Sleep Apnea Forum
If you
haven't heard, Medicare and private insurers are putting the screws to the
Durable Medical Equipment companies (DMEs) that provide our CPAP supplies in an
effort to cut costs, much to the chagrin of the DME providers. One aspect of
the cost-cutting is to deny reimbursement to DMEs and other providers that
cannot show that their patients are complying with CPAP treatment.
My
thinking is this: for too long, DMEs could get away with giving out to patients
the most basic, least effective and "dumbest" machines out there.
These are the machines that cost the DMEs the least (and result in the greatest
profit margin), but which also reduce the likelihood of us getting well with
Sleep Apnea. As we know, data-capable machines provide this feedback so that we
are not "flying blind," but rather can tweak our therapy if something
is not working, and quantify the results of the tweak.
My
guess is after a little while with this regime in place, we'll see a big move
forward in patient compliance rates, and in innovative technology designed to
improve compliance. The author, Michael Goldman, is the founder of http://www.SleepGuide.com, an active Sleep Apnea forum whose members
include Sleep Apnea patients as well as the doctors, respiratory therapists,
sleep lab technicians, dentists and others who care for them.
Sleep
Apnea and Depression
If you
can't tell the difference between sleep apnea and depression, you're in good
company: unfortunately, primary care physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists
and patients often confuse sleep apnea and depression. Loss of energy, loss of
interest in once enjoyable things, difficulty concentrating and fatigue are
common symptoms of depression.
An
article published in the September 2005 issue of the journal Chest concluded
that many patients with depression symptoms improved markedly when treated with
CPAP. Pharmaceutical companies spend tens of millions of dollars in advertising
each year to convince psychiatrists and the general public that antidepressants
are the way to treat depression.
What
about when antidepressants don't work? More antidepressants! The pharmaceuticals have
created a new category of antidepressants which they call "Add-On"
antidepressants because, in the words of one anti-depressant maker,
"approximately two-thirds of those diagnosed with depression do not
achieve adequate symptom relief after taking an antidepressant alone."
