Healthcare shouldn’t be so stressful

The second customer service issue to get resolved this month actually started in February. I’ve been on C-PAP therapy since 2015 due to obstructive sleep apnea. In February this year my C-PAP machine started making unsatisfactory noises. Loud, distracting ‘keeping the wife awake’ noises. I took it in to the distributor to have it looked at and after keeping it overnight they decided they was nothing wrong with it. Well, there IS definitely something wrong with it. Some minutes of discussion about how to get it replaced led me to believe the system is borked.

Agent “It’s outside the 5 year warranty so you’ll have to contact your insurance company”

Me “Yeah, let’s file that under ‘things that probably won’t happen’ but what does the rest of that process look like”

Agent “You’ll have to get a new prescription”

Me “Because…?”

Agent “The one we have on file is too old”

Me “Right. Because obstructive sleep apnea frequently self-resolves so it makes sense that the prescription would expire.”

Agent “…..”

Me “Okay, well as long as I’m here let’s talk about my getting a travel C-PAP since the regular machine would be a total hassle to carry around the world with us.”

Agent “Insurance won’t cover a travel machine”

Me “Okay, can I just buy one?”

Agent “They cost about $1,000”

Me “Okay, let’s assume that’s not a gating issue”

Agent “……”

Me “If I had $1,000 and wanted to buy one, how would I do that?”

Agent “You’d need a prescription.”

Me “aaaaggghhhhh”

Agent “We’ve also been having some supply chain issues so it might take 3 or 4 months to get one.”

Sooooo, off I went to pursue that process. Slowly, because, well, procrastination is a problem for me. I eventually got in touch with the sleep center where I was originally diagnosed and they told me that my prescription was expired because they are only issued for one year. Sure. Because, again, obstructive sleep apnea frequently self-resolves. <sigh>

I could get a new prescription. All I needed was a referral from my doctor and to go through the sleep study again so my insurance would cover the cost of the machine.

“If you give a mouse a cookie….”

In researching options someone told me that they had gotten a new prescription from their PA and got the travel machine that way. Hmmm, that sounds like it has possibilities, I needed to schedule my annual visit with my cardiologist anyway.

Seemed easy enough, PA said she wasn’t sure exactly how to write it up since it was outside her purview but she was pretty sure her nurse could work it out with the distributor to get the details right.

Two weeks and multiple fruitless phone calls later put the lie to that idea. Total wasted time thus far? Maybe 10 or 12 hours over a couple of months.

Auntie Google to the rescue. Turns out that you can do the whole thing online. I paid $35 and filled out an amazingly comprehensive survey, spent a couple minutes on a video chat with a doctor, got an email an hour later confirming my prescription was added to my profile and 3 days later the new machine was delivered to the house. Total time used – about an hour.

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