221–230 of 273 posts
You can now understand why the UK is holding on the its NHS with white knuckles despite the Conservative push to dissolve it by stealth.
I'd question the "by stealth" part of this.
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I'd rather go the other way and not require a prescription for a breathing machine. They're not habit forming and you won't OD on breathing.
I agree with this. The sleep apnea world is kind of a weird racket; in order to buy $150 worth of electronics, you need to pay a doctor $5000 to interpret the results of a sleep test. Insurance companies require this because they don't want to waste money on electronics if there is no disease that needs to be treated. But of course, the testing costs them more than the devices. (And the devices aren't $150, because t…
Apropos of anything else, the newest CPAP machines are relatively sophisticated. They may not be worth the $1,100 they sell for, but definitely more than $150. $500, maybe.
> The sleep apnea world is kind of a weird racket; in order to buy $150 worth of electronics, you need to pay a doctor $5000 to interpret the results of a sleep test.
ENT too. I had a deviated septum. Most (all?) of my life. Finally did something about it when I was 40. Went to an ENT, who was great. "Yup, right nostril, 90% occluded". "Makes sense. So when do we schedule the surgery?"
He sighs, and with a roll of his eyes (at the process, not me), "Welllll.... first I'm going to prescribe you these two nasal sprays so that you can come back in 30 days and tell me that, to our mutual shock, they didn't realign the cartilage in your nasal septum. At that point, insurance will approve the surgery and I can have it done within 3 days of getting that approval back."
Thankfully, that went like clockwork. I saw him on day 30, and they had an approval and 34 days after seeing him for the first time, it was taken care of.
But what a fuckshow.
It’s surprising to me that not only in my home country is the process of having a CPAP machine covered by insurance a long and complicated one. In my case, it took almost 12 months to receive my first CPAP machine, which then turned out to be refurbished. Initially, I had to visit a doctor, who had an available appointment in two months. He then referred me to a sleep laboratory (another two-month wait). After my sle…
Just in case you missed the news about the recall and issues with Philips CPAP machines. You might want to check if there is anything that you can or need to do. The disintegrating foam seems like an unpleasant flaw in production. https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/up...
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As someone who treats people with CPAP, it’s absurd how many people get them and then don’t use them hardly at all. Yes there’s an adaptation period where you need to get used to using it, but you do need to use it for it to do anything. It doesn’t seem crazy for insurance to want to not keep paying for something that is sitting under a pile of clothes in the corner.
How do you feel about the new surgical options like Inspire Sleep as an alternative for people who can’t tolerate CPAP?
So given all of that, I think it's better to work on trying different masks and other strategies for getting used to the mask before considering the implant.
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> 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. The ironically terrifying evidence about what a horrible idea this is is that it was just in the news that the FDA said that recalled CPAP machines made by Philips killed 561 people: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-sleep-apnea-philips-rec…
They went too extreme. Maybe let people buy the device but it still needs to be manufactured to regulations. However I don’t know enough about CPAP to judge whether you should need a doctors cert or some kind of training cert on the device. Can a CPAP harm you if you incorrectly use it / use incorrect settings?
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Depending on how defunding worked so far in one's area, but NHS generally prioritised potentially dangerous issues. Means it's easier to be frustrated waiting and then getting a 10 minute talk when it's flu or something similar, but get seen to in 10 minutes after arriving at a walk-in centre because you're worried of bine fissure in leg (turned out to be inflammation fortunately)
I went to A&E with symptoms of appendicitis. They took me in, put me in a bed, next day I was operated on, stayed one night and out the door. Everyone was great and seemed very competent. This was on a three-day business trip to the UK, which was extremely unlucky, but the NHS was fantastic.
And then of course you have the constant strikes and inability to even see a doctor at all unless you win the game of phone lottery.
The NHS may have a simple user interface, but it doesn't actually work when you need it so that's not very helpful. And the idea this is a Tory problem is propaganda. The NHS budget only ever goes higher yet service gets worse. Dumping ever more money into this third world system is never going to work.
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It's their culture of saving face. The solution is extremely simple. You tell the person "I was told I had to pay this to release my package but I don't know who or where I pay" while waving the cash around cluelessly. The person will 100% then offer to take it and "handle it from there" under the stupid guise of plausibility.
Asian culture never ceases to confuse me. Nothing is ever straightforward. I tried giving a gift to some, as thanks for letting me sleep on their couch. They told me no no no. I asked my friends about it, they told me it's about face. Omg, I get that honor is a big thing, but it makes normal interactions way more complicated.
"You'll have to pop in next time you're in the area!" does NOT mean "turn up at my house unannounced". Even if it sounds like it.
Or "How are you going?" is not a prompt to actually tell them how you're going.
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I learned recently that you want a fixer that knows and bribes people where it's customary and expected. Going through lengthy processes deaf to the trigger phrases will make your life, which could be incredibly easy, unbearably hard in many countries.
It is worth pointing out that (at least according to the corporate training I have to take every year) this is considered illegal by the US government for a US citizen to do even not on US soil; if the Feds get wind of it and feel like making a point they could throw you in jail, even with an intermediary "fixer".
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I went to A&E with symptoms of appendicitis. They took me in, put me in a bed, next day I was operated on, stayed one night and out the door. Everyone was great and seemed very competent. This was on a three-day business trip to the UK, which was extremely unlucky, but the NHS was fantastic.
You got lucky. My father went to a&e recently with breathing problems due to some non COVID respiratory virus. He was struggling to breathe. They had zero free beds and he stayed overnight on the chairs waiting to be admitted. Eventually they found him a recliner. And then of course you have the constant strikes and inability to even see a doctor at all unless you win the game of phone lottery. The NHS may have a sim…
It's visible in other systems too, where for example you end up with local government politicians fighting for "prestige" or even perceived need to have a specific kind of hospital in their area, but they don't have a way to bring enough patients to support it, so you get a system too fragmented to sustain despite spending more and more money.