Care Centrix is the company that does the authorizations for sleep studies for Cigna insurance. They recently bought a home sleep company. They now not only get to make the decision on who gets a sleep study, they then order the study, send out either an HST machine or more often an autopap machine with instructions and basically tell ...

I've been mulling over the articles I've been reading about the coming changes in reimbursements for sleep testing. I feel like just throwing my hands up and running in circles, screaming, ''The sky is falling! The sky is falling!'' If I understand correctly all diagnostic sleep testing must be considered as home testing unless the patient meets ...

Crying and screaming and biting and kicking, oh my, in the sleep lab? It seems we've had a bit of a difficult streak with the youngest of our patients. For some reason these things always seem to run in streaks. Children in the sleep lab demand a totally different skill set than adults. My lab does about 40 percent pediatric studies, ...

I am the day technologist and as you know that would include in my duties performing the MSLTs. MSLTs like anything else, can become somewhat routine once you've done a few hundred of them.   Recently in the lab I had a teenager for MSLT. I always enjoy this patient population. They are typically cooperative and fun to ...

Medical procedures make us feel out of control. In the sleep lab this is truly evident. Most patients are given minimal information about sleep disorders and about what to expect during a sleep study. This will make them feel they have very little control. Now add on top of that a machine that is supposed to help them to ...

Thinking this week about work attire. What's appropriate and what's not? I have to say that in my years as a health care provider  I have seen some pretty badly dressed staff, including those ladies who wore only white from head to toe. We've come a long way in some respects. We finally agree that it is not the color ...

I had an experience getting some prescriptions filled: The technician was working with me to get a discount card to work that I could not use at another pharmacy. It turned out that the other pharmacy just did not know to make a phone call required to activate the card. It cost them a customer. The extra 10 minutes this person ...

I've been plagued this month by people who seemingly aren't listening to a word I say.  Now admittedly sometimes what I have to say may not be worth hearing ... but that is not always the case. And for the purposes of this blog, we will stick with a sleep patient and leave my husband's deafness out of the loop. Case in point: I call ...

When patient and tech meet for the first time, it can be an uncomfortable situation for both parties. I always take this as a personal challenge. My main goal above all else it to make the patient feel comfortable. If you can develop  a relationship and trust in a short amount of time, everything else seems to fall into place. Of course this ...

I have to rave about the latest ''new thing'' I've done. Has anyone used any of the new adaptive titration machines?  I am very interested to hear your feedback. If not, you and your patients are in for a real treat. Recently I had a patient who needed this therapy. I was very skeptical about the whole thing going ...