A Reply To Leejgbt and Rooster

[roster]

........ Change in the industry is more likely to come about from inside the industry, not from us.

......

That is not true at all.

I am all for change within the industry, but the history of business shows that major changes come from outside the existing industries. You get too entrenched and cannot see the need for major change and just keep on doing the same old things that made you successful.

Someone will start a revolution in the sleep industry in the next ten years and it will be someone from outside or some rebels who leave the current sleep industry.

[mars]

Guys

You guys really give me the shits.

I am trying to get some kind of discourse going with someone who has demonstrated an open mind, and all you want to do is f**k it up with your own petty ego trips.

This thread was started to avoid this shit, but you had to spoil it.

Mars

[rubymom]

Well, sounds to me then that you should take your little private discourse offline to private messages if that's what you want.

[roster]

Someone is imposing their will on me.

It's my wife. I have to vacuum this whole damn big house today.

Mars, Vacuuming should occupy me long enough for you to get your bowels under control.

Have a good day (or evening).

P.S. Maybe you can use the time of my absence to learn how to properly use the Quote icon.

[mars]

Someone is imposing their will on me.

It's my wife. I have to vacuum this whole damn big house today.

Mars, Vacuuming should occupy me long enough for you to get your bowels under control.

Have a good day (or evening).

P.S. Maybe you can use the time of my absence to learn how to properly use the Quote icon.

Rooster

Help me.

What have I done wrong with the quote icon?

Bowels now feel a lot better, thank you for asking.

cheers

Mars

[Slinky]

Sometimes I get the feeling that we are a bunch of sharks in a bloody, feeding frenzy when a sleep professional makes a post in this forum. *sigh*

[cinco777]

rooster wrote

And that is the only reason I chose to reply to this thread - leejgbt's posts indicate he has a strong desire to impose his will on others (via FDA regulations at times). In all matters of human interaction, "imposing one's will" on others is the ultimate evil.

(Forget it Slink, I am not going to be diplomatic.)

After weighing the substance of leejgbt's numerous claims (all unsupported except for the implied "trust me - I am a DME Manager with way more knowledge and experience than any of you"), I have reached the same conclusion as Rooster.

In his Monday, October 26, 8:14AM posting to this forum, he referenced a statistic: "60% of users that received their machines from a B&M DME were compliant vs 3% of users that received their machines from online DMEs" (like CPAP.COM). In a later posting, he added that this was a statistic from an AASM Study.

Since this is a very damaging claim which I believe is false, I challenged his statistic and have asked him three times since Monday, via postings to threads that he frequents, to provide a pointer - URL link and/or full name of the study - so that I can find this AASM study (if it really does exist) and review its methodology and, more importantly, how the users were selected.

As of this morning, leejgbt has ignored all three requests.

leejgbt, I am still waiting.

[Autopapdude]

After weighing the substance of leejgbt's numerous claims (all unsupported except for the implied "trust me - I am a DME Manager with way more knowledge and experience than any of you"), I have reached the same conclusion as Rooster.

In his Monday, October 26, 8:14AM posting to this forum, he referenced a statistic: "60% of users that received their machines from a B&M DME were compliant vs 3% of users that received their machines from online DMEs" (like CPAP.COM). In a later posting, he added that this was a statistic from an AASM Study.

Since this is a very damaging claim which I believe is false, I challenged his statistic and have asked him three times since Monday, via postings to threads that he frequents, to provide a pointer - URL link and/or full name of the study - so that I can find this AASM study (if it really does exist) and review its methodology and, more importantly, how the users were selected.

As of this morning, leejgbt has ignored all three requests.

leejgbt, I am still waiting.

Exactly. That was why I was busting his chops a bit. He came here with a very clear agenda. I don't think he has the experience or education that many of the xpap users have here. He wants to promote himself as the "kindly DME" so as to give his field a good name (they're notorious in the medical arena to be far less than conscientious). In addition, he wants to have a battle with the" self-dosers" as he calls most of us, so as to come of as if he possesses the key to knowledge in the area of sleep disorders. I'd say his intentions are ingenuous.

[roster]

....... In his Monday, October 26, 8:14AM posting to this forum, he referenced a statistic: "60% of users that received their machines from a B&M DME were compliant vs 3% of users that received their machines from online DMEs" (like CPAP.COM). In a later posting, he added that this was a statistic from an AASM Study.

........

Cinco,

Thanks for bringing that to our attention. In light of the content of his other posts and the absence of data to support this statement, I will assume the statement is just a sorry lie. I wonder if Mars and Slinky saw this statement before they posted in his defense.

Oh well, got the first floor done, made a killer pimento cheese sandwich for lunch ( http://www.charlotteobserver.com/food/s ... 23058.html ), need to drag the vacuum hose up to the second floor and get finished.

[Slinky]

And EVERYTHING we say here is gospel and back up by some scientific body of study somewhere??? At least he has remained civil which is less than I can say of many of us posting in these threads. I don't have a problem w/disagreeing w/these RRTs and RPSGTs, etc. who dare to post here, I just am not particularly proud or impressed w/the way we tend to respond.

[Autopapdude]

Slinky, you're probably right. Vindicating a point of view at any cost isn't really productive. If the DME folks want to have their say, I will let them have it. No sense in battling all the time. It is too tiring and isn't productive.

[Julie]

I have a question for everyone here... (and please don't assume you know where I'm coming from unless you read through it, thanks.) What about getting the DME's, who after all are subject to lawsuits and who knows what else by providing medical equipment and advice (however awful it may be at times) to the rest of us, to get together and come up with a new way of impressing upon customers that they will be in big trouble either with federal or state law, doctors (AMA), or lay people with lawyers if they show people how to change their own pressures until such time as the law (pick one) does state that they will not be prosecuted for having done so when the first patient offs themselves by hugely misunderstanding the instructions (simple as they may be) and managing to be completely incapable of doing it correctly? After all, it is one thing for us to take responsibility for our own mistakes, but what should DME's do if patients are ... dumb? We won't sue ourselves and put ourselves out of business if we mess up, but like doctors, dentists and anyone else in similar situations, DME's have to follow certain regulations to be able to continue doing business.

This is NOT to say that possibly even the majority are doing a very good job, and that people who work in their businesses shouldn't be much better trained. But isn't there some way for them to present their case to the patient without saying it's the "law" that they can't show us what to do? Can they not be straightforward and tell people they'll be out of business (or money) if something were to go wrong, and therefore they cannot take the responsibility of showing us to set up our equipment? It's one thing for nurses etc. in hospitals to instruct e.g. diabetics on using their equipment and diets, etc., but they're not only trained by MD's to do it and have the hospital's backing, but are medical professionals themselves, vs. business people like DME's, who while they might have technical training, have no mandate from e.g. the gov't or anyone else (yet, apparently) to pass on their information to us.

I am not "taking sides" here, but hopefully trying to get some people to appreciate where others are coming from and the restrictions put on them that they have no way of changing (yet) until the laws do change. So while there may be no law at all re showing us how to set Cpap's, and while a different approach to telling us the position they're in as a result would be hugely appreciated, can we not be mature enough to give them credit for at least trying to be somewhat responsible for us (and their own interests - not a crime, after all) by what they do, if badly done, rather than just dumping all over them?

[DoriC]

This is "my forum" and I take pride in all the help given here for all who are struggling with this disease, especially by one of my favorite people. I know we can do better than this. I wonder how this discussion would go if it were being held face-to-face? Thank you Lee for your viewpoint.

[Slinky]

THANK YOU, Julie and Dori. And thank you, too, AutoPAPDude for letting sleeping dogs lie in the future. It is appreciated by many of us whether we speak up and say so or not. There was a time I wasn't brave enough to speak up during the tirades leveled at the RRTs and RPSGTs who dared to post here. We don't have to embrace them, but there is no harm in being civil in our disagreements w/them.

[mars]

....... In his Monday, October 26, 8:14AM posting to this forum, he referenced a statistic: "60% of users that received their machines from a B&M DME were compliant vs 3% of users that received their machines from online DMEs" (like CPAP.COM). In a later posting, he added that this was a statistic from an AASM Study.

........

Cinco,

Thanks for bringing that to our attention. In light of the content of his other posts and the absence of data to support this statement, I will assume the statement is just a sorry lie. I wonder if Mars and Slinky saw this statement before they posted in his defense.

.

Hi Rooster, autopapdude et al,

Well, our little internal spat did not last very long, and I am very pleased we resolved it as soon as we did. Maybe we are getting better at this. They say that as we get older we get more mature, who knows?

I too hope that leejgbt responds to cinc777's post.

Challenging leejgbt on all his insults and wrong statements would take far more time than I was prepared to put into this -
I still have to sleep and eat, and, as Rooster so ably pointed out, see to my bowels.

So I took 3 points, and challenged them. The response indicated a shifting of leejgbt's position, and I wanted to build on that. This does not ignore all that was previously said by leejgbt.

But lets face it, the basic DME culture is not our Forum culture. And Rooster and I can disagree on how change will possibly be made, but as Autopapdude has said - we are on the same side. So I look on the above posts as a positive step forward in more ways than one. As I once read - let us accentuate the positive, rather than the negative, and see if we can push this debate along a bit further.

I could be wasting my time with leejgbt , we will soon know.

And let us heed Slinky - in the final analysis we know she is right.

cheers

Mars