Below are steps required for acceptance into the Alberta Insulin Pump Therapy Program. They may not occur in the order listed. Please verify with your approved diabetes clinic.

1. Learn about pump therapy. Learn more about pump therapy to help you decide, with your healthcare team, if pump therapy suits you or your child’s needs. If you are new to pump therapy, you must complete this online learning module or attend an introduction to insulin pump class at an approved diabetes centre. Not all centres offer classes. You must also complete a questionnaire to bring to an approved diabetes team. The questionnaire is included at the end of this module and at classes.
2. Be assessed. You must be assessed by an approved diabetes clinic and by an approved diabetes doctor (or nurse practitioner). Your doctor will need to refer you if you don’t currently see an approved educator and physician. There may be wait lists for the clinics and the doctors.
3. Meet criteria and receive approval. Work with the approved diabetes team to meet all criteria. Criteria may be met at the first assessment appointment or, it may take many months. This depends on your current diabetes knowledge, self-management habits, A1c values and wait lists. You must receive signed approval from both an approved diabetes educator and an approved diabetes doctor (or nurse practitioner).
4. Purchase an insulin pump after receiving Blue Cross approval. You may be asked to delay the purchase until a pump start appointment is available.
5. Start on insulin pump therapy at the approved diabetes clinic.
6. Work closely with the diabetes team to learn new information, practice old and new skills and to program the insulin pump. This may take up to several months.
7. Follow annually with an approved diabetes clinic and meet continuation criteria to continue receiving funded supplies.

If you don’t wish funding from the IPT Program (e.g. you have your own insurance coverage or you have type 2 diabetes), you can look into pump therapy with your usual diabetes care team. If you don’t have a diabetes team, please ask your family doctor to refer you to one.

Next steps – if you are interested in applying for IPT Program funding, please:

1. Follow the steps listed in this section above.
2. Download and complete the attached Introduction to Pump Therapy Questionnaire in this section, after reading all sections of this module. Take the questionnaire to your approved diabetes clinic.
3. Read all the information on the Government of Alberta - Alberta Insulin Pump Therapy (IPT) Program page.​​​​​