{"id":296100,"date":"2026-09-29T10:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T10:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/296100\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T10:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T10:20:08","slug":"pennsylvania-doctors-expand-access-to-diabetes-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/296100\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania doctors expand access to diabetes treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Primary care clinicians take on diabetes care and treatment tools<\/p>\n

Personal CGMs for diabetes management came to market in the early 2000s and primarily targeted people with Type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune condition. The monitors also became available to people with Type 2 diabetes<\/a> who took insulin.\n<\/p>\n

In 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first<\/a> over-the-counter CGM, which made the devices more widely available to people with Type 2 diabetes who didn\u2019t take insulin, but were still managing the chronic disease.\n<\/p>\n

However, it hasn\u2019t always been easy to get a CGM. Patients would often have to take extra steps to find an endocrinologist who could evaluate and set them up with a device. There\u2019s also a financial barrier. National data shows that it could cost someone as much as several hundred dollars<\/a> a month out-of-pocket for a monitor, which needs to be changed about every other week.\n<\/p>\n

Many health insurers will now cover the devices, but priority is on patients who take insulin. Coverage for non-insulin Type 2 diabetes treatment is still inconsistent and varies greatly.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Meyer says there are a lot of efforts to expand access to these monitors where patients can easily get them and afford them, like at their local primary care practices.\n <\/p>\n

Meyer and her colleagues see a lot of patients with prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes. Some don\u2019t even know they have the chronic disease until they make their first health appointment.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients just don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re not feeling well, [not] losing weight, peeing a lot, you should probably see your doctor and talk about that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Meyer guides patients through the core approaches to treatment: healthy eating and nutrition, exercise, and weight loss, when necessary.\n<\/p>\n

When she introduces patients to CGMs, she explains how they can use them to figure out what exactly is causing their blood sugar to fluctuate \u2014 and how to act on it.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to give diabetic patients very general advice, like \u2018eat less carbs, eat more protein, avoid refined sugars.\u2019 All very common-sense things that are still true today,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cBut what we\u2019ve learned with CGMs is, not all carbs are the same for every patient.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

For example, she has some patients who, if they eat a bagel, their blood sugar will spike to over 400 milligrams, which is considered very high. The target blood sugar level for Type 2 diabetes after eating<\/a> is 180 milligrams or lower.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if they eat a bowl of ice cream, it\u2019s a little high, but it\u2019s not bad,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so teaching patients to look at their readings and make choices, very specific choices, as opposed to all-or-nothing choices is great.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

CGMs are a tool that has made diabetes care more personalized, Meyer said. The real-time data can help patients feel more confident in their lifestyle changes.\n<\/p>\n

The monitors can also ease some anxiety and stress a patient might feel if they still need insulin or another medication, including a GLP-1 drug, to manage their chronic disease.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, diabetes just has a mind of its own,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cWe see you\u2019re doing everything right, but look at what your CGM is showing us, it\u2019s time for medication. And that also helps patients really come to acceptance.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Her health care team in Exton tries to help patients navigate the financial barriers in getting a CGM, and investigates what patients are entitled to through their insurance, she said.\n<\/p>\n

They also try to help people save money in other areas of treatment.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t cost anything to learn how to cook a meal, right?\u201d Meyer said. \u201cSo, education is free. We really try to utilize that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Meyer\u2019s practice recently started a new treatment approach for a small group of people with uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes. They\u2019re working with a company called LifeChef Health to provide patients with nutritiously tailored meals, as well as dietician support and CGMs.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re trying to figure out, is it really just medication that works? Is it medication and CGM? Is it the meals?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n

And what they\u2019re learning, she said, is that the best strategy to successfully treat prediabetes and diabetes includes all of the above.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt underscores the point that diabetes care has to include multiple modalities,\u201d she said. \u201cOf course, sometimes medicine, but we are really underutilizing things like nutrition care and CGMs.\u201d
\n\"PrimaryPrimary care providers say continuous glucose monitors could help patients with type 2 diabetes better manage the chronic disease, whether they use insulin medication on or not. (Nicole Leonard\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Primary care clinicians take on diabetes care and treatment tools Personal CGMs for diabetes management came to market…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[36444,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-296100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-diabetes","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}