Pretty sure a sleep study costs less than one jpeg. Just pay for it out of pocket.
Have you ever called to get a cash price on a sleep study? No one could actually quote me a price.
I paid like 2K iirc
Or 1/200th of a monkey jpeg. Seems like a no brainer.
How exactly do you think the doctor is decide if a test is going to be helpful? The answer is, of course, largely based on self-reported symptoms.
Even in this case, it sounds like the need for the test was based on the self-reported symptom of loud snoring.
Bolded is a not a very prudent policy. As mentioned above, it can be very easily abused. A doc should (and most of the time does) have a good reason (preferably evidence-based) for ordering a test. Of course, the insurance company should also have at least as good a reason for denying.
Iād absolutely agree in most cases, it is the insurance company that has the bullshit reason. But Iām not talking about most cases, or even any other sleep-related case. Just this case.
So, letās look at what happened in this specific case. The insurance company algorithm would have lead to not testing. But they gamed the system, tested anyway and as predicted by the questionnaire, the test proved to not be useful (unless I missed something somewhere).
Yeah, insurance companies are shitty. Maybe by dumb luck they occasionally get one right. It doesnāt make them less shitty.
While I see your point, the test did put me in the sleep apnea range. Maybe thatās being results oriented.
I donāt know enough about apnea, snoring, etc., but if I donāt self report a lot of the symptoms, but snoring is clearly a significant issue, should that be indicative enough for an ENT to be able to order a sleep test covered by insurance? I donāt know the answer to that.
If the snoring is disrupting you or your partners sleep, then yes, surely.
I was going to say like $1800 was a number in my head.
There used to be a great second hand cpap equipment market, but the manufacturers got laws to prohibit the resale of the equipment.
Pretty lame.
Yeah, I get that its a medical device and that you shouldnāt willy nilly buy and set your own settings for it without a medical consult, but there is no reason that you shouldnt be able to get a prescription for the settings from a doc and then pick up a machine secondhand and have the settings tweaked to match your scrip.
At least Amazon sells the non-machine parts and those are easy to get/change out. Iāve had to get about 3-4 hoses in my 6 years using it, and like to replace my pillows/headset about once a year.
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Well I did say āseems likeā. If youāve got some large studies that show the test was indicated in his case, Iām all ears. Neither you, nor anyone else seems to be claiming that.
Well, the way I read it is that the test didnāt actually result in any sleep apnea intervention. That was the result.
Maybe people on the low end of the range generally find the inconvenience of the device not to be worth the benefit. Iāve got no idea. All Iām saying is the way your specific case happened to play out, you would have been in the exact same spot with or or without the test.
If coverage of your dental appliance was based on the test or you are saying you would not have gotten it but for the test, then you can disregard everything I wrote, but that is not the impression I got from reading your post.
You probably know better than I do, but is there a possibility of transmission of infection or something along those lines if you buy a CPAP machine used by someone else? The thought of using someone elseās used one just seems gross to me.
Thats fair, but I think if you get all new parts, there shouldnt be anything in the machine itself that should be really unsanitary. But I may be wrong.
Wait, so you had insurance but they refused to pay anything? When I offered to pay cash while uninsured, no one could quote me an actual price. It was just Karens talking about how much it might cost hypothetically, and those estimates ranged from $2k to $10k. Same thing with the brain MRI that my insurance tried to stall on. I got tired of waiting, called every imaging center in the city, and got one definitive ācome in and pay this price todayā quote. So I did. It isnāt really a cash business, and the lack of transparency is the whole point.
My deductible was like 8 grand
has anyone gotten the nasal cavity surgery to alleviate snoring? does it work?
I went to a foot dr. today because I need new orthotics. Because I have a high deductible health plan, and no one can tell me whether my plan will even cover orthotics anyway, they wanted a 50% deposit on the orthotics, only $200ā¦ whatever. So I go digging through my 3 different Health equity hsa, fsa, cards. I have an old hsa from when I was single that has some money left in it from 10 years ago. An fsa card from our plan last year that I though should still be in grace period to use. And a new hsa card for the new plan we are on this year. I couldnāt get any of the cards to work. They all got declined. Healthy, functioning health insurance system we have here.
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No, but that was at the patientās discretion after receiving the results. The test did indicate mild sleep apnea.
Regarding insurance for the dental appliance, it was not covered at all. I remember doing research at the time and I donāt think it would have been covered regardless of what the sleep test said. I donāt think the insurance companies view them as medical devices or whatever.
As to the question of whether I wouldāve gotten it without the test, Iām not sure. If the test had indicated a more serious condition, then I probably would have been looking at CPAP or something similar. The test results, in consultation with my ENT and dentist, led me to the dental appliance over other alternatives.
I think youāre ignoring the important information obtained from the questionnaire.
DOC: Based on this questionnaire, you have, at worst, mild sleep apnea. So, if you have mild sleep apnea, what are you going to do?
JordanIB: Nothing or maybe get a dental appliance.
DOC: Why donāt you just do that and see if it helps the snoring? Maybe we can consider the tests after that?
This seems like a much more efficient way to handle the situation
The assumption here is that the questionnaire is not just some random shit, but designed (based on evidence) to screen for sleep apnea. There is nothing the doc could ask you that they couldnāt put on the questionnaire. Now if his recommendation was based on other tests he did or physical examination findings, then that changes things, but I didnāt get the impression that was the case.
Based on the questionnaire, that was extremely unlikely. Thatās the whole point of the questionnaire. So you more or less already knew that going in.
Never thought Iād become an health insurance company stan. I fucking hate them.
I did. It worked to the extent that I sleep better, but I still have a permanent runny nose. As for snoring, dunno, no one around to tell me.