Is your LO on O2? Have you changed providers?

JesseLee

Bless this community, having a hard time today. 2 questions:

Does anyone have experience with an Inogen-like portable concentrator that's continuous flow? What about liquid ogygen? Or another otion besides the clunky green tanks? He's on 4 liters and is in a care home, but not 24 hour nuring care.

And, I HATE Preferred Homecare. Insurance broker told me it's essentially impossible to change DME providers. Maybe you can do it if you self pay for 1 or 2 months, which we can do. Anyone on UHC/Medicare successfully changed providers for 02 and supplies?

Thank you.

harshedbuzz

@SoCo Kirsten

Both my parents have/had devices for sleep apnea and mom is currently also using a POC from a Respiratory DME company. I'm sorry you're unhappy with your company. As mom's pulmo once told me "they all suck".

Ironically, their bi-pap and C-pap were through different companies as mom got hers in MD and dad was in FL when he got his. When mom moved to PA and needed oxygen, the hospital somehow started her with a different company. Evidently, patients are supposed to get all of their supplies through one company.

The customer service is incredibly bad is everywhere. When mom's POC was delivered, the RT dropped it off and told her it was "easy-peasy to set up in the app". How this woman looked at my 86-year-old mom who is nearly blind from AMD and has a tremor and thought this woman can totally set up an app on her phone remains a mystery to me. When mom was in having her knee replaced, the hospital's RT called me to tell me her settings were not appropriate— some troubleshooting pointed to her being sent the wrong unit. And don't get me started on the who Phillip's recall debacle.

One caveat I would make is that many of the DME companies are actually owned by the same parent company which would explain the uniformly poor customer experience. Lincare owns both companies my parents' apnea units were from and several other companies.

FWIW, mom's POC is not continuous and did require some adjustment compared to tank O2 or her older model OC which is the size of a suitcase. Inogen's G4 offers a continuous flow but only goes up to 3 liters.

HB