Information I Wish I Had!
Day 2: Had another great night! Feeling rested and again, no fogginess! Also, on some excellent advice from members of this Board, worked out my mask problem...so far! Many, many thanks to all who have replied and offered advice. It was/is greatly appreciated!
Now, if I may offer some advice of my own: To those folks who have not yet chosen a machine but have already "failed" their sleep study; choose a machine that provides at the very least, leak rate data!!!!
LEAK RATE!!! This is a VITAL piece of information to have that my machine does NOT provide. If your leak rate surpasses what is deemed as an acceptable number, you will obviously reduce the effectiveness of your cpap therapy. If the number is high enough, you may get NO benefit at all!
My S9 Escape (ResMed) only provides the bare minimum of a daily usage and an average daily usage (mostly for justification for the insurance companies). I wish it had at the very least, this leak rate feature and also, a "mask fit" feature.
I will "lobby" my DME on Monday and if unsuccessful, talk my with Doc about the need to see this hard data vs just feeling ok, in evaluating my progress.
Hope this helps those that have not yet made a choice in a machine.
Have a great, safe weekend!
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures....
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
Don't lobby....demand!
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
(04-12-2014, 06:07 AM)JimZZZ Wrote: Don't lobby....demand!
I will demand for sure! Saw your other post and as an RN, I could not agree more with your blood pressure analogy!!
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures....
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
Hi Stargazer,
It's great to hear that you worked out your mask problems ans were able to have another night of good sleep.
I look forward to hearing the results of your "demand," good luck.
trish6hundred
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
(04-12-2014, 05:56 AM)Stargazer Wrote: I will "lobby" my DME on Monday and if unsuccessful, talk my with Doc about the need to see this hard data vs just feeling ok, in evaluating my progress.
If they will not give you a data capable machine, tell them you are leaving the machine with them (make sure you get documentation that you returned it complete with a signature) and that you will take your business somewhere else (also, call your prescribing doc and ask for a script that says the specific unit that you want and say dispense as written on the script....hopefully you have a copy of the initial script; if you don't, get a copy of it b/c maybe the DME is trying to pull a fast one when your doc did put specific info on the script).
04-12-2014, 09:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-12-2014, 09:38 AM by drgrimes.)
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
My experience is that it doesn't help much to lobby the DME. Their hands are tied by the RX written by your sleep doctor. It's a crying shame that MOST sleep doctors don't know/care much about this issue. One would think they would want the best machine for their patient, but they seem to know little about this aspect.
SO, start politely with your sleep doctor. They will want your justification, but in the end just be persistant and ask for a new RX. They may give you some crap about Medicare or insurance not paying but all that's BS. Once you have the RX for the correct machine you should not have difficulty with your DME. One issue i had was that apparently there is a 30 window with the DME to return/exchange machines which i did not know about.
The last part for me may not be right but i don't care. I was beyond the 30 period but i realize like everything else....it's MONEY. I offered to just pay the difference, and my DME said OK!! Someone on this forum said "that's not right", well maybe so, but i was so damn happy to get the Resmed Autoset, that i didn't care....still don't.
As far as demanding anything, my advice is to start off easy. Save the demanding in case you don't get what you want the easy way. My sleep doctor gave it up without any pressure.
Odd thing about all this is, that it doesn't make any $$$ difference to the sleep doctor either way. The money issues are between you, Medicare/insurance, and the DME. Good luck!!
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
Yeah, I need a copy of the RX for sure. Plan was to start w/the Doc to see exactly what the RX says. It shouldn't be too difficult to convince him to be specific in the request. I like the BP med analogy; I'll hit him with that if I get any kind of hesitance/resistance. Maybe with the fact that I'm an RN may help as well?! Honestly, you'd think the Docs would WANT the readouts to better evaluate the therapy versus just going by how the patient feels! I would! Not every pt is "in tune" with how things are going w/regard to their therapy!
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures....
RE: Information I Wish I Had!
(04-12-2014, 09:27 AM)drgrimes Wrote: My experience is that it doesn't help much to lobby the DME. Their hands are tied by the RX written by your sleep doctor.
<snip>
The money issues are between you, Medicare/insurance, and the DME. Good luck!!
In my case, contact with the sleep doc to request a machine upgrade hit the wall at the level of the doc's receptionist. I never had a copy of the prescription because their standard policy is to fax it directly to a/the DME which they recommended right out of the box. Resolution of my frustration came directly from the DME who more than willingly offered to replace it with a device that probably costs $300 or so more after they had some level of communication with the doc's office after I made that first contact.
I also think that there is another issue which greatly impacts the "money issues between the user, Medicare/insurance, and the DME - medicare rules and penalties for upgrade charging. In my case I suspect the board titled in my favor with the simple mention/reminder that medicare was in play for me.
