Diabetes At Work: Your Rights And Benefits

Diabetes at Work: Your Rights and Benefits

By Isabel Chin, Lynn Kennedy, and Jeemin Kwon
Breaking down employer-based health insurance, employee health benefits, and employee rights for people with diabetes
The most common type of health insurance coverage in the US is employer-based insurance, covering almost 50% of all Americans in 2015. Despite its prominence, employer-based health insurance can be challenging to navigate, and living with diabetes makes the process of understanding and accessing employee health benefits like insurance all the more critical. This guide breaks down employer-based insurance, employee health benefits, and the rights of people with diabetes in the workplace.
We hope this guide helps you better understand employer-based insurance, maximize your health through work benefits, and know and protect your workplace rights as a person with diabetes.
In this article, you can read about (click a particular section to jump right to it!):
What to do to maintain employer-based health insurance after a major life event like losing a job
Employer-Based Health Insurance: The Basics
Currently, all US employers with over 50 full-time employees are required to provide health insurance that meets certain standards of affordability otherwise they face a fine. While small businesses are not required to offer health insurance to their employees, many companies will so they can take advantage of tax credits.
It is important to understand what coverage and health benefits your employer offers in order to choose the right insurance plan for you. Job-based health plans are required to provide a “Summary of Be Continue reading

Rate this article

Total 1 ratings

Top 5 natural substances that could cure type 1 diabetes

(NaturalNews) While type 1 diabetes is not as common as type 2 diabetes, it can be just as devastating. Unlike type 2, which is largely caused by weight gain, poor nutrition, lack of exercise and other controllable risk factors, type 1 diabetes is considered to be an autoimmune disorder and a person is born with it. The beta cells in the pancreas of a type 1 diabetic are not able to manufacture the insulin to control blood sugars in the body. As a result, blood sugars can get dangerously high or low - and quickly. Traditionally, type 1 diabetes is controlled with a combination of insulin injections or an insulin pump as well as careful counting of carbohydrates in regards to activity levels. However, this can be an extremely difficult way to live, especially for children. There, are, however, natural substances which have the potential to treat this condition. Read on to find out more.
Arginine
Arginine is an amino acid and is available in most health food stores as a nutritional supplement. In a 2007 study, it was found that regular use of arginine in laboratory animals was able to stimulate the pancreas to produce beta cells, the special kind of pancreatic cells which produce insulin.
Goldenseal
Goldenseal is an herb with a long history of medicinal use both in the East and the West. Modern science believes that part of its value as a treatment lies in the fact that it contains berberine, a bioactive compound. Berberine has been shown in studies on laboratory animals to, like arginine, stimulate the production of the pancreatic beta cells which the body needs to make insu Continue reading

Diabetes At Work: The Patient’s Rights and Benefits

A person cannot be denied health care coverage and benefits because they have diabetes prior to employment.
In the U.S., most people who are employed have health insurance coverage provided by their employer directly from their own job or through family members such as a spouse or parent. However, not all employers offer health insurance to their employees. Small companies are not required to provide insurance to their employees but medium size and large companies that have 50 or more full-time employees must provide their employees with affordable health care coverage, failure of which will attract heavy fines. Health insurance plans offered by the employer involve both employer and employee premium contributions with the employee’s contribution being paid on a pre-tax basis.
Understanding insurance is challenging but also very crucial especially for people living with diabetes. Companies offer different options of healthcare coverage plans and are required to provide a summary of benefits and coverage (SBC). This summary lists information on coverage and costs such as deductibles, out-of-pocket limits, co-pays, and co-insurance. Health insurance providers are required to give their employees an SBC during their first enrollment and at the beginning of each plan year, but employees can request an SBC from their provider at any time from which they have seven days to provide it.
Although an SBC is useful, it does not show if specific products are covered. However, one can always call the health insurance helpline to determine which medications and devices are covered by s Continue reading

Improving my Sleep with a Glucose Monitor

Do bad glucose levels lead to bad sleep?
Does a bad night sleep impact blood glucose levels the next day?
At the recent Quantified Self Amsterdam conference, we had a workshop on metabolism and sleep. During the workshop, we got a chance to meet and talk with type 1 diabetic patients who have been using continuous glucose monitors for years — and know deeply how sleep and glucose levels are related.
It turns out there’s so much more to glucose than just what we eat — sleep is a fundamental part of the equation.
Measuring Sleep
I’ve measured my sleep with the Fitbit and the emFit for the last year. Both are great — giving insights into sleep, and giving a history of times slept/how well we slept over time.
While the Fitbit is great for starting out looking into sleep, the emFit is a prosumer device, giving more detail with minute-by-minute heart rate, Heart Rate Variability (how well rested the body is — see below section for more) and breathing patterns. The emFit is even used for medical research and for managing chronic diseases like epilepsy.
Does Blood Glucose Impact Sleep
Some of the worst nights sleep I’ve had is when my glucose levels have gone too low during the night (hypoglycaemia), cause by very low carb evening meals.
I’m restless. I’m cold. I wake up with a headache and feeling groggy the next morning.
When blood sugar goes too low, the liver will release new glucose, but it looks like this only happens when I’m awake. In above, the levels only went back up when I woke up.
This looks like what’s called ‘rebound hyperglycemia’.
We talke Continue reading

Influence of uncontrolled diabetes mellitus on periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement: a systematic review of animal studies

Abstract
Diabetes mellitus (DM) may adversely affect periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement (OTM). The aim of this review is to systematically analyze and review animal studies investigating the effect of DM on periodontal tissues during OTM. An electronic search was conducted via PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CONTROL) using the keywords “diabetes,” “orthodontics,” and “tooth movement” for studies published between January 2000 and August 2016. After elimination of duplicate items, the primary search resulted in 89 articles. After exclusion of irrelevant articles on the basis of abstract and title, full texts of 25 articles were read to exclude additional irrelevant studies. Seven animal studies were included in this review for qualitative analysis. When compared to healthy animals, more bone resorption and diminished bone remodeling were observed in diabetic animals in all studies. Furthermore, DM decreased the rate of OTM in one study, but in another study, DM accelerated OTM. DM may adversely affect bone remodeling and tooth movement during application of orthodontic forces. However, a number of potential sources of bias and deficiencies in methodology are present in studies investigating the association between OTM and DM. Hence, more long-term and well-designed studies are required before the exact mechanism and impact of DM on outcomes of orthodontic treatment is understood.
Review
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease which is characterized by an impai Continue reading