S9 - SD Card Reader Concerns Entirely Mitigated

[unadog]

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[DreamDiver]

I figure I will make back the cost of the machine in pay in a week, vs another 3-4 months of living hell, having the wife mad at me, etc. Heck, I can make back the cost of the machine by painting a couple rooms myself, which I couldn't do now, instead of having to hire someone.

Sorry, useless noise - I'm PO'ed - anyway, good luck!

Cheers,
Michael

Michael, I hope you get real treatment soon. It's been three years on CPAP, and I'm just now finding out how poorly organized - or intentionally mis-organized the field of sleep study really is. To have to go back for test after test is just plain wrong. They should be able to diagnose this at home with something like an S9 - not paying thousands of dollars in a lab purely designed to suck money out of our wallets starting us on the wrong machines because they're less expensive. The insurance companies seem complicit. Surely they cannot be that ignorant.

You have a right to be PO'ed. I'm seeing on my machine in two days what they couldn't see in three sleep labs. I'm at the point that I'm about to ask for the full data on cd from all my previous sleep labs.

Best of luck to you too, thanks.

[Tefan.]

To add on unadog's post, you can "lock against write" the SD card before putting it in your reader, with the small slider on the side of the card. Just don't forget to unlock it before you put it back in the S9 ! I'd really like to find that software though ...

[KatieW]

Tefan, if you registered with the forum, then someone could send you a Private Message.

[ozij]

They should be able to diagnose this at home with something like an S9 - not paying thousands of dollars in a lab purely designed to suck money out of our wallets starting us on the wrong machines because they're less expensive. The insurance companies seem complicit. Surely they cannot be that ignorant.

He is diagnosed. The insurance company assumes at least some of the people being run through these hoops will not recieve SV machines in the end.

OL

[jnk]

I wonder how likely it is that those "central" apneas would show up as such in a lab, where they use effort belts to differentiate obstructives from centrals?

[bigk]

I'd really like to know where I can get Resscan 3.10 from...

[unadog]

The insurance company assumes at least some of the people being run through these hoops will not recieve SV machines in the end.

Yeah, kind of like people buying big ticket items with special rebate deals. The companies count on only paying out a portion of that money, less than 50%, when people lose receipts, miss (arbitrary) deadlines, and forget to send in their rebates. (or get denied for bogus reasons, hmmm...) If they really wanted to pay the incentives, they'd just give you $25 off at the point of purchase and be done with it!

I think the insurance industry would make people go through teh same multiple titration/test process even if everyone eventually needed an ASV. The compliance rate to start with CPAP is only about 47% overall, so they can save about 1/2 of the incremental cost just by delaying things!

To be fair to them, though, the majority of central apnea assocaited with OSA is transitional and will go away. It comes up with all of the disturbances of starting CPAP, testing at sleep labs, etc. So they also don't want to "chase" ghosts, and spend a lot of resources on something that has no long term effect on peoples sleep or health.

But, that **is not** true of all specific sub-classes of Complex Slep Apnea. The different causal factors that create centrals have different resolutions. A failing heart, for example, won't just magically "go away" when they keep you on CPAP for 8 weeks.


[

The medical sytem and insurance industry handle acute problems well - the flu, a broken arm, appendicitis. They start to stumble with chronic problems.

If the chronic problem also can't be easily measured - by a blood test, xray, etc. - it starts to get really messy. They don't quite believe that you are in much pain. Everybody complains about fatigue. Most acute problems get better within 3 months anyway .... So they stall and prattle on and accuse the patient (have you been stressd - depressed - "hysterical" lately.)

And people seek alternative remedies when the doctors don't listen, can't help, or the insurance won't pay. Chiropractic, rolfing, Alexander, rotation diets, etc. I tried human growth hormone for about 1 year for pain and fatigue, maybe 5 years ago. I paid $400 out of pocket per month, beacuse there was no way insurance would pay for something experimental like that.

This little sub-segment of the "chronic" world is particularly warped in some ways, though, beacuse of the complex equipment and the insurance payment model. When you design a system, they always say that you have to be careful what you "incentivize" - what you reward. How you give pay raises and bonuses at work, that sort of thing. For example, giving police a monthly "quoto" for speeding tickets can lead to lots of citizen complaints at the end of the month when they start writing the mayors neighbors for doing 28 in a 25 ...

The xPAP arena is really an odd dance, though, between the DMEs and the insurance companies. In this case the "customers" are almost extraneous to the process, and are usually not that well informed.


Basically, at some point, you have to decide if:

a) you want to get better and get your life back, or
b) you want to follow all of the odd and petty rules and minimize your out of pocket expense.

The ideal, of course, is to be able to do both at the same time .....

OK, I typed up a long post on "quality" and systems thinking earlier today (as opposed to this short one ... ;>), then lost it to a server error. I'll loop back tomorrow and post it in a new thread, where it is easier to ignore!

Cheers! Good luck - have fun with the toy! (envious)

Best,
Michael Neither will the centrals from long term prescription medications. But they make you folow teh same path.

[Tefan]

Tefan, if you registered with the forum, then someone could send you a Private Message.

I did register today Katie. I'm starting treating this and the forum will be a great help. Sometimes it's just easier to reason with yourself when your not alone ...

[KatieW]

Tefan, if you registered with the forum, then someone could send you a Private Message.

I did register today Katie. I'm starting treating this and the forum will be a great help. Sometimes it's just easier to reason with yourself when your not alone ...

Welcome to the forum Tefan. I sent you a PM.

[Llama]

My DME is trying to get me an S9 Autoset through my insurance (BC/BS) so I have one quick question regarding the datacard.

I check and set all my machines (various Resmed S8's) with the direct connect USB adapters. Is checking/changing the settings a simple matter when using the SD card to carry over the data? If so, how do I tell the machine to read the card to pickup the changes?

[jnk]

My DME is trying to get me an S9 Autoset through my insurance (BC/BS) so I have one quick question regarding the datacard.

I check and set all my machines (various Resmed S8's) with the direct connect USB adapters. Is checking/changing the settings a simple matter when using the SD card to carry over the data? If so, how do I tell the machine to read the card to pickup the changes?

My understanding is that any change made to the card while it is attached to your computer will automatically be read by the blower once you put the card back into your blower.

[Llama]

Thanks, I figured it had to be something like that, but without a smart card reader/writer to play around with on the S8's I could not be certain.

[dsm]

DreamDiver.

Are you willing to try a 2GB or 8GB SD card in your machine ?
Am really keen to know if the machine internal software will work with cards above the 2GB bar.

I can imagine that there may be limits to the file sizes that mean a really big (8GB) card is of
no help, but it is worth trying out to see.

Cheers

DSM

[DreamDiver]

DreamDiver.

Are you willing to try a 2GB or 8GB SD card in your machine ?
Am really keen to know if the machine internal software will work with cards above the 2GB bar.

I can imagine that there may be limits to the file sizes that mean a really big (8GB) card is of
no help, but it is worth trying out to see.

Cheers

DSM

The datalog files are apparently not fixed-size round-robin files as I had originally expected. The files are whatever size they turn out to be, with new files adding every day using this file structure: 20100308_065816_SAD.crc and 20100308_065816_SAD.edf. There are twenty four files just for stuff that happened today, ranging in size from almost a kb to almost a megabyte. I have not looked closely at the files. I'm not willing to try another sd card just yet because I don't have a spare that is empty. At some point I think I'll give it a shot. If you have suggestions for reliable, opensource FREE SD card, backup, image and restore software, I would be grateful.