New skins to your cpap

[Gooserider]

Well she got her machine from Apria which is one of the major suppliers (I'm mildly surprised they aren't on the vendor list - I hope it is OK to use their name w/o any other details) that works with most all of the insurance companies...  She has been happy with them, but my sleep doc said that because of their size, they tended to be very hung up on doing things their way or not at all. 

The sleep doc recommended a different company that he said he had found to be much more oriented towards the 'lets make it work' end of things....

At any rate, given the size of her company it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibilities that they might have had a version of the machine made with a different skin just for 'branding' purposes....  (If you make a big enough order, I'd imagine any company will make it look the way the customer wants...

ex-Gooserider

[Homerec130]

Apria (also spelled with a leading C) is a DME and not a supplier per se. Most, if not all, of the names on the supplier list sell to the general public (with certain federal restrictions) and often don't provide the other services a DME may. Our DME also has respiratory therapists on staff and track compliance. They also have different rules they play by. For example, if I want to get a non-heated or longer hose from my DME, I have to get a script from my sleep doc requesting it. So, I use a couple of suppliers for that type of stuff. I use a 10 ft hose and they don't make them heated for my machine (most likely any) so I just order from a supplier, pay out of pocket, and it comes in the mail. One way to think of it - suppliers are retail, DMEs are extensions of medical supply houses with all their mark ups so they can bill the insurers.

[Gooserider]

Thanks for the clarification - I don't want to break the board rules, and I know they have restrictions on DME's being mentioned, but my understanding was that if it wasn't someone on the list, and I didn't give any links or contact info it is OK to just mention their name

ex-Gooserider

[Homerec130]

Looking at the rules the only thing I saw on mentioning a DME is you cannot mention the link to their site. For suppliers you can mention their name (if they are not on the list) unless the name is also the web address. You could also mention them as a do a search on <insert part of name here>. If you do find a good supplier, let us know and we can see if they could be added to the list.

We do discuss DMEs, good and bad, by name on a regular basis. Just don't post the link to their website.

[Sleepster]

Thanks for the clarification - I don't want to break the board rules, and I know they have restrictions on DME's being mentioned, but my understanding was that if it wasn't someone on the list, and I didn't give any links or contact info it is OK to just mention their name

ex-Gooserider

The restrictions are on links, not on names.

Note that you can't use a work-around to break the link. For example, you can't replace the period in a link with the word "dot".

That restriction seems strange but it's necessary to maintain Apnea Board's status as an educational website so that SuperSleeper can continue to distribute CPAP machine clinician's manuals. Your attitude is appreciated, but there are others who just go berserk over this restriction. Anyone with half a heart would retreat from their objections if they had any idea how much time and effort SuperSleeper puts into running this board and distributing manuals.

[Gooserider]

I've been using "dot" in link names for years to the point where to me it's the same thing....  Breaking up links and email addresses is supposed to help make life harder for the spamsters so it is actually the way I do it most of the time...  (I've been online since before there was a public internet (Remember the old BBS days?)   So I certainly have no problem with that part of the rule if links aren't allowed it follows that work-arounds aren't either...  I just wasn't as sure about a name w/o any other details being OK...

I really appreciate the comparative openness and availability of manuals and software like OSCAR - I have long been a proponent of the 'Right-to-Repair' movement, and what Apnea Board is doing is right in line with that....  It doesn't go as far as being able to open up a machine and fix it oneself, but based on the one emergency effort I made to fix an old machine of Mary-Anne's (she packed it with water in the humidifier while traveling ) there don't seem to be a lot of parts that would be practical for a user to service in one of these machines.

What I'm finding as I start down the road into CPAP land is an incredibly pleasant surprise compared to what I find in the wheelchair / mobility world - the manufacturers go to great lengths to make access to things like the programming software difficult or impossible, and their attitude towards the users is incredibly condescending and patronizing - "We couldn't let you have access to the settings, you might set something wrong and hurt yourself"

Still there are folks working on reverse engineering things, and finding work-arounds with varying degrees of success, and even building their own chairs - with results that should seriously embarrass the manufacturers. 

ex-Gooserider