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Committee backs amendment to ensure Medicaid covers continuous glucose monitors for gestational diabetes (House Bill 352, LC520828S)
Summary
Lawmakers unanimously advanced an amendment to a previously enacted law to explicitly require Medicaid coverage of continuous glucose monitors for pregnant women with gestational diabetes and to update the effective date to July 1, 2025.
The committee unanimously passed an amendment to House Bill 352 (LC 520828S) Thursday that explicitly adds gestational diabetes to the list of covered indications under Medicaid for continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and updates the statutory effective date.
"It's a simple but significant amendment...the amendment ensures that Medicaid will cover continuous glucose monitors for pregnant women diagnosed with, with diabetes, and we've added the word gestational diabetes," the bill's sponsor said in presenting the substitute language. The sponsor said the substitute also updates a statutory date to 2025 and restores a provision about a threshold for insulin administration in one clause.
A committee member who said the device changed his life described the CGM as "a button" worn on the arm that sends real‑time glucose readings to a phone and said his A1C dropped "from 10 down to 6.5." That testimonial framed the policy argument for making CGMs available when prescribed for gestational diabetes to reduce risks such as preterm birth, high birth weight and future development of type 2 diabetes.
Brandy Sullivan of the Department of Community Health told the committee the legislature passed a law last year mandating coverage of CGMs and that the new language clarifies coverage to include gestational diabetes and notes the change is effective July 1, 2025. "We did pass a bill last year, that mandated coverage of these devices...so I think that's just being updated to say that this new requirement that gestational diabetes be an included disease state for coverage is effective 07/01/2025," Sullivan said.
A motion to pass LC520828S was made from the floor and the committee approved the substitute by unanimous voice vote. Committee discussion noted the substitute was recommended by the Department of Community Health and that the change was intended to fill an unintended gap in coverage for pregnant people diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
