Sleep Apnea Diagnosis Can Make Health And Life Insurance Extremely Expensive. Insurance Agents Have Experienced Problems Insuring Clients

Sleep Apnea Diagnosis Can Make Health And Life Insurance Extremely Expensive. Insurance Agents Have Experienced Problems Insuring Clients Diagnosed With Sleep Apnea.

Adverse Insurance Ratings can be avoided by doing off the grid sleep studies.

Sleep Apnea is a dangerous problem that can lead to heart attacks, strokes, excessive daytime sleepiness, short-term memory loss and increases in motor vehicle accidents. It is essential to diagnose and treat sleep apnea. One study showed a 36% decrease in 8 year survival comparing treated and untreated sleep apnea. Learn more about the dangers of sleep apnea @ http://www.ihatecpap.com/sleep_apnea_dangers.html

A problem frequently experienced is that the cost of health, life and disability insurance policies can increase exponentially following diagnosis of sleep apnea. This is problematic for owners of small businesses and wealthy individuals who utilize life insurance to protect their estates.

Financially savvy patients are turning to off the record sleep studies. Patients pay for their sleep studies and treatment in cash to avoid any footprints of the diagnosis. Patient’s records may be identified only by numerical accounts or convenient name misspellings or addition of new names can protect patient’s identities. (Example Barack Obama could become Eric B Obama).

Cash payment secures patient privacy. HIPPA regulations theoretically protect our personal medical information. When obtaining new insurance you forfeit these HIPPA rights in order to qualify for coverage. Insurance benefits can be denied in the future if there is a record of undisclosed illness.

There are two primary treatments for sleep apnea, CPAP and Oral Appliances. Severe Sleep Apnea especially in morbidly obese patients is usually CPAP initially and an Oral Appliance for patients who don’t tolerate CPAP. Studies have shown that the majority of patients reject CPAP and prefer comfortable oral appliances when offered a choice of treatments. Learn more about Oral Appliance therapy for Sleep Apnea at http://www.ihatecpap.com.

Patients who are interested in off the grid sleep studies can contact Dr Ira L Shapira, a Gurnee, Il dentist who has been treating Sleep Apnea with oral appliances since the early 1980’s. As a Visiting Assistant Professor at Rush Medical Schools Sleep Center he did research on jaw position and Sleep Apnea.

Dr Shapira is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine and practices Dental Sleep Medicine at Delany Dental Care in Gurnee and at Chicagoland Dental Sleep Medicine Associates in Skokie, Schaumburg and Vernon Hills. In Skokie his practice is located in American Sleep Medicine and in Vernon Hills he utilizes the office of Sleep and Behavioral Medicine.

http://www.delanydentalcare.com/sleep_apnea.html

http://www.chicagoland.ihatecpap.com/

Dr Shapira realizes the importance of accurate diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea but also understands the financial impact a diagnosis of sleep apnea can create. Working to create both value and privacy for his patients he arranges for off the grid sleep studies. Baseline studies are essential for diagnosis and titration sleep studies insure treatment efficacy. Post-treatment studies are essential for Oral Appliance Therapy and for CPAP therapy.

Special off the grid pricing has been arranged for Dr Shapira’s sleep patients desiring privacy. Contact Dr Shapira at 1-8-NO-PAP-MASK or at 847-623-5530 for more information on insuring your medical privacy.

Dr Shapira stresses that avoiding sleep studies can have serious medical consequences. Diagnosis and Treatment are the most important medical considerations.

Get Tested for Sleep Apnea When Awake

New Research suggests that you may not have to get a sleep test to determine whether you suffer from obstructive sleep apnea. Instead, an analysis of your waking breathing may be able to determine your risk, and whether you are likely to suffer from mild, moderate, or severe sleep apnea.

The preliminary research was reported at the 2011 SLEEP conference, but suggests that several audible features of daytime breathing were significantly different between OSA and non-OSA subjects. Using just two of the most significant sound features, researchers stated they were able to predict the presence or absence of OSA with an 84% accuracy.

Researchers explained that the reason these breathing features were so significant was that OSA sufferers tend to have a narrower and more collapsible pharynx with more negative pharyngeal pressure. This gives greater resistance when a person breathes through his or her nose, creating distinctive sound features.

Subjects were asked to breathe through their nose normally for five breaths, then breathe through their nose at maximum volume for five breaths. They repeated the normal and maximum breathing through their mouth with a nose clip in place. This was done in upright and supine positions. Sounds were recorded using a microphone attached to the patients' neck, then analyzed using digital techniques. Finally, subjects were given a full night polysomnogram to determine whether they actually suffered from obstructive sleep apnea and their degree of apnea.

If this actually does prove to be a successful test for obstructive sleep apnea, it can save millions of dollars, not to mention the inconvenience associated with polysomnography.

However, if you suspect you might be suffering from obstructive sleep apnea, it is crucial that you not wait for new testing methods, but instead get tested and begin treatment today to protect your health and your life from this potentially deadly condition. To learn more, please contact a local sleep dentist today.

Researchers Recommend Sleep Apnea Screening before Bariatric Surgery

People who are classified as morbidly obese often seek bariatric surgery to reduce their risks of serious health outcomes such as heart disease and cardiovascular-related death. Unfortunately, morbidly obese people are also at an elevated risk for obstructive sleep apnea, and obstructive sleep apnea sufferers are an increased risk for many surgical complications, including anesthesia-related death. In order to increase the safety and effectiveness of bariatric surgery, one team of researchers from the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery recommends that all bariatric surgery candidates be assessed for sleep apnea prior to undergoing surgery.

This recommendation is strengthened by a recent study that showed 86% of bariatric surgery candidates evaluated actually suffered from obstructive sleep apnea. The results showed that 18% had mild, 17% had moderate, and 51% had severe obstructive sleep apnea. Studies have shown that sleep apnea sufferers may have 2-3 times the risk of serious complications compared to non-sufferers. Since bariatric surgery already has a mortality risk of up to 0.6%, anything that can be done to reduce the risk of complications seems to be consistent with the ideal of best practices.

However, many bariatric surgeons (and patients) are resistant to the idea of using a sleep study prior to bariatric surgery. A sleep study conducted as an on-site polysomnography can be inconvenient, time-consuming, and expensive. Instead, they tend to rely on questionnaires, such as the STOP-BANG screening tool when considering whether to refer patients to a full sleep study. Although these screening tools are useful, they are only part of the solution.

If you are considering any serious surgery, you should talk to your doctor about sleep apnea and sleep apnea treatment. If you are looking for a comfortable sleep apnea treatment and alternative to CPAP, please contact a local sleep dentist today.

Your Doctor Should Ask You about Your Sleep

About 90% of sleep apnea of sufferers in the United States do not know they have the condition and that their health is at risk. Because of this, sleep experts are urging doctors to ask patients questions regarding the quality of their sleep at each doctor’s visit. Asking patients about their sleep will help doctors discover if their patients have any symptoms of sleep apnea and will lead to the necessary diagnosis and treatment of the condition.

Sleep apnea disturbs the quality of sleep a patient is receiving by causing the patient to frequently wake up during the night and by repeatedly blocking the flow of oxygen resulting in periods of stopped breathing. A disrupted night’s sleep can negatively affect how a person functions during the day. Children with sleep apnea tend to have difficulty paying attention at school and often have poor grades.

The many symptoms of sleep apnea can warn a patient that they may have this serious condition. However, most of the symptoms only reveal themselves during sleep while other symptoms can be easily misdiagnosed.

Common symptoms of sleep apnea are:

• Snoring
• Episodes of stopped breathing during sleep
• Feelings of excessive sleepiness during the day
• Depression
• Difficulty paying attention
• High blood pressure
• Insomnia

If you are having difficulty with your quality of sleep or have symptoms of sleep apnea, please contact a sleep dentist in your area to discuss sleep apnea.