Seeing Clearly: Patients' Perspectives on HOME2

Real Patients, Real Stories: Why Home Tonometry Matters

This patient testimonial webinar, hosted by Ericka Shepard — Vice President of Patient Success at MyEyes and a glaucoma patient herself — brings together four HOME2 users who share how home intraocular pressure monitoring changed the course of their glaucoma care. Unlike previous MyEyes webinars that feature clinical experts, this session puts patients at the center, offering unscripted accounts of how the iCare HOME2 tonometer has provided peace of mind, caught dangerous pressure spikes, and empowered them to take an active role in managing a disease that gives no warning symptoms.

Justin Wilson: Remote Monitoring from 1,200 Miles Away

Justin, an expat living in Mexico, describes how the HOME2 became indispensable for managing his care with a specialist at the Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City — over 1,200 miles away. After a previous surgery, his HOME2 data revealed that his eye pressure was spiking well above the safe range. Without that data, he would have proceeded with a second surgery based on incomplete information, which his doctors later told him could have been catastrophic. Instead, the dense home readings guided his surgical team toward a safer procedure — a Preserflo MicroShunt — which brought his pressures back to the 8 to 13 range. Justin now shares his data with his specialist remotely on a regular basis, eliminating the need for frequent international travel. He likens the daily routine to brushing his teeth and says he cannot imagine managing his glaucoma without it.

Ericka Shepard: Nighttime Spikes into the 40s

Ericka shares her own story between patient introductions. She has glaucoma in one eye secondary to another rare disease and had been stable for eight years after receiving a shunt. When her office pressures began creeping into the twenties during quarterly visits, her doctors sent her to multiple specialists over several weeks. A rental of the HOME2 revealed what office visits could not: her pressure was spiking into the 40s regularly at night and in the early morning. What her care team thought was a problem with weeks to address was in fact an emergency. She had a second shunt implanted within two weeks of that discovery. Ericka draws a recurring analogy to blood pressure monitoring — no cardiologist would make surgical decisions based on a single reading every three to six months, and glaucoma management should be no different.

Jackie Bass: Ending the Anxiety of the Unknown

Jackie has the same rare underlying disease as Ericka and has been managing glaucoma for about eight years. After receiving two stents and remaining on multiple eye drops, she began using the HOME2 in 2022. Initially she measured every few hours, but over time she settled into a routine of two to three readings per week. For Jackie, the primary benefit is psychological as much as clinical: the knowledge that her pressure is stable — or that it has changed — replaces the anxiety of sitting in the doctor's chair waiting for the blue light and hoping for a good number. She describes the HOME2 as a game changer and says she cannot imagine going through her glaucoma journey without it.

Krista Eichhorst: A Blueprint for Insurance Reimbursement

Krista, who has juvenile open-angle glaucoma, provides a detailed and practical account of how she obtained insurance coverage for her HOME2 purchase. After renting from MyEyes to diagnose evening pressure spikes, she contacted her insurance company to explore coverage for purchasing the device as durable medical equipment. Because juvenile open-angle glaucoma is classified as a rare disease, her plan included a rare disease benefit mandate that allowed MyEyes to be treated as an in-network provider with an 80/20 cost split. The process took nine months from start to finish and included documenting every phone call, obtaining a letter of medical necessity from her doctor, having her initial reimbursement claim denied, and then successfully appealing the denial by resubmitting the same documentation. Krista's key advice: document everything, get names and reference numbers for every call, and do not accept the first denial as the final answer.

Colleen: Advocacy, World Travel, and Proactive Care

Colleen was diagnosed with pigmentary dispersion glaucoma and myopia at age 35. Frustrated by the gap between how frequently glaucoma patients have their pressure checked and how rapidly the disease can progress between appointments, she became an early advocate for home monitoring technology. She attended one of the first glaucoma summits in California where patients sat alongside medical engineers and physicians to discuss what tools were missing from glaucoma care. When the HOME2 became available, Colleen was among the first to adopt it. She describes the relief of discovering that her pressures were remarkably stable — a finding that was only possible through daily monitoring and would never have been confirmed through quarterly office visits. An avid traveler, Colleen has visited 100 countries and all seven continents with her glaucoma diagnosis, traveling with the confidence that comes from being able to monitor her eye pressure anywhere in the world.

Insurance Landscape and Practical Tips

The webinar addresses insurance coverage in detail. Medicare currently does not cover the HOME2 under its standard fee schedule, though some Medicare Advantage plans have approved coverage. Private insurers including Blue Cross, United Healthcare, Aetna, Tricare, and various Medicaid programs have all paid for the device in specific cases. MyEyes provides template letters of medical necessity, procedure codes, and documentation support but cannot bill insurance directly on behalf of patients. The panelists emphasize persistence: calling back if the first representative says no, documenting every conversation, and asking specifically about durable medical equipment benefits and rare disease mandates. For patients who purchased from another distributor or who own the original HOME device, MyEyes offers a service plan at $19 per month that includes data management, troubleshooting, and patient ambassador support.

What's Coming: PRS Testing and a New Patient App

Ericka previews two upcoming initiatives at MyEyes. First, the company plans to offer a polygenic risk score (PRS) genetic test for glaucoma, building on the research presented in a previous webinar with Dr. Anthony Khawaja. The test will allow patients to combine their genetic risk profile with their HOME2 pressure data for more personalized care planning. Second, MyEyes is developing a dedicated patient app that will address the most-requested feature: the ability to annotate pressure readings with notes about activities, medications, and symptoms. The app will also give doctors direct access to patient data — including real-time viewing during office visits — and will integrate with Epic EHR systems.