The typical treatment journey for a sleep apnea patient is an arduous one. It’s long, extending over several months and even years. It’s expensive, demanding numerous copays, lab costs and other fees. It’s inconvenient, entailing several visits to multiple healthcare professionals. And it’s uncomfortable, requiring at least one dreadful night in a sleep lab.
It doesn’t have to be this way. And lucky for you, cpapRX is anything but typical!
We started cpapRX to Simplify Your Sleep apnea treatment journey, and help more people get the therapy they need in the most convenient ways possible. Over the past 15 years, we’ve analyzed every step of the journey, and identified ways that we can cut down on time, money and hassles.
Learn how the cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey compares to the Traditional Journey at the key steps along the way.
Diagnosis
Traditional Sleep Apnea Journey
Admitting that you have a problem is the first step, and it’s never an easy one, especially when it comes to sleep apnea.
Stigma is an all-too-real concern — many patients don’t want to be labeled with sleep apnea due to the incorrect stereotypes out there. Others fear that sleeping with CPAP equipment will be impossible, or will make them less attractive to their partners. Still others are wary of the current health risks involved with visiting any public place.
But let’s say you’ve overcome all these concerns and are ready to do something about it. Now you need to schedule an appointment with your primary care provider to discuss your snoring or fatigue. Your primary care physician will then refer you to a sleep specialist, which can take weeks to months to get an appointment booked.
The sleep specialist will then order a sleep study, typically required to be performed in-lab at a hospital or sleep center. This can take another few weeks, and when the study finally happens, most patients say that it’s — how do we say this nicely — uncomfortable.
After the study is completed (which likely doesn’t have the most accurate results because, who can sleep normally in a lab?!), another office visit is required to review results.
Believe it or not, for those patients who test positive for sleep apnea, most specialists will then send the patient back to the hospital or sleep center for a full night of therapy on CPAP in the lab. If the patient hasn’t been scared off CPAP therapy already, this is often when it happens. Imagine trying to get used to CPAP for the first time in a sleep lab, hooked up to all the wires?!
Finally, it’s back to the sleep specialist to review results again and get a prescription. Whew, it’s exhausting just thinking about all the steps!
cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey
No office visits. No sleep labs. No whirring machines. No copays. Nobody watching.
Prescriptions
Traditional Sleep Apnea Journey
The Traditional Journey requires you to go through multiple steps (and endure multiple inconveniences) to obtain or renew your CPAP prescription.
First, you have to make an appointment with your doctor or a sleep specialist. Then you have to request time off work and probably arrange for a babysitter these days. When the appointment date finally arrives (likely several weeks later), you have to drive across town or even to another town depending on where you live. And finally, you have to cough up a copay, which is especially hard to do when you’re renewing and already know exactly what you need.
cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey
Simply purchase the CPAP prescription and send us your sleep health history. Once we receive your information from our safe and confidential online portal, Dr. Yaish will review and issue you a new prescription. That. Is. It.
Ordering (and Re-Ordering) CPAP Supplies
Traditional Sleep Apnea Journey
Schedule another appointment. Use up more of your PTO. Schlep across town once more. Hand over a copay again.
For new patients, they haven’t yet experienced the benefits of CPAP therapy, and many start to wonder if the hassle is worth it. And while long-term CPAP users know in no uncertain terms that it is worth it, they still dread the entire cumbersome process. There has to be a better way!
cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey
Monitoring
Traditional Sleep Apnea Journey
If you’re serious about your CPAP therapy, you need to stay connected with trained sleep specialists to help you improve compliance and get the most from your sleep apnea treatment.
You can do this by having your doctor monitor your nightly therapy data and work with you to address any issues. It’s a common service that sleep specialists provide, but often comes with the same hassles of booking appointments, visiting the doctor’s office, and covering copays.
cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey
That’s a lot of words, so let’s boil it down to some numbers:
Treatment Timeline
- Traditional Sleep Apnea Journey = 6-12 months
- cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey = 6-12 days
Medical Facility Visits
- Traditional Sleep Apnea Journey = 7 medical facility visits
- cpapRX Exclusive Sleep Apnea Treatment Journey = 0 medical facility visits
