Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a family physician I cut my medical teeth on Boehringer-Mannheim's glucometers and then the Roche glucometers when the latter company acquired the former. I have long recommended them to my patients. No more! With the arrival of low cost competitor meters and low cost AND accurate BG strips, the pricing scam that the major players such as Abbot, Roche and Bayer have imposed on millions of diabetics has now become plain as day. There is another important fact about the Accucheks pointed out by other reviewers. Because the coding chips are date coded that means that one cannot use strips beyond their expiration date. Common sense and plenty of anecdotal evidence (Google it) tells you that the strips can't be good on Monday and bad on Tuesday. This is not a small thing given the price of the strips and the income of many users. Roche should be embarassed by this blatant and unnecessary corporate arrogance and built-in obsolescence. In any case they have very recently realized their marketing error because they have belatedly introduced the "black coding strip" which is free of a time stamp thus allowing the use of "expired" strips. I would strongly suggest folks look at other meters such as the Agamatrix line of glucometers. (Yes the brand name is most unfortunate.). Modestly priced meters and strips which require very little blood. Accurate too. I'll not recommend to another patient a Roche meter because of their high strip prices and their raw chutzpah and would encourage others to look elsewhere.