Apria and Aetna. Rip Off?

[SarcasticDave94]

I'm thinking the moral of the story would be call daily when something on the bill goes wrong. I say when because something will go wrong with Apria. I personally allow things of this sort to go wrong once. After that one shot, if the billing issue crops up again, I am somebody else's customer.

[cathyf]

Yeah, the problem though is that I'm committed to Apria until the machine is paid off. Since they sold me the machine, ResMed assigns my data to them in the ResMed cloud. I will say that they have passed the first couple of tests just fine:

• My idiot doctor prescribed an N20, and when I told Apria that I can't use a nasal mask because the machine shuts itself off, they updated the order and an F30 was in the box.
  
• I told them I would only accept a ResMed machine, and they didn't try to send anything else.
  
• They sent me a size medium mask, which has headgear which is size XXXXXXXXXXL because apparently ResMed sizes their masks on Talosians. I asked them to send me just a size small headgear because the medium cushion is right, and they said "absolutely no problem no charge." Two days later an ENORMOUS box showed up with gobs of packing balloons and a complete size small mask -- headgear, cushion, frame. Which has the only size enormous headgear that ResMed makes. Ya gotta laugh, but this is not Apria's fault.
  
• I sent a MyChart message to the sleep clinic to give them a heads up that I had finally gotten my machine, and the nurse wrote back and said that Apria had already assigned the data to them on the clinician side.
  
• They won't send automatic supplies unless I sign up for them, and as an experienced apnea patient I know better :-) (They will probably have their call center make monthly calls to me like Lincare did, but I'll just say "no thank you.")
  

It helps that I have very low expectations! I will probably go back to my small-town DME once the machine is paid off. I'm a "difficult" patient, and the RT who is the store manager and I have a grudging-respect relationship...

[Phaleronic]

I gave up using insurance companies and DMEs years ago, because they inflate prices and rip people off.

[hegel]

I gave up using insurance companies and DMEs years ago, because they inflate prices and rip people off.

Kaiser sold me a brand new Airsense 10 machine for $300.00. Through Kaiser, apria provided masks and supplies at 80% off. That's a very good deal.