Medtronic mySentry now available

As much as Iwant this, and think it would be incredibly useful, I am NOT paying that price. How ridiculous, really. I expect a price tag of $300-$600 and was prepared to pay that, but 3k? WTF? Its MORE than a cgms system, almost as much as a pump, and all it is is an over priced fancy baby monitor. This really pisses me off that something so useful is being sold for THAT much. Something that can bring such peace of mind to sleepy parents... We pay enough for over priced items to help out children, maybe MM should have done more research to find out what type of price range parents would be willing to pay for such an item. Cuz this mom ain't forking over 3k for a bedazzled baby monitor with a screen. I'll just use her $600 guardian instead.

 

I wonder if the price will drop quickly as they hear people's reactions, especially if insurance companies refuse to pay for them. I wonder how long they'll be compatible with future Medtronic products, too.

 

I'm dissapointed in how this turned out after all the wait.

• It doesn't work with their CGM (the Guardian)
• The cost is rediculous for a device that any college engineering student could design and prototype in a couple of weeks (all it does is transmit low-speed data one way, for 50 feet)
• It does not let you control the CGM remotely such as silencing an alarm when you know there is IOB and BG is dropping, etc., and all you need to do is silence the alarm. So you still will have to get up and go to the other room and do that manually.

So this is basically a glorified baby monitor, and even if it cost around the same as a good baby monitor, it doesn't work with the Guardian.

 

Darryl, I had also really hoped it would work with their own cgm.
I asked my son and he is not loving the idea of using the pump. I hope that they will make it work for their own gcm system.

The cost is also insane considering that people are still paying month to month for the sensors.
I am assuming they priced it like that because they assume insurance will cover it or like they say in their first paragraph for the thing that parents will do " anything" to take care of their kids at night.... And maybe that means they assume that means they can gouge parents.

The other issue is how long is their warranty of this? Are they going to expect us to fork out 2400-3000 a year if it breaks down like their transmitters? Pumps are 4 years but the transmitters are not, and this is a lot more than a transmitter. I would assume it wouldn't break, but the warranty on this better be 4 full years if they are charging an arm and a leg like this IMO.

 

I'm very excited about this device. Once I get a job, after I graduate, I think I'm in!

 

I agree with you here.. it's sleek, and I know a lot of people have been waiting a LONG time for this, but I really can't fathom how a company can ask that much for something so fundamentally basic.

There is no single component that has gone into this that is so proprietary that it justifies the cost.

I would think it ludicrously expensive at $500... $2400 with a list price of $3k is just over the top.

You know what, I think you are exactly right... unfortunately.

 

$500 is about what this should cost in order for them to be profitable and make it "worth their while". Anything below that would have to involve modifications to the pump itself and use a secondary device (i.e. phone/pc/etc) to bring the price lower. At $2400+ I can tell you the mark up is off the charts. One of the previous posters mentioned a college engineering student. Think more along the lines of smart high school student with Google and a soldering gun + China connections.

 

Darryl said exactly what I was thinking. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that it doesn't even work with their Guardian. My husband even commented on how anyone with engineering knowledge could have done the same thing for MUCH less cost. Also, you still have to crawl out of bed and silence every alarm.... a real pain when it's something that you don't have to treat or adjust for. I will stick with my $40 fisher price baby monitor. Thank ya very much.

 

Why does it cost so much?

Part of the text from the advertisement bothers me. The "You would do anything..." part of it. It makes me feel like someone may have been thinking do/pay can mean one in the same.:cwds:

http://www.medtronicdiabetes.net/products/mysentry

 

I can't speak to this device directly but if you look at the cost of developing a drug, it can be over half a Billion dollars and up to 12 years from discovery to patient. Just for one drug. Companies can't just eat that cost. It is more complicated than that but in a nutshell that is an example of why that tiny little pill costs 5 dollars per pill.

 

I would agree except for the fact this is not a drug, does not offer two way communication with the pump (which would put it in a different class), and has been in production for years in other markets.

This can/will be offered either by privateers or third party companies at much lower costs in the near future is my prediction.

Now if only someone would release a better CGMS system/method to make the #s worth a damn half the time PLUS a real remote monitoring solution then you'd have a product.

 

I agree, when i read the product description and they stated we would do anything, and I heard about the 3 K price tag, that was my first thought too.

If I was in their marketing department, I would get rid of that wording.

It rubs me wrong that a company is assuming parent will pay 3K for it, because we would do "anything".

Granted ....IF the MM cgm could acutally prevent ( not alarm or make me do the work but truly PREVENT) all lows and highs, I honestly would pay just about anything.

Unfortunately the device they are selling doesnt adjust BG at all, the CGM by its very nature of reading interstitial fluid alone... cant and doesnt catch all lows or highs and needs to be calibrated very well to be remotely accurate.

I am not trying to put down the CGM, I am saying, if 3 K would prevent all highs and lows, parents probably would pay that, but this isnt going to do that.
parents will still be making insulin adjustments on a pump in a pump pack at 2 am and kids will still have to be fed in the middle of the night for lows and given insulin and BG checks in the middle of the night for highs.

This monitor, wont do ANYTHING other than help a parent hear the alarm of the CGM better and give data that is already on a pump. I wouldnt pay ANYTHING for data I already have to get out of bed to make adjustment for and to silence alarms that are in the other room.

I would not have phrased their product that way... it rubbed me wrong, and still does.

 

I'm confused by the release of this product. I do have some ignorance when it comes to the product lifecycle of medical equipment. This could be the sweetest tool but does seems to fall short in some areas (ie 50 feet, $3000). Do you think this is more like they needed to get this project closed/released, to grab first-to-market, and get this part past the FDA to bring out the really, super cool product next year or so? I hope. Or this was the vision 8 years ago and it just took so long to get over the hurdles that now it is painfully behind the times. Maybe my expectations are too high for communication capabilities for medical equipment. ??

 

I understand recouping costs from R&D and making a profit. But, they appear to already have similar technology in the Guardian and that costs $600 OOP.

I would like MM to justify this $3000 price tag.

Price gouging?
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellne...ixed-reactions/story?id=14852829#.TwX7b9Qba8A

 

Let's say our insurance approved the revel and the sentry, but we wanted to continue to the Omnipod. Do you think that we could use the revel as a CGM only with this device?

 

Yes, you could use Revel only as CGM ... Maddie did for a couple of weeks before she started pumping.

 

You probably could.
My concern would be if the insurance would pay for the pods after buying a new pump though.
I would think that leaving it on the insulin suspend mode would work just fine.

 

On suspend, the pump would continue to beep, repeatedly. I wonder if you could set one basal for 0.0 u/hr? You might need one reservoir that you can re-use-not sure.

 

Re: Revel as CGM .... No it was not on suspend ... I believe we might have set pump at 0.0 basal per hour ... but we did not have a reservoir in it.

It worked great as stand alone CGM.

But, I agree, question is would insurance pick up tab for pods and Revel?

 

Maybe we should start a thread on designing a parent monitor that would work with existing CGM receivers. We could come up with a list of problems to overcome and then come up with some solutions. Ideally in the end it would be possible to make something that is effective from a "do it yourself" kit.

For example, here is a problem:

If I'm in my bedroom and want to see the what Jacob's CGM is reading, I need to be able to remotely push a button on the CGM to see the display, because most of the time the screen is off. Of course, I would also need some kind of remote camera to see it.