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 read an interesting article recently on Medpage about the possible link between Atrial fibrillation and dementia. (Medpage is one of the must reads for me because several members of my A.W.A.K.E group read it daily and email me for comments. They also like to choose topics from the web page.) I found it interesting because I am seeing more ...

Once a year I try to do two things. I review and update our policy and procedure manual to meet the new needs of our facility and I do technician evaluations so if there is any new education that needs to be done I can plan for the education during our monthly meetings. Policies and procedures are essential for any good sleep lab. These are the ...

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 ...

This is one of the biggest debates among sleep techs. Should split night studies be performed and when should they be performed?  There are those who believe that you should never do a split night study. There are those, usually with a financial stake, who believe that you should always do a split study.  Different labs have ...

STRESS ... it comes in many ways. This week, for me, it has been around every corner. I had to take a couple of hours off (came in late two days) in order to get in much-needed doctor's appointments. I mean, it's not like physicians will stay open late for us nine-to-fivers, so I had no choice really.  The problem ...

Our inaugural Florida Society of Sleep Technologists meeting was a success. It was truly a learning experience for me and I am appreciative of the patience the attendants had with us as we worked out the kinks. But the best thing that happened during the conference actually occurred due to a ''disaster'' we could not have anticipated. One of our ...

I've said it before and I'll say it again, fall is my favorite time of year. Thank God it finally seems to be settling in on us, well, at least as fall-like as it gets in Augusta, Ga. Our mean temperature now is between 70-80 degrees which is about 20 degrees cooler than we have been accustomed to. Some of us have even donned our cool ...

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, ...

Okay I admit it there are some things that just make me happy. Usually it is little things like a patient that tells me how great a tech is...  or teaching my son to be a sleep tech(okay, so I would rather he be an engineer)... or playing with new sleep equipment. So here I am with two new pieces of equipment and I am like ...