Insurance doesn’t cover rent-to-own

[Hydrangea]

Anyway, thank you all for your quick and appropriately outraged responses.  I’ll be looking into online DMEs now.  

Depending on your insurance, you may not need to use your most local one.  

With my insurance, and with the cooperation I could solicit from DMEs, all I needed was to use a DME within the state I live in.  Although I'm in a big city, I chose a DME an hour away (based on Yelp reviews and my phone calls to feel out the decently reviewed DMEs).  They mail everything to me (at no expense to me), and provide excellent customer service by phone & text. 

So it may be worth continuing to pursue. 

(My insurance doesn't pay if I use an online retailer, so I was motivated to find a brick & mortar one I could work with.)

[GuyScharf]

The amount "charged" and the amount "approved and paid" may differ by 10x! For example, for my AutoSet, the DME "charged" Medicare $250 per month for 13 months. Medicare approved $27.95 per month, with Medicare paying 80% of that amount and my supplemental policy paying the remaining 20%.

So for the full 13-month pay to own cycle, the DME charged Medicare about $3,250 and Medicare+Supplemental paid and the DME accepted about $364.

[becker44a]

They are a notch below a used car salesman. Trust nothing they say; go only according to what your insurance says.

That price is astronomical. Ask your insurance how much $ they allow for a CPAP, and then only authorize that.

Do not ever give them your credit card.  My DME charges my insurance, receives payment from insurance, and THEN sends me the bill for the amount my insurance agrees that I owe; and then I mail a check.  There should be no other way.

If they're high pressure now, they're going to continue being lousy to work with as you go forward. So I'd pick a different DME if I were you.

You have a choice in the matter... until you take a machine from them, and then you're stuck. (I did hand back a rental a month after accepting it.  But since it's a rental, that's allowed.)

I don't disagree with any of the points above.  However, sending anyone not trustworthy a check also has it's risks.  You have just provided them with your routing and account numbers, which are perfectly legible along the bottom of the check. 
Other payment methods which may mitigate this risk:
(1) Buy a bank check at your bank, then send that.
(2) Buy a postal money order and mail that.
(3) If your bank account has a bill pay function, it may isolate your payment from any identifiable information to use that, however this would need to be confirmed.
(4) Best choice:  don't do business with a person or entity you distrust.