Important End-of-Year Tasks for People With Diabetes

As the end of the year quickly approaches, there are certain important tasks for people with diabetes and other preexisting conditions to do before the new year begins. Healthcare and health insurance can be tricky to navigate, so these tasks can help you stay on track.

A quick checklist of important tasks

This is your friendly reminder to add the following tasks to your checklist before the end of the year!

1. Check your health insurance coverage

Make sure that you have completed all of the necessary paperwork that goes along with your health plan. Open Enrollment begins on November 1, 2021.

2. Refill your prescriptions

Refill all of your prescriptions, diabetes and otherwise. And if you can get can your doctor(s) to approve and fill your thirty-day prescriptions to ninety-day prescriptions, DO IT. This will help lighten the sticker shock of January co-pays.

3. Make your appointments

Squeeze as many end-of-year doctors appointments as possible, and not only your diabetes doctor but your other specialists too. Some good appointments to make are for the gynecologist, podiatrist, cardiologist, or ophthalmologist. The same goes for regular mammograms, stress tests, eye exams, etc.

4. Look into orthotics

Many insurance companies (as well as Medicaid and Medicare), cover or partially cover, one pair of customized orthotics per year for people with diabetes. If your health plan covers customized orthotics, get a pair, ASAP. And ABSOLUTELY follow the directions for breaking in your orthotics properly.

5. Schedule physical therapy

If you have any physical concerns that would benefit from physical therapy and have these visits available to you via your health insurance coverage, use them. Those visits may not roll over in January.

6. Review your Flexible Spending Account balance

If you have a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) set up through your employer, use the remaining funds in the account before the end of the year. An FSA is an account that you put money into that you use to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses like prescriptions, co-pays, and glasses.

Generally, the funds in the FSA must be used within the plan year. But your employer may offer different options, so double-check your plan guidelines to make sure you are using the funds you saved!

7. Organize your receipts

Start organizing your receipts if you haven’t already, and make sure that any online receipts are included with your hard copy receipts.

What other tasks do you typically plan to do at the end of each year?