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Trying to help a friend... - TheManseHen - 02-05-2015
Hi Pappers,
I have a friend who lives in the south. She has health problems and getting out to try new docs, or fighting with the one she's seen in the past, is very difficult.
I'm still getting the details from her as it's hard for her to read or write for long on computer screens.
But for starters, she said that her doc wouldn't prescribe a humidifier to go with her machine and had a fit when she asked for such.
Now maybe there is some medical reason for her not to have one, but sounds fishy to me. She's not wanting to go back to him because he was brusque and unhelpful.
I was going to suggest maybe she can ask her DME to ask the doctor for one on her behalf? ie this client is struggling and we would like to see if your office will write her a script for the humidifier?
Have you ever heard of such a thing?
Susan
The Manse Hen
RE: Trying to help a friend... - TorontoCPAPguy - 02-05-2015
I have been on the boards for several years and this is the first time EVER that I have heard of any doctor refusing a request for a humidifier. Fact is, I think, that the humidifier comes with most blowers by default. I rarely use mine, but I can tell you for a fact. A certainty. Carved in granite..... that if I have a cough due to environmental issues or an impending cold, if I crank up that humidifier and let 'er rip, I get a good night of sleep without hacking and coughing. My wife has a cought today and we are going to fill her humidifier and leave it inline without turning up the heater to get more moisture into the airflow.... just the air flowing across the water should do it. Just based on the doctor's reaction and attitude I would dump this doctor like a hot potato. Am I serious? Absolutely serious. You do not need someone with a "God" complex looking after your health. You want someone with experience and with the smarts to know what they don't know can kill. In the hypocratic oath one of the first lines is the oath to, above all else, "DO NO HARM". This MD seems to have missed the ceremony somehow. CHANGE!
RE: Trying to help a friend... - TheManseHen - 02-05-2015
Thanks CPA Guy,
I'm relatively new at this and thought the same thing. Good to hear it from a longer time papper!
Susan
RE: Trying to help a friend... - TheManseHen - 02-06-2015
TorontoCPA, I just talked to her. She is very phobic about doctors and it already took all her nerve and health (she's pretty much home-bound) to get out to that doctor a year ago. He was a GP. He threatened her that if she didn't follow his advice on some shots he said she should take, he'd see that her insurance was pulled. (which I don't think a doctor can do anyhow) Her husband went with her and agreed the man was deranged. Obviously should be reported to the boards or licensing group but she's not up to doing that either. They are in very small town in deep south.
She told me he told her under no conditions should she remove her card except to send it to him for review.
Well she never went back, has never touched card, and is at a "therapy setting of 4.0"
I've told her I'll do what I can to help her. She's not very tech focused so either I'll see if I can get her husband to figure out downloading the software (if it works with her machine, I expect it does) or I'll have her send her card to me, download it, and send it back. She's had it over a year. I'll be sure she owns the machine first if she does that so she wont' lose compliance.
Meanwhile is there any way to get her some type of humidity without a humidifier? Maybe passive humidity in a bowl of some type depending on the shape of her machine?
She's afraid to even call the doctors office to ask for her results, copy of her prescription etc. This guy really did a number on her.
I wish I lived near her to go in and raise Cain myself for her. Arggh.
Susan
The Manse Hen
RE: Trying to help a friend... - me50 - 02-06-2015
If her machine is at least a year old, she has met her compliance requirement or they would have probably taken her machine away.
I cannot stand bullies and I cannot stand a doc that thinks he/she is God.
That's all.
RE: Trying to help a friend... - quiescence at last - 02-06-2015
If you get them to send you the card, the machine can be used without the card, and will still record the events, time of use, and all the basic data. But, the machine will not record the complex time graphs - that requires the card to be in it. No loss of compliance type data.
RE: Trying to help a friend... - Ghost1958 - 02-06-2015
The Doc has no choice but to give her a copy of her prescription and medical records. That is her right and the law. So she need not be afraid of this idiot. She can change her pressures if she wants there is 0 he can do about it other than not see her again which would be a small loss IMHO.
Hes doing the thing I hate the most. Keeping her ignorant about her condition and the machine, on purpose so she thinks she HAS to depend on him which she absolutely doesnt and shouldnt.
Im a gentle giant kind of guy and ive only had one Doc in my life come at me like that. That lasted about two minutes before he got the attitude he was giving plus 50 percent. Left him hiding behind the door of the room we were in when I left and never went back.
RE: Trying to help a friend... - TheManseHen - 02-06-2015
Dear Fella's,
I feel exactly the same way you do about this ding dong. I told her not to worry about him for now because I didn't want her upset before she tried to sleep. I asked her to in the back of her mind, consider calling and asking for her info/files/script. Regardless if she get's her nerve up, I'm going to do what I can to help her in the meantime.
I found that she doesn't need a script to get a humidifier basin so I've written her a list of questions so I can be sure of her model, and I asked her to take me a close up picture of said machine so I can be double sure.
Then I'm going to either help her or her husband walk through the sleepyhead download and uploading her data, or get her to put the card between some stiff cardboard and pop it in the mail to me and I'll get her through her data.
There is as best I can tell, no way in God's good green earth that she would or should have been left on her own, without that Dr even trying to follow-up, with a flat therapy setting of 4.0 h20 pressure for sleep apnea on a Auto type machine. That's it. And she has a nasal mask, I can't imagine how she feels air. Bless her heart.
I guess the data isn't going to be "that" helpful cause it's set at a straight 4...maybe I should talk her through an auto pap set up using clinicians, have her use a range and then get data after a week or so. More info then.
If I get her humidity without getting her a heated tube am I setting her up for rainout? I'll ask just in case she has a heated tube already.
I know how hard it was/is for many folk to crawl up from ill health to seek medical care, and to get to and from appointments etc. I know how many folk can't afford what they need either. I remember how excited she was when they'd moved to this wee town and she thought she'd found a doctor there who might be helpful. I just never heard the follow up until now.
Arggh.
Susan, Peeved in San Francisco.
RE: Trying to help a friend... - Ghost1958 - 02-06-2015
You can have her set the machine to auto trial as it probably has that option and the machine will roughly titrate her over a period of time set by her. Itll then default to cpap chk at the pressure it determines.
You can then go back to auto mode with a fairly decent idea of what her titrated pressure should be. Itll have to be tweaked of course and her min set in a decently narrow range to the max but at least youll have a starting point instead of shooting in the dark by phone.
Hope it helps
RE: Trying to help a friend... - PaytonA - 02-06-2015
Hen,
You need ti be careful considering the doctor even though he is an overbearing idiot. I lived in a village of 3000 in southern Ohio for a while. There was 1 doctor there who had more patients than he could really handle well. If you went to see him at your appointment time, you would wait for at least an hour to be seen. The Doc kept trying to get another Doc to come in with him and even built a facility that was designed for more than one doc but to no avail.
What I am trying to say is that there may not be another doctor available to her without a longer trip.
Best Regards,
PaytonA