A reminder that our next meeting will take place on May 2 at 5:00 pm, Longs Peak Hospital. Sadly, Roger can not make this meeting after all. We can continue our conversation from last month regarding the effect of Enterits and I’ll bring suggestions and Travel Cards from the UOAA so we can talk about travel with an ostomy. A timely conversation with summer here!

The article “Enteritis and the Ileostomate” is at the printer and should be sent out soon! After it’s posted online through The Phoenix Magazine I will be able to have the link on this website. We submitted a couple of pictures and some of the slides from Charles’ presentation, so it will be interesting to see what the editor found useful. I’ll have extra printed copies in May, and I’m happy to forward a copy to those unable to make it to a meeting (just let me know). Also, I believe that we’ll be able to announce the article to other support groups around the country. This is such an important topic and I’m happy that we’re able to share this and get the word out.

The UOAA has been promoting their advocacy efforts, and I found this article to be really interesting. In April of 2018, the insurer NY Medicaid decreased the allowable quantity for certain ostomy barriers from ten to eight per month. Because the suppliers wouldn’t open boxes for partial shipments, it meant that patients could get a box of five in one order, then a box of 10 the next time. But that still wasn’t enough for many patients to cover them for an entire month. Advocates at the Albany Medical Center in New York met with Medicaid officials to explain details and were able to have quantities increased back to the 10 units/month. I’ve been hearing of legislation to have a single-source supplier for Medicare, where Medicare would only approve products from one supplier (not all of them). I believe this legislation has been put on hold for a couple of years, and I’m sure the advocacy group at the UOAA is following carefully.

Charles is in good company with his nomination as WOCN of the Year. The UOAA recently profiled all of the nurses that have been nominated. Last week was WOC Nurse Week, and it’s with gratitude that we celebrate all of these incredible nurses for what they do to support us! THANK YOU, CHARLES AND TARA!

All Support groups have received some promotional materials and samples from several suppliers, including Shield Healthcare, Byram, and Safe n Simple. I’ll have these available at our next couple of meetings. Also, our mid-year lunch is scheduled for July 11th. It’s never too early to mark your calendar!

Just because we’re broken doesn’t mean we can’t bloom

I visited Washington DC a couple of weeks ago and found this amazing tree. I think it speaks volumes for all of us — we may have been broken, but we can still bloom.