lincare vs apria

I have a choice between Lincare & Apria for my DME and I was wondering
which one is the lesser of two necessary evils - I have heard good and bad
about both.

Both Apria and Lincare are reported to have a few good offices scattered thru out the country. Unfortunately, you need to vist each office and "interview" the staff and inquire about what is available, what their procedure is, etc. We wish you good luck. You will need it.

cdmeowme:

Slinky's answer overrode mine, so I'll try again.

Neither company - indeed, none of the "biggies" - provide personal service anymore.

Each will have better offices scattered about. As Slinky suggests, visit each local office if at all possible to get a feel as to how responsive they'll be to your needs.

On its behalf, I will tell you that Apria just recently opened a store-front location here in The Villages (although the location was originally to be a Praxair outlet; Praxair was absorbed by Apria) which may indicate some attempt to reconnect with their many customers.

SWR

cdmeowme57 wrote: I was wondering which one is the lesser of two necessary evils

I agree with Slinky. There would be no general statement that would apply to all locations. If you have the opportunity, consider visiting the offices and meet the personnel.

Another consideration might be to more specific in your location, other than just Florida. If you give the specific location, you might find members from your area that can give you feedback.

I live in Florida in the area that the Ocala Apria office covers. They are my DME. I had difficulty with my original RT, but she subsequently left that office. With the exception of that one person, I have been satisfied with Apria's service. When I was having that problem, I did visit the Lincare office in Leesburg, FL. They seemed to be very professional and I feel I would have been equally satisfied with them.

Good luck!

thanks for the responses - I did change my location to Tampa, Florida - right now I have Lincare
and they are saying that they only deal with Resmed & Resprionics equipment and masks so if
I want another brand of mask - I guess I am out of luck - not sure what to do to get them to be
a little more responsive to my request.

If you find a good one, please share.
No sense wasting space on the others.

I too deal with Apria here in south central Louisiana. Thus far I really don't have anything to complain about, they've been pretty helpful. Recently I went ahead and purchased the Respcare Aloha nasal pillows mask from our host and have been very pleased with it. Just for grins I decided to see whether or not I might be able to get any replacement pillows or maybe even the Aloha mask from Apria. I was surprised by their answer. They primarily handle only Respironics and Resmed, but they said if I could provide a P/N, they would check to see if it might be in their system. I provided them with the numbers for the complete mask as well as the size pillows that I use and lo and behold, they ARE in their system. The only drawback would be that for some reason they wouldn't be able to send them straight to my home, and that it would take about a week for them to arrive at their local office!!! Since I'm in that area several times a week that will certainly not be a problem. Cool beans!

thanks for the responses - I did change my location to Tampa, Florida - right now I have Lincare
and they are saying that they only deal with Resmed & Resprionics equipment and masks so if
I want another brand of mask - I guess I am out of luck - not sure what to do to get them to be
a little more responsive to my request.

I'm sure they could get any other mask you wanted, but the message they are sending you by this statement is that they don't want to be bothered. It's not worth their while and cuts into their profit margin, even if the best mask for you is not made by Resmed or Respironics. They are telling you loudly and clearly they are not going to go out of their way for your trifling bit of business.

So you have to decide for yourself how important this is. There are a lot of good masks in the ResMed and Respironics line, so if you aren't worried about masks, it's a non-issue. But if masks are an issue for you, it's time to find a new DME or you can choose to pay out of pocket to get exactly what you want online.

see if they allow you to use american homepatient. they are a nationwide company. my local office only handles so many machines and masks. you can deal directly with the sales people in the big warehouse location in nashville and get anything you want sent directly to you. it's a pretty good set up. they have offices in tampa and leesburg. apria is my former dme. i have nothing good to say about them. if they ever become the only one available, i will do without. the local branch became so hard to deal with, that my sleep doctor who formerly sent every patient to them, dropped them completely. i had a hard time dealing with them and went to my doc to get a prescription for another dme. it was then that i found out he quit dealing them because of all the patient complaints to him about them.

patients do have a say about dme's, folks. if you have problems, let your doctor and your insurance know. with enough complaints in the right ears they can be dropped.

I just switched DME's today because I transferred offices with my work. I went from Apria to Lincare. I know its only been a day but I'm already glad I switched. At Arpia I would be told a different replacement schedule on supplies depending on who I spoke with but with Lincare they told me upfront exactly when I an get new supplies and even offered to set me up on automatic refills without even having to call. (I'm with United Healthcare, but never could get a straight answer as far as supply replacement schedule with Apria) Also the 2 people I've talked to seem very nice. Obviously, like others have said, I'm sure it varies greatly from office to office but this has been my experience so far.
Derek

Both of these companies suck! Apria said if I switched I would have NO COPAYMENT and they would take care of returning my equipment to Lincare and apparently didn't. Then they sent me a bill for $300 with of copays anyway!
Lincare continued to bill me for the equipment and oxygen which I wasnt even getting for two years after I switched! They ruined my credit record. If these are the only options I would rather do without.