Four critical times, people with diabetes need you!
Explore how to have your clients working to prevent or manage diabetes want to see you again, and again, and again!
Diabetes is a condition that many people know about, even if only a little. They might have learned about it from a family member or a friend. Maybe they read about it in the newspaper or learned about it in school. How your clients learn about diabetes often impacts when or whether they will receive more education on the topic.
What are the four essential times people need to meet with a diabetes professional?
Immediately after an individual or family member is first diagnosed
For yearly check-ins and follow-up
Whenever a new challenge is presented, such as financial or emotional distress or medication issues.
Any time there are changes in a person's healthcare: physician, insurance, moving to a new location, or experiencing age-related issues.
You want to help people with elevated blood sugar, and you also want to shift the conversation from unsustainable changes to a balanced approach to diabetes care, but “How?” Where would you begin?
What do you do when a client starts a conversation by saying, “Everything is good. I don’t have any to talk about at this visit.”
Let’s explore the four essential times clients need to meet with diabetes professionals.
At Diagnosis
Many people can catch diabetes early, which is great news. More awareness, regular medical care, and routine screenings are helping us better detect this silent problem. The problem with early detection is the seriousness of diabetes can be downplayed, minimized, or even ignored. The habit of suggesting, “It is only a touch,” or “Lose weight and you won’t have diabetes,” can deny patients vital information about the overall pathophysiology of diabetes AND even rob them of their Medicare benefits! Really?
Really!
Medicare will pay for 10 hours of diabetes education during the initial year of diagnosis. If a patient is diagnosed in 2024 but waits until their A1C is far outside the target range, they may no longer be eligible for the 10 hours of education!
Additionally, in the first year, Medicare will pay for three hours of nutrition education. After the initial year, this benefit decreases to two hours annually.
Attracting New Clients - Start with jazzing up those initial sessions.
Help make those days of sitting through a boring class obsolete. How? Start by reviewing everything your client is doing well and creating a positive relationship based on your client's current success and ideas.
It might sound like, “Everyone is doing something that is helping their health. What behaviors are you doing that are helping you?”
When they answer:
“I’m thinking of quitting smoking.”
“I’m looking at labels.”
“I am buying my lunch.”
“Great!” Affirming these efforts might sound like:
“Any ideas what quitting smoking can do for your overall blood sugar or A1C?”
“What is helpful about looking at the food labels?”
“What are the benefits of buying your lunch?”
These open-ended questions will help the client understand their own reason for continuing to make these changes.
You can also play a game!
There are many games that can be played during in person or online educational sessions.
Here are a few ideas:
During an online session, ask participants to find the label on a food they enjoy eating. When everyone has a food selected, ask, “What is it about this food that you enjoy?” Listen to each participant, then have participants in the chat guess how many carbs are in a serving. Congratulate the participants who guessed the closest!
Consider creating a Jeopardy-like game where the categories are about some aspect of diabetes care.
Create a sample blood glucose log and have the participants counsel you about what to do! “What would you say to me about these blood sugars?”
For an in-person activity, save a variety of types of food/yogurt containers. Pass them out and ask participants to line them up by-product from the lowest amount of carbs to the highest number of carbs.
If you are unsure what to talk about at a visit, the ADCES Self-care 7 behaviors can help explain the key learning concepts about diabetes care. Your session will be amazing, so at the end of your training, be sure to capture those testimonials so you can use them on social media, share them with providers, or add them to your website.
Annually
Make the annual session a ‘gee-whiz’ appointment! Reviewing changes in medication, technology, and national guidelines while updating their diabetes plan is the goal of this appointment. At this session, you want to reinforce the habits and behaviors that support health and identify the ones they want to adjust.
When situations and circumstances in life change
Helping your patient feel heard is often the most powerful action you can take when changes in your patient’s life impact diabetes. These changes can include financial challenges, emotional distress, or medication issues. It is also helpful to review expectations, reinforce supports, and identify the behaviors that can promote overall health.
When your client’s health or healthcare changes
Helping clients adjust to changes in their healthcare is just that, an adjustment. Maybe they have a new physician or insurance, have just moved from out of town, or are dealing with a new diagnosis or experiencing age-related issues ranging from dexterity to memory. While your job isn’t to provide therapy, every session with you can be therapeutic. Here are some ideas:
Engage in active listening by using open-ended questions and reflections. Focus on helping the client feel heard.
Normalize aging and the changes associated with it.
Be patient and normalize the truth that adjusting to these changes takes time.
Include in your goals the need for ease and sustainability. Direct your attention to learning what has made a habit easy to repeat and also sustainable. Refreshing your client’s past success can open many counseling opportunities. Learn if combination medications could improve medication adherence.
“Your diabetes isn’t causing any problems, but you want to learn more to manage it.”
Resources
Where to learn more about diabetes technology.
https://www.diabeteseducator.org/danatech/homeGary's website: https://integrateddiabetes.com/innovative-stuff/
Freestyle Libre, Medtronic, Dexcom, Eversense are the CGMS.
DiabetesEd.net