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How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

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Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#41

Post by genocidicbunny »

londons_explore wrote: post #33

Please folks remember that it isn't compulsory to use a companies byzantine process. Instead, check your insurance policy wording that you are covered, spend the money on a new machine, send a single letter to the insurer asking to be reimbursed, and when they don't reimburse within 30 days file in small claims court. They'll pay. They don't want to physically show up in court or have you send bailiffs to their HQ ov…

Unfortunate that you cannot get additional damages against them. That sort of behaviour really needs to be heavily punished -- say, forcing them to cover every single CPAP prescribed for the next year for free, with the executives having to personally pay if the company can't afford to.

Byzantine processes when dealing with medical issues should be punished with Byzantine punishments.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#42

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

RecycledEle wrote: post #31
quickthrower2 wrote: post #13

Met someone coming from US to Australia to visit and was nicely surprised you can just go buy a CPAP, cheaply with no referral. Just like buying a dishwasher or something. Makes me wonder if in the US a trip to mexico or canada or somewhere could make this easier.

Bingo! As someone with multiple "pre-existing conditions" who cares for a stroke survivor (my wife) and a stage 4 chronic kidney disease patient (my mother-in-law,) I suggest we do the following: 1. make private health insurance illegal 2. pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. I…

Is step 3 to eliminate the FDA? The idea of letting randos modify and sell medical devices is terrifying.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#43

Post by hyperpape »

thegrizzlyking wrote: post #17

Are there any studies estimating the cost of this kafakasque nightmare? End of the day users pay for this via higher premiums. I am sure doctor's offices also face something similar.

I don't know of anything like a comprehensive estimate, but there are people working on documenting and quantifying these costs: https://springboardpolicy.medium.com/getting-to-know-the-tim....

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#44

Post by genocidicbunny »

eastbound wrote: post #36
onetoo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but, you see, the system is privatized, therefore it must be more efficient. /s

The upside of inefficient privatized process is that you can replace them.

Well the kicker here, is that the process is not inefficient. It's just efficient for someone other than your average person. If anything, for the people that care and can do something about it, the process is inefficient in the opposite direction -- it's not bleeding as much money from the consumer as it could be.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#45

Post by GiorgioG »

RecycledEle wrote: post #31
quickthrower2 wrote: post #13

Met someone coming from US to Australia to visit and was nicely surprised you can just go buy a CPAP, cheaply with no referral. Just like buying a dishwasher or something. Makes me wonder if in the US a trip to mexico or canada or somewhere could make this easier.

Bingo! As someone with multiple "pre-existing conditions" who cares for a stroke survivor (my wife) and a stage 4 chronic kidney disease patient (my mother-in-law,) I suggest we do the following: 1. make private health insurance illegal 2. pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. I…

The problem is most Americans don’t have these types of chronic health issues, so it’s not an issue for them. I have a type 1 diabetic son, the amount of money we have spent on health insurance and medical equipment/supples is criminal.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#46

Post by hyperpape »

p_l wrote: post #38
Ekaros wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take resource constrained over purposefully obtuse system. I can understand that people and medicine is expensive and inefficient(compared to farming and factories or tech). But at least these public systems seem to attempt to do stuff. And not be piled with bureaucracy to avoid paying out or increasing the prices.

An important metric in efficiency of systems is overhead. For health system, it would be how much money is spent on purposes other than the stated purpose of the system. Private insurance is never going to optimise for that, because low overhead means high utilisation of funds paid in, and low profits. Commonly complained about polish NFZ (which, unlike NHS, operates through contracting to semi-private and private pr…

I believe insurers are required to spend 85% of premiums directly on medical care: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37977842.

(Not saying that's the right number, health care in the US is out of control).

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#47

Post by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh »

londons_explore wrote: post #33

Please folks remember that it isn't compulsory to use a companies byzantine process. Instead, check your insurance policy wording that you are covered, spend the money on a new machine, send a single letter to the insurer asking to be reimbursed, and when they don't reimburse within 30 days file in small claims court. They'll pay. They don't want to physically show up in court or have you send bailiffs to their HQ ov…

Someone should start a SaaS that just automates this process.

Thinking about it, the only moderately difficult part would be compiling a list of small-claims courts and understanding the different paperwork each one requires.

After that, the whole thing could just be a single page with a few form fields (email, insurance company info, upload purchase receipt), a credit card form for the SaaS to collect its fee, and an API integration that uses one of those physical-mail APIs to send out the paperwork.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#48

Post by epgui »

londons_explore wrote: post #33

Please folks remember that it isn't compulsory to use a companies byzantine process. Instead, check your insurance policy wording that you are covered, spend the money on a new machine, send a single letter to the insurer asking to be reimbursed, and when they don't reimburse within 30 days file in small claims court. They'll pay. They don't want to physically show up in court or have you send bailiffs to their HQ ov…

That would be great if more than 0.2% of the population had a vague idea of how to access the legal system.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#49

Post by forinti »

jawngee wrote: post #39

Yeah try importing a CPAP from the states into Vietnam if you want a real adventure. A $650 cpap machine costs well over $2K here. So I thought I'd import one. Apparently you need a prescription in the states? Ok, get a "prescription" from an online service that basically just asks you if you snore over a video call. Amazing. Buy machine and have it sent to a freight forwarding service. They fuck up the paperwork. It…

I don't know Vietnam, but to my South American sensibility, it looks like they were fishing for a bribe.

Re: How to Replace Your CPAP in Only 666 Days

#50

Post by jasonjayr »

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #47
londons_explore wrote: post #33

Please folks remember that it isn't compulsory to use a companies byzantine process. Instead, check your insurance policy wording that you are covered, spend the money on a new machine, send a single letter to the insurer asking to be reimbursed, and when they don't reimburse within 30 days file in small claims court. They'll pay. They don't want to physically show up in court or have you send bailiffs to their HQ ov…

Someone should start a SaaS that just automates this process. Thinking about it, the only moderately difficult part would be compiling a list of small-claims courts and understanding the different paperwork each one requires. After that, the whole thing could just be a single page with a few form fields (email, insurance company info, upload purchase receipt), a credit card form for the SaaS to collect its fee, and a…

A use of AI/LMM I could support: read the policy documents and produce (or execute) the exact steps to get the insurance company to honor their obligations.
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