Houston Area CPAPtalkers - Free CPAP Mask for Feedback

[carolyngoodman]

Greetings,

CPAP.com will be conducting feedback sessions over the next few months. We are looking for people who are interested in coming to our office for 30 to 60 minute user testing sessions. For your time and insight, we are offering a new CPAP mask of your choice on the house.

We want to improve the CPAP.com shopping experience. We can't do it without you guiding the way! You do not need to have made a purchase from CPAP.com to participate. No preparation for the session is needed. It works like this: you come in, we ask for your feedback, and you walk out 60 minutes later with one less CPAP mask bill to pay!

If you are interested in attending one of our sessions, please send me a PM. I will confirm receipt. When the user testing dates are set, I will contact you with scheduling options and mask preferences.

Sessions will be held at our office:

Suite #135
9100 Southwest Freeway
Houston, Texas 77074
(The office building behind SaltGrass Steakhouse)

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Regards,
Carolyn Goodman
Marketing Manager

[CRS]

I'd like to participate! Look forward to more information...

[Sleeyp & Tired]

Both Hubby & I are interested, but live @ 40 miles North. Is there another location N of city in the future?
Also, question regarding Medicare/Insurance payment for CPAP machines with Medicare [even if secondary]:

Today We had appointment to pick up CPAP machines with a provider of our primary insurance carrier. Medicare is our secondary insurance carrier. The provider totally ignored the primary insurance company & only was interested talking about Medicare. The sales person proudly mentioned the "smart card" which recorded data & sent it to Medicare so our usage could be monitored. When I asked about this procedure, we were told since Medicare is paying & even though Medicare is secondary insurance carrier they had to monitor our usage of the CPAP machines & we had to return to the company within a 30+ day period of time with our "smart card" to verify our usage of the CPAP Machines. They then said if we didn't use the machines, Medicare would not pay & we would be required to pay the amount Medicare would pay. When we seemed totally confused, they brought us a document for us to sign with an amount filled in as amount we would agree to pay if Medicare refused to pay. As the session progressed, we became more confused & decided to delay getting CPAP machine. We kept insisting our primary carrier would pay for 100% & even called the insurance company from the provider office. The company still insisted that if we had Medicare [even if secondary] we would have to be monitored by Medicare. We're still confused, but doing our online research to try to understand this "monitoring" by "Big Brother".

[johnnygoodman]

Howdy Sleepy & Tired,

I know Medicare has imposed stricter "compliance" rules but I don't know the full answer to your question about Medicare as secondary. I've emailed a guy who will know the answer and I'll post it here when I receive it.

Right now, there is only the SW Houston location for user testing. When we have trouble filling slots, we're bound to get more creative. However, so far, so good!

Johnny

[johnnygoodman]

Here's the word from a trusted source:

Let's say the customer has BCBS primary and Medicare as the secondary.

We will submit the claim to BCBS. BCBS will send HMS an EOB stating what they paid. We then have to report the amount of reimbursement we received from BCBS to Medicare so they can determine the balance to pay HMS. We do not have to provide a download and MD progress notes to Medicare. We have to follow the rules of the primary payer first.

If a patient is not compliant and they sign a waiver the waiver means nothing. A DME cannot hold the patient responsible for payment if they are not using their machine. The DME can request to pick the machine up if the patient is not compliant.

My Conclusion: Your DME is out of bounds. Don't take it!

Johnny