you. A proven way for patients to improve control of their warfarin is to test weekly and maintain a close relationship with your physician.
Medicare will cover 100% of your monitor costs and 80% of your testing supplies and training costs.
Testing is simple. Training is available through your doctor's office or by QAS, the company that distributes your supplies. INR test results are simply phoned in.
Check back with us soon when we answer the question, “is weekly testing necessary?”