Kalee went above and beyond for one of our diabetes families today. She was on patient education and was meeting with a family who struggled with health literacy. There is also a language barrier with this family, which can tend to make education more challenging.

This patient had really struggled with diabetes management in the past, but was recently transitioned to insulin pump therapy and is showing MUCH success. The family mentioned to Kalee that they liked the insulin pump, but that they were unable to get more supplies for the pump because their DME company told them there was a problem with their insurance. The family was told to follow up on this and never did.

Kalee was patient and kind, recognizing that this family needed a lot more help getting their diabetes supplies than we knew about. She proceeded to spend the next three hours helping this patient call their insurance company, pharmacy, and DME company to make sure she understood what was needed from the family to continue to get diabetes supplies. She also helped the family understand the basics of their insurance.

After talking with the insurance company, she also discovered that the family needed to reapply for their insurance plan, or else they would no longer be covered after the end of the month. She worked with our social worker to get the application in Spanish, and she gave them information on whom to contact with questions and concerns.

Kalee took the time to make sure this family had everything they needed to be successful in their diabetes journey. She was kind and understanding and never complained about needing to do all these extra steps. Diabetes is complex, and there are a lot of moving parts. Kalee recognized that this family needed a lot of help and made sure she gave them everything they needed to be successful.

We are so grateful for her and her willingness to go above and beyond for a family in need of assistance. Because of Kalee, this family understood their insurance more. They were able to get the application to reapply for insurance, and they also understood the steps they needed to take to continue to get coverage.

This is important because without insurance, this family will be unable to afford pump supplies, and the patient would have to go back to insulin injections. This would most likely cause the patient to decline in their diabetes self-management again, as he had shown in the past that he did not have great glucose control on injections alone.