Anyone Used Kaiser Permanente Lately?

I have a good friend who is going to get a home sleep study through Kaiser in southern California. Apparently they give him a machine and mask and send him home, then analyze the data after a few nights.

I wonder if anyone can tell me what kind of machine they're likely to assign to my friend if/when he is diagnosed with OSA.

It will be an apap..
Brand depends on the particular area/office. In California it used be a Respironics machine but I haven't heard of anyone mentioning a brand.
Forum member Janknitz has Kaiser...send her a note and pick her brain about her experience.
I think that the first machine to determine pressure needs is even without a humidifier (or at least that's the way they used to do it) so you might warn them about potential nasal issues from the dry air.
Once the permanent machine is delivered the humidifier is usually included.

Kaiser has a quirky system. Kaiser is considered the DME even though though Apria does the sending. You deal with Kaiser with what you want and they tell Apria what to send and when to send it.

They start with apaps...titrate at home...save the in lab sleep studies for the people who doing it this way still have problems.

Thanks, Pugsy. I've been absent a while and haven't read whether the home sleep studies used an off-the-shelf APAP or some sort of dedicated sleep-study-only machine. A good data-capable APAP makes sense for such a study.

I'll PM Janknitz.

I PM'd back.

But for the group, Kaiser uses the Itamar WatchPat for home studies. It gives a surprisingly large amount of data and IMHO it's pretty darn accurate considering it's done at home in your own bed and sleeping conditions. It straps on to one hand, so it's not uncomfortable or difficult to use. They give something like 11 channels of data now, and they are approved by Medicare for home studies, so they are a pretty good device.

Kaiser uses data capable autos (I think right now they are using ResMed Airsense Autos) for home titrations--again a really good idea.

When I started, almost 7 years ago, they used PRS1's as the home titration machine, but with no humidifier. That was rough--I ended up having to keep the titration machine without humidifier almost 1 month because my OSA was so bad they wouldn't let me wait without CPAP for my own to be delivered , and not having the humidifier was awful. I don't know how they would do that now that the humidifier is integrated into the Airsense machines and not a separate unit.

The story I get for some of the people I sell to here in SF area.. they get a test and a loaner Aircurve 10 autoset with out a humidifier chamber ... just a cover ...
Then they are told to go get a machine on there own $$ and come back to have it set up by them .
I suppose that depends on what coverage you are paying for with Kaiser .

The ACA plans came with no real DME.

Instead of being upset, I keep thinking "free at last!" No more dealing with Crapria. I now consider Amazon my DME.

Just to tie the ribbons on this, I want to thank Janknits for her very complete and detailed response.

I learned last night that my friend is with Kaiser through Covered California (Obamacare), and he was told that the cheapest Bronze plan he's on doesnt cover anything related to sleep apnea. So he's going to proceed anyway and pay out of pocket and will be visiting secondwindcpap.com.