As many CPAP users discover, the life-altering device comes with caveats:
Health insurance companies are often tracking whether patients use them.
If they aren’t, the insurers might not cover the machines or the supplies that go with them.
Patients have been required to rent CPAPs at rates that total much more than the retail price of the devices,
or they’ve discovered that the supplies would be substantially cheaper
if they didn’t have insurance at all.
“The doctors and providers are not in control of medicine anymore,” said Harry Lawrence,
owner of Advanced Oxy-Med Services, a New York company that provides CPAP supplies.
“It’s strictly the insurance companies. They call the shots.”(Emphasis Mine)
If they aren't using them they should stop making the insurance company pay for them.
In fact, I had to go into the hospital in early 2000 and I had to bring my CPAP with me. The hospital equipment tech had to examine it, then put a sticker on it that read "Y2K Compliant."
I never buy or rent equipment from a doctors office.
So much cheaper getting it yourself.
“I had no idea they were sending my information across the wire.”
The company who supplied my CPAP machine was very clear on who was getting the data and who had authority to change its settings. I get usage report emails from my local provider and they are no doubt getting the data from a server that is run by the manufacturer (or whoever they contract operations to).
Schmidt must not be much of an “IT specialist” if he doesn’t understand these things.
Shut off your WiFi router before going to bed.
Problem solved.
ProPublica is to the left of everyone, but this is a good report.
Which is why I now buy my supplies from online sources. Guess I need to figure out how to break into the machine and disable the radio before it reports me to the sleepstapo.
Creepy, though yes, most people I know who have got them seldom use them. And I am yet to meet someone who has been evaluated on sleep who hasn’t been told they need one!
I am surprised that this supposed IT specialist did not think that his machine was reporting back.
After the first year you can disable the reporting if you feel the need to do so.
That was part of the agreement when I got mine. The doctor’s staff, insurance papers, and provider all pointed it out multiple times.
Insurance companies are now also offering $25.00 Apple iWatches, as well.
I told hubby that it’s to monitor heart rate. Etc.
They’ve come out with so many new health monitoring apps, for iwatch.
I bet within a few years, insurance companies will mandate fitbits or iWatch, for coverage.
This is true - for the first 3 months of my CPAP usage, they had a little wireless receiver attached to the device, to monitor usage. After that, it’s assumed you will keep using it.
NOW, don’t get me started on this whole “Rent vs. Buy” thing...the crooks who supplied my CPAP machine wouldn’t let me buy it - I had to rent it - pay in installments, which upped the cost from about $700. to over $1000.
Scam artists!
How dare the people paying the bills want to have a role in the decision making process!!!
I also bought the machine outright, so there's no rental.
(I once learned I'd spent $1500 'renting' a water cooler over 18 years.....)
I believe our insurance company required the patient to average 4 hours of use a night, and did not inform the patient ahead of time, or at least the patient (my husband) did not read the small print.
Given that he often sleeps only four hours a night, and that he was getting used to have something strapped onto his face, he did not average four hours a night in the first month, and the first month was the only one the ins. company would look at. After multiple go rounds with machine supplier, ins. co., and doctor, he ended up paying an inflated price rather than wrecking our credit rating.
It's still worth it - he feels much better, and I no longer dream on lawn mowers and motor cycle gangs roaring through our bedroom, or wake up with him twitching and and gasping as though he's being strangled.
How anyone can sleep through suffocation I don't know.
I sort of wish it on insurance executives, though. They probably have diamond-crusted C-PAPS to go with their extra special platinum policies and retroactive oh let us fix it for you exceptions.
My CPAP has cellular built in, so turning off my WiFi at night wouldn’t help.
I actually don’t mind the info sharing. The insurance company is paying for it, so they have an interest in making certain the machine is being used.
Bkmrk.