Thanks again for the replies. The transcript of my chat with easybreathe.com: [Lindsay] Hi, and welcome to easybreathe.com! If you have any questions, I'm happy to help. [Visitor] Hi, [Lindsay] How can I help you? [Visitor] I've been diagnosed with sleep apnea and supplied with a Resmed Escape model...

Thanks for your replies. I've got a few avenues of approach to try, and I'll give it the best effort I can, but I'm not hopeful. The two pulmonologists I've spoken to were hostile (literally) to the idea of a patient having access to data on their therapy. I wouldn't care if my therapy were working,...

JQ... I'm sure someone in the Brooklyn area will get back to you. I know there are decent doctors where you live. In the meantime, if it were me, I would get rid of that machine and fast! I would also get rid of both of those "doctors". The doctor who said your brick was just fine is truly an idiot...

I've been on cpap therapy for 7 weeks now. It's been a very difficult adjustment for me, and finding effective support has been difficult as well. My pulmonologist specified the brick I currently have in his script, so appealing to the DME wasn't an option. I attempted to call my pulmonologist to in...

As far as the relationship between the doctor and the DME goes, I've always assumed, cynic that I am, that all such relationships involve some kind of kickback scheme. Under the table no doubt, so there's no record to trip them up, but there's a definite quid pro quo involved. Ridiculous, childish ...

OK, things are looking pretty good right now. According to the DME the cpap machine is a rental item and can be returned at any time during the rental period. There may be a gap between the return of the machine and the arrival of the new machine, but apparently that can't be helped, Hopefully it wi...

An update: I called the DME, to ask about switching the escape for an autoset, and was told that the prescription had specified an escape. So I did call back my sleep doc (never say never), to ask why they'd done that, and to request a change. They said the escape was the better model, and why would...

JQ, I'm afraid the Judge is right. I went through 4 sleep doctors before I found one that was interested in looking at my sleep data. (I'm not sure those first four knew it could be done.) In the meantime, I learned all I could about the therapy and was able to optimize it on my own. The one subjec...

The Sleep Doctor interprets the Sleep Study, determines that you do have Sleep Apnea & need a machine - so he writes you an Rx. At this point (at least in his mind), his responsibility stops & it is now the responsibility of the DME to supply you with a machine & teach you how to use it. I can't sp...

The thing is that insurance pays by the billing code and it's the same billing code for all the above-mentioned machines: E0601 . So your doc may or may not be aware that the DME gave you the cheapest machine they could get away with, because more than likely the doc's prescription simply identifie...

Did you read this? http://maskarrayed.wordpress.com/ Scroll down just a little ways till you see what Janknitze wrote about "Help, I have been given a brick". I only read the first post. I didn't see the strategy section. Looks like a good approach. Thanks. So the probability is that my current pul...

Ah, the "why did I get a brick rather than something useful" question. DME's get paid based on the code for machine type. In this case the code is the same for the brick you got and the more capable machine you didn't get. But ... The cost to the DME is less for a brick than for a more capable mach...

With the S9 Escape you get zero useful data for anyone to evaluate...you or your equipment supplier or even your doctor..the only thing available is hours of use. So even the people who would/should know how to interpret the data (which BTW isn't all that hard to learn yourself) don't have anything...

He probably meant that your breathing was interrupted 78 times per hour. Sleep apnea sufferers don't normally wake with each event but your sleep is disturbed. Thanks, that makes a lot more sense to me. The sleep doc showed me the readout from my cpap study and indicated the section where the corre...

I've had insomnia for twenty years, but I was only recently diagnosed with sleep apnea. I have a million questions, but rather than putting them all in one post, I'll start with one. After my sleep study and cpap study I had a meeting with my pulmonologist. He told me that I had severe sleep apnea a...