Testing your INR at Home

How Much Does it Cost to Test Your INR at Home?

Is the cost/time benefit worth testing at home?

These are some good questions to ask yourself as you think about testing at home.

Some other questions include:

Does my insurance cover home testing?
How long will I be on blood thinner?
Do I travel and often need to test when I’m away from home?
Am I constantly running to the lab to have my levels checked?

I am on year 4 of testing at home and year 14 of living on Coumadin (see blog post here). Testing at home has been a huge blessing to me and my family.

Now, when I get the call from my doctor, I just mark my calendar and make sure to test again in the prescribed time.

Costs?

This part is a bit trickier as it depends on your insurance and your situation.

For me?

Again, based on my family situation, insurance, and the provider for my medical supplies:

Every so often (usually 1-2 times a year), I need to order more testing supplies that cost around $80.00 for test strips (12 of them) if I have met my deductible for the year.

Lancets are very cheap and can even be purchased at your local pharmacy or have them direct shipped from the company, too.

I started with lots of lancets, so honestly, I have not had to purchase any yet. I’m still going through my stock.

Lab visits

When I was going to the lab my insurance company was paying a significant amount for each lab visit and my co-insurance was around $5.00 for each lab visit. While that doesn’t sound like much, when you start going 4-8 times a month to get a level checked, it adds up quick. Sometimes, I went once a month. Sometimes, I was there 5-7 times.

While the total savings may be more for insurance than you, the convenience for us far outweighed it all. You have to consider your mileage, gas, and time when you think about the big picture.

I test either late evening or early morning and send the results using my smart phone. Later that day, my doctor’s office calls because they have received the results from my company.