What are the consequences of switching doctors

[fredkahan]

I have achieved compliance, only after experimentation to find the right mask in the right size and by limiting the top pressure setting to avoid major leaks. I have thereby reduced apnea events routinely to < 5/h. 

I've had only two tele-visits with the prescribing physician, once to prescribe a home sleep test followed by an arbitrary Rx (5-20) and an arbitrarily chosen mask of arbitrary size leaving me with 3 months of unguided therapy before I was seen again. It is this forum that has provided the sole guidance I believe contributed to success. Now 3 months later, my physician has judged my status by taking an average of results from my floundering beginning to my present state and concludes that therapy has failed! My physician showed no interest in my report of using this forum, capturing and analyzing detailed results and supplementing with oximetry.

I want a better doctor. Will making a switch in any way interrupt either Medicare or DME support if I seek a physician from a different practice?

[Gideon]

you should have no problem switching. It is the best thing to do.

[Homerec130]

Changing doctors should not affect Medicare or your DME. For Medicare just make sure the new doctor participates. For the DME, when you change doctors, just tell the doc this is the DME you use. You may still end up with tele-health with COVID, but in a lot of situations, this works well. We did a tele-health after my wife's last sleep study as an in-person visit wasn't really needed.

Look at it this way, you hire your doc and you can fire them if they do not provide you with the care you feel you should be getting. Is your doc a true sleep specialist or someone who wants to write scripts for equipment. My sleep doc is also my ENT and I have had real good luck with him as I have a fairly straight forward case. My wife has highly complex apnea and he admitted her case was outside of his expertise. Kudos for admitting it. She went to another "sleep doc" recommended by our PCP and it was horrible. We fired that one after about a year. My wife's current sleep doc has served an internship and fellowship in sleep medicine and is very capable. When it came to selecting a machine, she told us what machines would work and let us pick. Then she wrote the script. The prior doc never sent any records over to her and she had to start from scratch. What records were sent were worthless and it appears she was just throwing numbers at the machine and seeing if it would work. She said this sis going to be the machine you are getting as I don't have the time to to research other options. We lost count of the number of so-clean set-ups she had in the clinic as well. She got upset with us when we said we didn't need one and said ResMed's warranty notice was a marketing ploy and not scientific.

We have been with the same DME through the whole process and they have worked with us when we changed machines and even work with us on a loaner machine.

[SarcasticDave94]

It might be possible to get better treatment with a new Duck. I'd suggest changing doc if you're not satisfied with the current doc's ability to listen and consider your comments. Besides saying you're fired is supposed to help you feel better.

[staceyburke]

My only suggestion is to get all of your reports, RX, everything about your records. They are yours - they may charge a fee for coping the records but it could save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

[Sleeprider]

I think it's interesting that in the UK they call their specialists "consultants". The term really brings a doctor down to Earth and defines their role. If you have ever hired a consultant, you know they are only as good as their last service or advise. Their continued success and employment is to serve a real need. Since I made my living as a consultant, I know if I neglect a client's needs or am disinterested in their outcome, I'm toast. With that rambling introduction, I'll suggest, too few doctors get fired for neglect, incompetence, disinterest, arrogance, and ineffective results. Hope you find a good one.

[Homerec130]

Staceyburke,

In my wife's case the "records" were meaningless. Her current doc said she had never seen so much gibberish and actually put a package together reporting her.

[greatunclebill]

The only real consequence of switching is a much happier patient.