Really need to vent about Hybrid avail.

[Guest]

Wow! It is such a bummer to hear that some health professionals out there do not take their work more seriously.

I first found out about the Hybrid here on this site and called up the techs over at my sleep clinic to see if they could get one for me to try. That was less than two weeks ago and today they called me to let me know it was in. When I went to pick it up they said it was a free demo and that I did not have to trade in my Swift out for it because they were simply passing on the Hybrid mask to me for free. I feel quite lucky to have such kind folks working at the sleep clinic where I was diagnosed with OSA about a month ago.

Dreamstalker,

I'm happy for you. But sleep clinics are not supposed to hand out free samples and most won't. Sometimes they will give a sample to the patient if the DME promises to replace it in a short period of time but that happens rarely. I work in a sleep clinic, so I know all this. The samples that manufacturers provide to the sleep clinics are meant to be used for titrating patients. My clinic gets mask samples only once every 3-4 months from all the manufacturers. So, if I were to give it away to someone, I will have one less mask to titrate with until I get a new batch of samples 3 months later and several patients will be affected because I will have to say "no" to a patient practically every night if all the remaining masks are being used on other patients. For a hot product like the Hybrid, this has been the case already although we gave nothing away. I have requested additional samples last week from Teleflex (1 for each bed in my clinic) and they are supposed to come this week.

Hmmmm .... well I'll have to consider myself very lucky indeed then.

I was the first to request the Hybrid at my sleep clinic as they had never heard of it before my request. I dunno what kind of promises their DME made with my clinic but the tech had no issues providing the Hybrid to me to take home.

Perhaps there is no demand for the Hybrid at my clinic as they had never heard of it before I requested it from them? Or, maybe they are just a quality group of sleep disorder professionals that care about their patients and and go above and beyond profit for the benefit of their patient's health? What do I know ... I'm just trying to catch some dreamtime

[DreamStalker]

darn! ... I thought I was logged in. Anyway, that was me in case y'all didin't figure out who that guest was.

- ra

[chdurie2]

Sleep labs must get quite a few samples because my sleep lab, a well-known one at a major hospital, had no problem with giving me a Comfortfiull to use in my re-titrating study, even though i brought a umff with me to use. Because they didn't have a Comfortfull 2 in my size, they also gave me one in a different size to try at home.

But they have yet to get in the hybrid.

On another note, my DME said their reluctance to deal with the hybrid company "had a lot to do with pricing." It's an expensive mask, and if the company won't make it price-okay with the DME's, their business will suffer. So that is most likely the heart of the matter. Yes, DMEs should compromise on profit to help patients, but there's no incentive to do so unless patients refuse to order another mask through them. Most beginning cpap users have no idea about masks, and they probably represent the majority of DME users. So i don't see a big incentive for the DMEs to stock the hybrid.

My sleep lab person made a bunch of calls to various DMEs and said none was carrying the hybrid.

Caroline

Caroline

[ladytonya]

I don't know if my clinic is different than others and from comments I've seen on here, I wonder if it might be. It is affiliated with our local hospital and is call the sleep center. They do the sleep studies and the doctors are all in one office. Plus they have a few individuals who work with people doing what they call "desensitization". The two that I have met with are people who have sleep apnea and sleep with xpap who work there and try to help people who are having issues with their therapy.

I know that when I had my titration, the sleep tech had a ton of different masks to choose from. I saw him pick from a box that was under his station and it looked rather full. Then I have also seen several masks on display in the doctor's office itself. He seemed to have a selection of nasal, full face, nasal pillows, and the oracle. There were about 9 or 10 on a shelf beside his desk and when we were talking about some of the problems I'm having he had me use one to demonstrate.

There is no DME in this office, I had my choice of any local DME (there are about 4 or 5) and the sleep center said they work with all of them. Now when I went in for a desensitization session, she had a drawer full of masks and I tried several. When I settled on the ComfortLite2, she left the room and said she would be back in a minute. She came back with an unopened, brand new CL2 mask and she gave it to me. She said that particular mask wasn't very popular because most people don't like the way it looks and they had a ton of them so she just gave it to me! I was shocked but of course didn't complain one bit. I don't think I would have gotten it if it were a different mask. She was going to send me home with a Swift but she has said that I could only use it for two or three nights because it was the only one she had as it was probably her most popular mask. Anyway, my guess would be that it varies from place to place and really depends on how the sleep clinic or center is set up as to whether they would give away samples.

Wow, that was a long message to not say very much, but anyway I hope the information might help someone!

[sidesleeper]

It's a good idea to call ahead to make sure they have the Hybrid in stock before your visit because the product is so revolutionary that your pressure needs may go down with the mask and you would never have that benifit on a regular CPAP if it's not tried in the lab.
I'm getting the best sleep of my life and there's no excuse for them to not have it in stock by now for everyone to try.