CPAPtalk.com

After a lot of years (10 years for me 1 1/2 for my wife) we are dropping Lincare. The final straw was when my wife called the local office requesting a replacement for a Mirage Quattro full face mask cushion. They told her she had to call the central supply number. They told her they had no record of her. She was very unhappy with the run around.
In the past I had so many problems with the central supply concerning them being unable to change our address as we traveled around the country that I started having the local office get supplies for me and mail them to wherever we were. Then they were told that they could no longer do that and I would have to get everything from central supply.
Then the problem with my wife occurred and we decided to switch. The company we switched to requested the necessary paperwork from Lincare (sleep studies and other things). Lincare stalled for a couple of months and then told the new DME that we had changed our minds and wanted to stay with them.

I was out of pocket for a couple of months with a ruptured disk and then a knee replacement and I just found that out.
The local guy just about has all the info from our primary care doctor and the hospital sleep center for me but is having to try to get in touch with my wife's retired sleep doctor. It appears that there were some issues with record transfers when he retired.
Hopefully the new DME will be better.

Why don't you have copies of your sleep studies etc?

I'm kind of surprised it took you this long to dump them. Their (bad) reputation on the forum is only exceeded by that of Apria.


Den

.

These days you can't depend on ANY DME for service. Keep copies of your sleep studies and your prescriptions. Then the ball is in YOUR court, not theirs.

The only thing I can say is be careful not to break them when you drop them.
Whoops, too late. They have been broken for years.

Medicare supplier directory....
https://www.medicare.gov/SupplierDirectory/

Krelvin wrote:Why don't you have copies of your sleep studies etc?

I probably did but in the ten years since, they have disappeared. I got what I need from the hospital sleep center but my wife was caught in a transition period when the doctor retired. She does have a copy of the sleep study but they need a prescription which the DME is getting from our primary care doctor and something like "annotated notes" that we don't have and I am not sure our primary care has. The DME will try to get them from the retired sleep doctor.

Hubby and I were full-time RVers for 5 years. I was not on CPAP yet but hubby was, and getting supplies was always a nightmare! We ended up having supplies shipped to my mother-in-law's house and she re-sent them to hubby wherever we were.

We would have used our Florida-based mail forwarding service, but when Florida is involved, insurance gets all wonky and even though we told them about a million times that we did not LIVE at the address where the supplies were being sent, insurance always denied our claims because Florida. UGH!

Now that we're back home, at least we don't have that to deal with.

Apria has a bitingly cool satirical/sarcastic nickname (Crapria). Come on people, we're a smart edgy bunch of devil-may-care types, so how come nobody has coined an equivalent funny handle for Lincare

I'll start the ball rolling:

Didn'tCare (not too strong, but hey!)
LimpCare (hmmm, not bad )

lincareless

DWaldman wrote:lincareless

Good one! LinCareNot

I like "Limpcare". Describes perfectly my dealings with them. I'm just limping along down the cpap road with them. It could be worse, my other option is Apria. So I stick it out with them.

What about "Linkdon'tcare"?

Lin-doesn't-care, used here before.
Limpcare makes me smile.
Maybe lincareless.
Best to forget they even exist.

I sure it has been discussed before but not that I am aware of. Anyone know why Cpap.com does not work with the insurance companies? With their reputation they would get a lot of business. I am sure they have thought of this and there is a good reason not to, just wondering what it is.