It's just hard for me to imagine this. My husband was diagnosed with diabetes in January. We've been swarmed with info from lots of different sources. First of all, his doctor's office has several nurse practictioners who instruct patients with certain illnesses, diabetes being one of them. We weren't convinced by all she told us, so we went looking on our own. After my husband received his first diabetic medication, we received info from the drug company, with lots of additional resources. Then we've been reading up on our own. Yes, we did take our own initiative, but we also received help from "the system." Lots of it.
Your husband is on Medicare?
Based on the prescriptions we receive, Blue Cross Blue Shield sends us lots of information about preventive care, etc. But, BCBS is not Medicare.
I'm guessing Georgia Lewis (in the article) may have no idea what's available to help her help herself. She may be operating under a false assumption that, if there was anything she could do, her doctor would naturally be telling her about it.
Almost ditto here regarding my wife. She's pre-diabetic, and is now dieting, exercising and taking Metformin and checking her blood twice a day. She's lost about 15 pounds in 6 weeks, and her sugar is coming down. The doc's office had LOTS of info - there's no excuse these days for not having information about a disease - every library has a computer with Internet access, so its available.