I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea an told I needed a cpap machine. My doctor, without my…read morepermission, passed my name, phone number, and prescription to this company. They Started calling me and I started calling them and eventually I actually was able to get some one at their office to answer a telephone. It took several calls over a week to actually get a live human on the phone.
BTW, I made several calls from my cell phone. But, I pointed out that I am a teacher and can not take calls on the cell phone. I gave specific instructions not to ever try to call me on that number. So, of course, from then on they only called on that number.
When I got someone of the phone they wanted to set up a time to have at technician come out and check the wiring in my home. I asked why they needed to do that. And I was told that they had to make sure that the wiring would handle the machine. I asked the obvious question. "What are the power requirements of the machine?" The answer was "Huh?". I said, how many amps does the machine need? Does it use standard line current? Does it use a standard three prong connector? The person on the line told me it used a standard three prong connector, used normal line current, and he clearly had no idea what an "amp" was. So, I said, you call me back with the power requirements and I'll let you know if that is acceptable to me. He said, that there was no need for that because the technician had to come out and install it anyway an he could do the check at that time...
I said that I had understood that I was getting a portable machine because I travel and I could not accept a machine that needed and kind of installation other than being plugged into the wall. And, I had to know what the power requirements were and a lot of other things about the machine before I could accept it. I mentioned that I have a lot of allergies, especially mold allergies, and wanted to know what the machine was made of so I could evaluate how mold resistant it was. I asked a lot of other questions.
This went on over about a week of phone calls as I read more about CPAP machines and found out that there are many choices. During that time he first tried to tell me that the answers to my questions didn't matter, that there was no difference between the different machines. Then he tried to satisfy me with bafflegab. Then he tried lying. I don't think he knew he was lying. I think he was just so lacking in education and knowledge that he thought he was telling me something reasonable.
The last straw was when he told me that a technician would have to come out and service the machine every week. Of course, my insurance, and I, would be billed for that service. I ask what the tech would have to do *every week*. Well, the tech would have to change the chip. What chip? The one that records my sleep data. The data my doctor wants to see to monitor my progress. Oh, so why does a tech have to do that every week. Well, the chip fills up every week. I said, no, that is not going to happen. Suddenly it turned out that I could swap the chip my self and just send it in by snail mail using special mailers they'll sell me along with extra chips. Why can't I just copy it to my PC and email it? Oh, that is impossible... It can not be done. It would require proprietary hardware and software.
Not at all true. Turns out it is a standard sd card.
I did some research. It turns out they were trying to sell me a ResMed CPAP machine. A machine that has very poor customer ratings. The ResMed machines record sleep data on a standard SD card. A 1 Gigabyte SD card can hold at least 8 months of sleep data, but the ResMed machines are programmed to only store 7 days of data no matter how large a card you put in. They have a USB port, but if I read the specs correctly, they do not make full data available over the USB port. One part of the ResMed web site lists many features of their machines that are designed increase the profit of their business partners, especially how they can increase what they bill to Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance. Features like limiting the amount of data the store of an SD chip so that it has to be processed every 7 days. If they supported HD SD chips, or even just the full capacity of SD chips, or USB flash drives, a patient could just pull it and take it with them whne they visit the doctor. a cheap thumb drive can store years of data. By forcing the data to be processed every seven days they have an excuse to pay people to go collect the data at peoples homes and to "process" it at their office and distribute reports to doctors. Minimal cost for maximal profit.
So, after my last round of questions, they said they needed to talk to my Dr. They have not called me back.
So, is this place a scam designed to bilk insurance companies, or is my experience just an example of one customer encountering one incompetent employee?
I don't know.