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I agree that this is both invasive and a huge violation. My wife had pretty severe sleep apnea in the third trimester of her pregnancy, two experiences that ma
by horsawlarway 5y ago
I agree that this is both invasive and a huge violation.
My wife had pretty severe sleep apnea in the third trimester of her pregnancy, two experiences that make me think this practice needs to be nuked from orbit.
1. We properly read the manual for the device and adjusted the pressure so that it didn't cause problems with burping/ingesting air during sleep. Tissue gets softer in women as they near birth and the body releases a whole host of different hormones - one that gets softer is the pharynx which keeps air out of the stomach as you breathe.
After three days - They had the gall to call and inform us that they had noted the change and reset our settings. We had been tracking sleep events on the device ourselves and they hadn't changed (still ~1 per hour while using, the same as the original pressure setting) so there was zero reason for them to do this.
2. After she gave birth, her sleep apnea essentially disappeared (at it's worst it was ~40 events an hour, 3 weeks after birth it was essentially just light snoring again). Did not matter at all - They insisted she use the machine still. Called repeatedly and harassed us.
---
It took written revocation of their rights to treat us, and then the threat of a lawsuit before the calls stopped.
This needs to be illegal - NOW.
- tartoran 5y agoWow! Im speechless and a bit afraid of what’s to come from the IoT/medical/surveilance industry
- bavell 5y agoThis is really disturbing and it's disgusting how some companies out there act. We desperately need our leaders to address issues like this but they're all too busy pandering to and being lobbied by the very companies who are doing the abusing...
- taylodl 5y agoLet's generalize this statement - we desperately need leaders. Our current crew of so-called "leaders" are only interested in lining their pockets.
- jjoonathan 5y agoCareful. That sort of thing is endemic with leaders in general. A simple swap / "revert to mean" isn't going to help. It's like pressing the reset button on a smart TV where it just turns back on all the ads, lag, saturation, and edge detection filters that you spent hours figuring out how to disable when you first bought it.
- mcguire 5y agoWhat are your qualifications for fiddling with medical equipment?
- djbebs 5y agoTheir device, their business. People don't need to justify what they do with their things.
- doodpants 5y ago"We properly read the manual"
- horsawlarway 5y agoWell - In this case my qualifications were following the manufacturers clear instructions on tuning pressure in the manual.
- chuckee 5y agoFirstly, the device was apparently made to be adjusted. A single set of settings is not comfortable for all users, and the manufacturer recognized this. Secondly, that's the wrong question entirely. People have a right to decide their own medical treatment (or refuse it entirely), and that right must not be circumvented with legal or technical means.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThat sounds suspicious. By any chance, were they making ongoing revenue from you using the device? I am not justifying that kind of harassment. It's out of line, whether they're making money from you using it or not. But it's more understandable if they want you to keep using it so that they keep getting paid.
- horsawlarway 5y agoMy best understanding is that if patients use insurance to pay for the device/visits, payment to the Drs office is predicated on the patient following the prescribed treatment. In our case, we actually bought the cpap out of pocket. But because this is unusual (It cost us about 800 dollars) the doctor we went to pays a company that does treatment monitoring. This company is paid based on the number of patients that are "in compliance" with their treatment plan, because this makes it easier to bill against insurance for the Drs office. The monitoring company has a financial incentive to make sure patients are in compliance. The Drs office has a financial incentive to make sure patients are in compliance. --- Ironically - the thing that was actually needed was additional monitoring to tune pressure: it takes several readings over a few nights to manage pressure and keep bloating down and make sure it's not hard to breathe, while still ensuring that apnea events are in the acceptable range. But additional monitoring is expensive - it requires clinician/doctor time. So there is little incentive to actually do this, in favor of forcing plan compliance. Basically - My read of the situation is that the whole thing was rotten to the core. It had very little to do with patient comfort or health, and everything to do with maximizing insurance based revenue.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago> maximizing insurance based revenue That seems to be the state of US healthcare unfortunately. What used to be an ethical doctor-pactient relationship has turned into a doctor-insurance-patient monstrosity. Doctors actually have limited autonomy. They can't always do what's best for the patient, only what the insurance company agrees with.
- 5y ago
- matheusmoreira 5y agoThat's horrible. Was that the doctors calling or some sort of CPAP monitoring company?
- danudey 5y agoWho is "they" in this case? The manufacturer? Your insurance? The doctor? Startlingly bullshit behaviour from them regardless, but I'm curious.