I went to the doctor this morning as I have been feeling cruddy the last couple of days and wanted to make sure it wasn't something more serious (hate the thought of catching the swine flue). My appointment was at 11:30 a.m.

I was the last appointment prior to their lunch break. After seeing the doctor and waiting to pay my bill (to the tune of $84.00 since she is not in-network on my insurance plan) I was aware that a drug rep, or so I thought, was supplying their lunch today. Often times, drug reps will come and bring in a fancy spread for them at lunch to capture their undivided attention why the doctor should prescribe their meds, etc. Of course the end consumer, pays for these dinners and the other perks provided to the doctors through increased costs when we purchase these items.

Today it was the regional Lincare rep that had furnished the spread set up in the waiting room. As I was paying my bill, the doctor and staff sat down to eat (except of course the person waiting on me). She immediately starts in explaining that their DME locations provide respiratory supplies to patients and can even provide the necessary medicine at no cost to the consumer on Medicare. Her big thing today was patients and cpap equipment. She tells the group that they are using remote monitoring to assess all their patients. That Medicare wants compliance monitoring as well as most insurance companies. According to her this is a good thing as they can watch for trouble areas in a person’s therapy. When they spot an issue with a persons therapy they can help that person tweak their therapy until it works. They monitor leak rate (highly stressed by her), number of events, plus of course the compliance data (added almost as an after thought by her). The doctor’s husband is the office manager and so he piped up and asked what they do for a person with a high leak rate. She states it is always the mask and they will work with the patient to find a mask that works best for them. He wanted to know how many masks are available to patients and she states there are well over 250 different types and styles of masks and one those will surely work for the patient.

About then my doctor looked at me and smiled and asked if I would give her a patient’s point of view. Of course being the shy reserved person I am,  I said you betcha.

I asked if there were so many masks choices available why did our local Lincare carry such a small selection? I stated that I wanted a nasal pillow mask and was told the only ONE model they carried was the Optilife. Her response, “well it probably wasn’t time for you to receive your new mask. You know insurance only allows them at a set interval.” I laughed and told her I was well aware of the typical interval of 3 months on hoses, etc. and 6 months on masks. I told her that since it had been over a year and half since my LAST mask that had nothing to do with it. Besides if I “qualified” for an Optilife why not others then? I asked why they only carry a couple of full face mask (the Comfortfull 2 and the Ultra Mirage, with the same number of nasal masks? She looked like she wanted to scream. She stated she was unsure how many or what types of masks our local Lincare dealt with. She told me to call and tell them she sent me and “they would treat me right.”

I then asked why Lincare supplies bare bones machines to most customers. I told her that the M series Plus machine only supplies compliance data and NO useful information. She had no answer for that. About then I told her that I was very proactive in my therapy and had the software to monitor it. I figured she would have a heart attack if she knew I actually have the EncorePro, so I mentioned EncoreViewer. She said she didn’t know of ANY patient that monitored their own therapy. Doctor backed me up and said yep, she had seen my reports.

What an eye opener this little adventure was!! Even the regional reps don’t have a clue of what they are trying to sell!!!!