I have to adjust my own pressure as well, since I can't afford to do another sleep study (American Healthcare rocks!).
The biggest difference in my sleep came from when I purchased a machine that auto adjusts based on what you need, so no one could lock me out from getting the best healthcare possible.
Almost nothing about the American healthcare system has anything to do with a free markets. From medical schools, to opening a new hospital, to pricing, to forced insurance, healthcare tied to employment, companies or government pay for almost all of it, FDA drug approval process, etc. Not saying free market and medical are a good mix (who knows?), but what there is in America not is not even a market at all.
> Not saying free market and medical are a good mix (who knows?), but what there is in America not is not even a market at all.
The free market is simply incompatible with health care. Imagine a world where, any time you have a life-threatening health problem, you can expect to transfer everything you own to the hospital, since they have perfect leverage over you.
Any kind of food will do to prevent starvation given a slight mix. So, if you won't sell me potato's for a decent price, I'll just get rice from somewhere else.
In medicine, you tend to need very specific treatments. This means the set of potential suppliers is much lower, which essentially means the supply is restricted.
If you won't sell me an epi-pen for less than 100 dollars, there aren't a lot of places I can turn to. Moreover it's not like open-heart surgery is going to work.
Besides, some procedures are just actually expensive. Open-heart surgery takes a lot of labor, organ transplants require intense logistics. Dialysis is a complex and repetitive procedure. The 'fair price' for these in the economic sense is still high. Way to high for most people's morality.
Should people really have to chose between death and the bankruptcy of their entire family?
Because in a functioning free market, it is near essential that some people have demand for something they can't pay for. So if we turn dialysis, heart surgery, etc. into free markets, there are going to be people who need those treatments that cannot pay for them.
In a free market, there would be cheap generic alternatives. Epinephrine itself isn't expensive at all (around a dollar a dose), and the autoinjector was patented in 1977, making it long-expired (though modifications of the design are covered by newer patents).
There are other examples, such as complex surgeries that would illustrate the point you're trying to make better.
Anyone can grow food thus price floor in normal times (and yes everything you own in times of great famine. Diamonds for tripe in WW2 Polish ghettos). Can’t grow a new lung.
This is how a HMO works in the US and they are very popular due to lower costs than health insurance plans that allows you to go to any doctor/hospital of your choice. My experience with Kaiser in California is that they also provide better service in general, but sometimes don't have the specialty services you might need in their system.
Perhaps the rhetoric of free-market-can-solve-everything Libertarians, the get-the-government-out-of-my-health-care Republicans, and the healthcare-is-a-human-right Democrats are all co-opted by America's crony capitalism and we get... this.
I spent a total of $150 with my provider, this includes the sleep study and a follow up, $0 for the machine itself(Airsense 10).
If anyone else is in the same boat, please check with your provider first. It may not be that expensive and in some cases there are even discounts – not because they care about you, but because treating the conditions that sleep apnea causes is so much more expensive.
> I can't afford to do another sleep study (American Healthcare rocks!)
I met a sleep study technician who, though convinced he actually has sleep apnea himself, said he could not afford a CPAP. Because he scrapes a living together by working as a temporary contractor for two different local sleep clinics, he does not have health insurance.
I'll do you one better - when my first wife was in nursing school, part of her education involved many hours of unpaid internship. So she was working 2 years for free giving care at a hospital she could not afford to be treated at herself and which did not have to provide her insurance.
I know I suffer from sleep apnea (poor sleep quality, relatives have noticed me stop breathing for brief periods while asleep, loud snoring) but I literally cannot bring myself to get a sleep study done because I know it's not going to be cheap, and to top it off I don't even know how expensive it's going to be in the first place.
It's not like I can't afford to pay either, I do have some money stashed in my HSA but when I'm trying to get to a point where I have a full years deductible in it to cover a true emergency it's a bit of a gut punch to suddenly take $X00-$1X00 out to wear a device and then have a technician analyze the data from it.
All of this is why my first step right now is to keep losing weight, because I know weighing 230lbs as a 5'10" male isn't helping me at all either.
You don't need to do a full sleep study. Standard procedure these days is to prescribe an at-home sleep apnea test. A sleep health company will send you a little monitoring device by mail. You wear it while sleeping during the night. It measures your pulse, blood oxygen levels, breathing patterns, etc, and transmits your data back to the medical provider. After about a week, they send you and your doctor the results.
Then your doctor will prescribe auto-cpap therapy. Hopefully health insurance defers some of the cost, but in any case it shouldn't be ruinous for someone with an HSA. You can get a Phillips Dreamstation off Amazon for $620.
If it's an auto-adjusting machine, then you don't need the sleep technician either. You can just start at a lower pressure and look at your data and then see if you need more.
If you are a bit adventurous, go on Craigslist and buy a used one with a new mask for like $100. You probably are a Large mask size.
Figure out how to adjust it and try it for a few days. Keep a written record of how you feel. See if it helps. Starting at 6 of whatever the unit is will probably be a good starting point.
I did this - after finding out what a sleep study and a new machine would cost, I just picked up a set from Craigslist, and the difference is like night and day. Described the symptoms to a psychologist and was basically told that yeah, it’s sleep apnea, but they can’t write the prescription until the study is done.
The only annoying bit is replacing the masks and headgear - they’re considered prescription medical devices, so you have to exploit a loophole in that they are only covered under the RX requirement when purchased as a set. So, I have to buy a mask on one order, and the headgear on another.
It’s a pain in the ass and I’m more than a little bit peeved that I have to beg for permission for this quality of life improvement.
Huh? I went several years where my insurance didn't properly cover masks / headgear / tubes etc, and I just purchased them off Amazon without any difficulty.
You also had a prescription for those right? That's what I was referring to. If you get ahold of a machine without a doctor's permission slip, buying supplies is a bit more challenging.
Amazon won't sell you full mask sets, you have to buy the frame/cushion/headgear/tubing separately and put it together yourself. Usully at a very inflated markup.. recently had to pay $100 for a replacement frame after one of the headgear hooks snapped off of my F10.
Other CPAP companies online won't even talk to you without a prescription on file.
You can die from this (apnea) if you are not careful. Getting a cpap properly set and a mask that works for you will be a life changing event in terms of quality of sleep and your general well being. How much is that worth to you?
I got an auto-adjusting machine which was set to a fixed pressure by the medical provider. I had a difficult time tolerating it. I had to do a little research to figure out how to use the settings at which point, I made the machine auto-adjusting. It was a great deal more tolerable after that.
How much was that machine? Do you need the sleep study in the first place? How much do you spend on wants like Netflix?
The market can solve many of these. I've looked at CPAP machines. I've spent more on a guitar. You don't need your insurer or the government to clear your purchase of such a machine.
It's like ordering pet meds in the US. I know what flea med to purchase. I don't need a vet prescription. Sites I've visited in the US say I do, so I buy from Canada. Cat's are not dead.
The biggest difference in my sleep came from when I purchased a machine that auto adjusts based on what you need, so no one could lock me out from getting the best healthcare possible.