DME fixes SD card to self-destruct?

Catchy title, eh? But that's really my question. The story: My friend is new to cpap, doc wrote Rx for a pressure of 9 but somehow her machine (S9 Elite) was set to 7. We were willing to chalk that up to an honest mistake. Yet the DME wouldn't change it even when she showed them the Rx. So she went home and not surprisingly had some trouble getting her AHI down below 5. She changed her pressure to 9 as her doc had written on the Rx.

The next time she stopped in at the DME (for a mask I think), she mentioned changing her pressure and the rep told her that she should not have done that, and that she had corrupted the SD card by doing so. He gave her a new card and told her not to touch the pressure again. He also told her to keep both cards and bring them to her next appt with her sleep doc.

That appt was today. Indeed, she watched the medical assistant attempt to download the data from the two cards and she could get no data from that first card. The "corrupted" card.

Aside from how grotesquely self-serving a maneuver this would be on the part of the DME, my question is really about the technology of it. Can the DME actually rig the machine and/or card to fix it so the card self-destructs if the patient changes the pressure? Anyone heard of this happening? BTW, she is still in her compliance period but there is no modem attached to her machine. Just the SD card.

Can anyone guess which DME?

Yet the DME wouldn't change it even when she showed them the Rx.

Your friend shouldn't have accepted that from the DME. She wouldn't accept the wrong Rx from a pharmacist would she?

Chimpanzzz wrote:Your friend shouldn't have accepted that from the DME. She wouldn't accept the wrong Rx from a pharmacist would she?

No argument there but that's not my question. I'm asking whether the machines and/or SD cards can actually be programmed to have the data erased (DME says "corrupted") when the pressure is changed on the machine.

I don't know the S9 but it sounds fishy.

Is that your friend's xPap as well?.. Edit: I see it's the S9 Elite.

Amazing...must be something else going on. To be generous, could be a coincidence, like a bad card, or maybe the card write lock was "on" causing data not to be written (although I'm not sure that the machine would start, never done that), or maybe a bad machine, who knows? Or maybe some kind of weird pilot error by the DME? The cards are just a record of data, they should not be affected by the parameters that are set.

I'm not sure how this would be self-serving to the DME, since they had to give away another SD card...and it would quickly send me to another DME since they are clearly incompetent. Very odd. At least your friend got her pressure corrected, and now knows how to do that.

Also, if it were me I would mention to the doctor what had happened. My doctor referred me to my DME, so if they had done that, my doctor would have heard about it *smile*.

RogerSC wrote:Amazing...must be something else going on. To be generous, could be a coincidence, like a bad card, or maybe the card write lock was "on" causing data not to be written (although I'm not sure that the machine would start, never done that), or maybe a bad machine, who knows? Or maybe some kind of weird pilot error by the DME? The cards are just a record of data, they should not be affected by the parameters that are set.

I'm not sure how this would be self-serving to the DME, since they had to give away another SD card...and it would quickly send me to another DME since they are clearly incompetent. Very odd. At least your friend got her pressure corrected, and now knows how to do that.

Also, if it were me I would mention to the doctor what had happened. My doctor referred me to my DME, so if they had done that, my doctor would have heard about it *smile*.

Thanks Roger -- I thought it could be self-serving because it forces the patient to go to the DME each time for a pressure adjustment, at least during the compliance period. I don't have a brick & mortar DME, but I assumed that they get paid by the patient or the patient's insurance for every visit? I forgot to mention in my OP that the DME rep told her at her first visit that the pressure could only be changed by her bringing in her SD card to them, and that they needed to have her card in order to change the pressure. As if the card was the control center of the machine.

When I've accidentally put my card back into my S9 with the write lock on, I immediately get a message on the display panel of my machine. To the best of my knowledge she never took the card out of the machine.

(TOTALLY OFF TOPIC, p.s., my sis just bought a little house on the beach in Aptos to spend her retirement years -- I wish I lived down there!)

If the DME doesn't know what they are doing, they can wipe the data from the card when they read it with at least one of the DME/physician only software versions. That may have happened with your card.

Totally inappropriate for your DME to refuse to change your machine to your prescribed pressure. I would be reporting them at least to the insurance company. I presume you told your doc. I would also check out the agency responsible for regulating DMEs in your location, and file a complaint.

I don't know of any way for a DME to program a card to fail. Doesn't mean there isn't a way though. Though I would think it takes more smarts than most DMEs employees would have.
When pressures are written to be implemented via the ResScan program and the SD card containing the RX then your friend shouldn't/wouldn't have been able to change the pressure and have it stick because SD card being in the machine will overwrite any manual changes.

Maybe it was just a coincidence...you know others have had the same problem with their SD cards not being able to download the data to ResScan and then the card showing as invalid or corrupt.

I think I would be reformatting the SD card (or get a new one) and starting fresh.

kaiasgram wrote: I forgot to mention in my OP that the DME rep told her at her first visit that the pressure could only be changed by her bringing in her SD card to them, and that they needed to have her card in order to change the pressure. As if the card was the control center of the machine.

That would be the easiest way to change the pressure - rather than lugging the machine back and forth.

Pugsy wrote: When pressures are written to be implemented via the ResScan program and the SD card containing the RX then your friend shouldn't/wouldn't have been able to change the pressure and have it stick because SD card being in the machine will overwrite any manual changes.

Maybe that's how the card was "corrupted", by the user trying to change the pressure with ResScan?

Jay Aitchsee wrote: Maybe that's how the card was "corrupted", by the user trying to change the pressure with ResScan?

I don't know. I didn't think the user even used ResScan to change the pressure. Most people don't even know it can be done using ResScan. It isn't something that happens by accident with ResScan.

What I think may have happened is that the SD card was removed and the DME tried to get it to download via ResScan and the DME office version of ResScan had a problem with the SD card (this has happened to lots of people) and the download failed but the attempted download messed up the SD card file structure somehow and then the machine says "whoa, you don't look like my SD card should look so I am going to reject you".

I think kaisasgram even had that happen to her. I know that it has happened to others...their SD card works just fine with SleepyHead or even their own ResScan but when the DME tries to download...no data. I think the problem is the DME version of ResScan or an ID10 error on the DME side.....but I have no proof.

Thanks guys! Well the mystery deepens after reading your responses.

My friend never brought her card in to the DME, she only mentioned to them that she had changed the pressure. Whereupon the rep told her she corrupted the card by doing that, gave her a new card, and told her to remove the card from the machine and put the new one in. So the card in question was never out of the machine once she had the machine home (she never took it out of the machine either).

It is possible that it could have been a bad card all along and they didn't find out till yesterday which was first time anyone had tried to download data from it. But what makes the whole thing still smell fishy to me is the DME guy telling her at the beginning that the only way to change the pressure was she had to bring the card to them and they had to be the ones to make changes -- using the card.

The other fishy thing is that once she became "compliant," i.e., did what the DME told her to do, put in the new card they gave her and didn't touch the pressure on the machine, that second card was fine and readable at her doc's office whereas they couldn't get data from the first card.

I guess this could all be accounted for by Coincidence Theory. But remember, the DME guy had not looked at the card or even had it in his hands when he told her that she had corrupted the card. How would he have known that? Sure sounds like he knew the card had indeed been erased.

The mystery may never be solved because my friend has a different approach to her cpap therapy than most of us here have. So far she's accepting of everything that has happened -- I'm the one who would love to get to the bottom of this, but it's not my choice to make. Still, I'd be fascinated to know if there is actually a way that things could be set up with the machine and card so that the card self-destructs when the user adjusts the pressure.

Most likely a lying DME. Shocking, but it does happen.

No, scratch that, it's DEFINITELY a lying DME. The process by which the patient adjusts the pressure is exactly the same process designed by the manufacturer for the DME to change the pressure.

You could corrupt the card by putting it into your PC and accidentally writing something to it, or a virus might damage the card. Macs are known to sometimes corrupt an S9 card just by putting it into your machine. (Arrogant idiots at Apple.)

You can booby trap the card on PRS1 machines with Encore such that the patient can't change the pressure as long as the card is in, but that won't corrupt the data, it just keeps you from changing the pressure with that card in the machine.

Pugsy wrote:

Jay Aitchsee wrote: Maybe that's how the card was "corrupted", by the user trying to change the pressure with ResScan?

I didn't think the user even used ResScan to change the pressure.

True Pugsy, she had not touched the card at all.

What I think may have happened is that the SD card was removed and the DME tried to get it to download via ResScan and the DME office version of ResScan had a problem with the SD card (this has happened to lots of people) and the download failed but the attempted download messed up the SD card file structure somehow and then the machine says "whoa, you don't look like my SD card should look so I am going to reject you".

Nope -- DME never had the card after they sent her out the door with her new machine. First attempt to look at the data on the card was yesterday at her doc's office, not at the DME.

I think kaisasgram even had that happen to her.

That turned out to be a different issue -- I think it was ems who helped me with this. Doc's office just needed to call ResMed IT to get an update for their ResScan software because my machine's firmware was a version they hadn't encountered yet.

archangle wrote:Most likely a lying DME. Shocking, but it does happen.

No, scratch that, it's DEFINITELY a lying DME. The process by which the patient adjusts the pressure is exactly the same process designed by the manufacturer for the DME to change the pressure.

You could corrupt the card by putting it into your PC and accidentally writing something to it, or a virus might damage the card. Macs are known to sometimes corrupt an S9 card just by putting it into your machine. (Arrogant idiots at Apple.)

You can booby trap the card on PRS1 machines with Encore such that the patient can't change the pressure as long as the card is in, but that won't corrupt the data, it just keeps you from changing the pressure with that card in the machine.

I was hoping you'd weigh in Archangle, thanks. She never took the card out of the machine so it was never in any computer or subjected to any software or virus.

Interesting that it's possible to booby trap the PRS1 cards. It sure sounded to me like the DME booby trapped her S9 card, and that was what I was wondering about -- if the technology exists to make something like that happen.

Does she have a modem? Oh, probably not;
--then maybe a flawed card. Maybe DME knew it was bad already, and are lying to cover it up.