So I managed once again to break my cpap mask. I don’t think I’m particularly hard on them though since both time it’s broken where the swivel mechanism attaches makes me think maybe I toss and turn a lot in my sleep. Joe can’t verify this because once he goes to sleep he is OUT! Seriously, you could bang pots and pans and he wouldn’t stir. LOL The last time I broke the mask I duct taped it because I refused to pay $100 for a piece of plastic. Well, that and I didn’t have the $100. Which worked fine because it was just me and I got used to the high pitched whine it made. In my comedy routine I called it my “mating call” …..”hark, is that a cpap mask? The little old men walking by my house would say? I need to meet her….another person who looks hideously ugly as they sleep.” Eventually, I bit the bullet and called the DME company who got me a new mask. It cost $100 and that was because I had insurance. It took about a week to work through all the red tape to get the mask. For one thing, you apparently have to have a “prescription” from your doctor to get one. Like people are gonna lie to get a giant piece of plastic to strap on to their face. Still the doctor has to say it’s medically necessary.
The mask is useable and at the moment I have it strategically duct taped cause it broke on Friday and I need to make it to Monday when the DME companies are open. No high pitch whine this time. Instead it’s a noise that sounds like you are in an airplane hanger with a giant jet engine starting up. So loud that I have to wear earplugs to be able to handle the noise of the mask strapped to my head. SUPER ATTRACTIVE TOO I might add. Though Quincy’s bark at 5 a.m. to be let out is a lot less obnoxious with the earplugs, I must say. Joe said the noise doesn’t bother him once he gets to sleep. The trick is getting to sleep when it sounds like a plane is landing on your roof. LOL
Well, this time I don’t have insurance. Well I have Insure Oklahoma which has been a blessing but they don’t cover DME. For those of you that aren’t in medical field DME stands for durable medical equipment . Which a cpap mask is not …durable I mean. Anyway, I called the place I got my last mask from and told them that the mask was broken and that I needed a new one. I told them who my doctor was for the script and that I didn’t have the same insurance and that I was pretty sure the new insurance wouldn’t cover the mask. And I asked what it was gonna cost me. When the salesperson returned and told me that it would be around $250.00 I was speechless. I said “well I guess I’ll just duct tape it then because I am unemployed and $250 is a lot of money for a piece of plastic. Now turns out that the Velcro strap which I’m pretty sure I could make my own is about $40 of that cost. So if I got the mask without the strap (the one I have is fine…a little worn but hey, the whole contraption is ugly as heck so who cares…I could get it for $210. But that’s only if I get the script which meant if I was lucky and the doctor would write it without me having to come in I wouldn’t have a $35 office co-pay to wipe out my savings. Without the dr. script, as a cash customer, I would have to pay tax though so that means at 10% tax I would be back to a cash price of $232 for a mask with no insurance and no dr. script.
Now, I had done some homework before I called and the mask online would be about $187 but the shipping would be $29.95 though why I have no idea since the thing weighs about 2 ounces.
I told him I’d think about it and hung up feeling pretty “screwed”. I told Joe we needed superglue and duct tape when we went to the store later. If that didn’t work I will be sleeping sitting upright in a chair so I can breathe because I am not paying $200 or even $100 for a stupid piece of plastic!
Now I have a mask that someone gave me but it doesn’t have all the parts. But it fits my machine because the tubing is pretty universal size. So then I went on ebay and through a series of bids got everything I need to create a mask for less than $30. I figure I can take my old mask and “part it out”. Sell the forehead cushion, the little plastic piece that plugs the hole, etc. and charge a ton to ship it and make some money on this deal.
All this to say that if you have sleep apnea and got the equipment etc but don’t use it and it’s sitting idly in your closet you need to sell it. Like that gold commercial. You are sitting on some serious money there.
And its’ not just the DME portion of the Health Industry that is broken! I recently figured out that the cost of my medication and my portion of the insurance premium when I was employed totaled about $500 a month give or take. Now that I’m on insure Oklahoma (or “one of those” people as the doctor’s office I recently went to made me feel like) I pay $73 a month for my medical insurance. Now, while it doesn’t cover DME and a few other things my old insurance did, it’s pretty decent insurance. So recently I went to fill my prescriptions and because I had to have all new scripts with my new “insurance” I filled them all at once. I figured that it would be around $300 with co-pays as I have several prescriptions and some are “do not use generic” though why my doctor wrote them that way I don’t know…maybe a drug rep gave them a trip to only write the non-generic version of the same drug….Imagine my surprise when I went to pick them up and it was $35!!!!!! $35 for the same drugs that previously cost me $300. And while I was elated to hear this, it also made me kinda mad that I had paid $3600 for the last 4 years for the same medications and with insurance. Something seems a little fishy to me. My second reaction was to wonder if these drugs were “hand me downs”…lol I mean how can the same drug , from the same bin, from the same pharmacy cost different prices depending on the insurance you have. Shouldn’t it be the same cost regardless? I once calculated the cost of my medications without insurance when I was working and had insurance and the “cash” price, no insurance would have been well over $800. How do people that can’t afford insurance but need medications manage to pay that plus cash at the doctor. SO….while I lament being unemployed because I’m bored and I feel very useless without a job the fact of the matter is that with the difference in my insurance premium and the cost of my drugs I am actually saving about $400 a month.
Recently Joe had to go in to the doctor because of a suspicious mole that he had put off having checked for at least a year because he doesn’t have any medical insurance. Finally, he reached a point that he wanted to go and get it checked no matter what the cost. We went to a dermatologist here in Tulsa. She examined the mole, told him she thought it was a basal cell cancer and that it needed to be biopsied. She said that because it was on his face that she would need to send him to a “surgeon” who would cut out the mole and send it off to the lab to be checked and then depending on the biopsy treatment would be discussed. Having had a squamous cell mole cut out of my shoulder a few years back I was relieved to hear the word basal cell because I know from that experience and the research I did that that is the kind to have if you are going to have a skin cancer. When she finished describing the procedure Joe asked what the cost would be because he said “ I don’t have insurance, will have to pay cash and need to plan for that”. Hearing this, the dr. who was very sympathetic described a cheaper way to go about getting the mole taken care of that would involve a small chance (5-10%) that it might re-appear at some point because they wouldn’t be lasering it and that it would leave a scar on his face where it was removed, something that the “expensive” treatment would not. Joe told her he would take the chance and that he didn’t care about a small scar and so she gave us the price for her to biopsy there, cut a piece to send to lab and wait for the results. If, as she suspected it was just a basal cell cancer it would cost roughly $300 total for the office visit, the biopsy and the removal. We were actually relieved because in she scheme of things $300 to remove a cancer is a bargain…especially when you look at the fact that plastic cpap mask cost $250 to replace. As we were leaving the office, Joe asked the receptionist what it would have cost to go with plan a…surgeon, biopsy, laser surgery to remove, etc. About $2000 was the guestimate. Quite a difference!
I have learned a lot in the last few months of being unemployed. I have experienced things I have never experienced before. I have felt the sting of being considered less important than someone that has private insurance at a doctors office, I have battled feeling ashamed that I have to draw unemployment and rely on the state for insurance. I have felt the frustration of sending out resumes and getting no response because I am over 50 and less valued in the workforce because of that, I have seen the homeless people under the bridge in a different light because some of them are there not because they are lazy or mentally ill but because they have no choice. I have seen the subtle shift in the status I am given when I tell someone I am unemployed or that I live in an RV. Now when Joe talks about the way society views people that don’t try to keep up with the Jones’s I understand what he’s talking about. So what if he’s a security guard and not the owner of a security company. He’s happy. It doesn’t change his character. He’s a wonderful person regardless of how much money he makes, or what kind of car he drives just as I am a good person regardless of my job status, or where I choose to live, or even my dress size or where I bought my shoes. And the thing is, I think I am experiencing these things for a reason. Certainly, my awareness of discrimination in many forms has grown. Empathy and compassion, traits I felt I always had, have taken on new and deeper relevance. Never thought of myself as being judgemental until I was being judged. Now I realize that I have been at times and that it’s something I don’t want to be.
And now I’m off to buy milk. I wonder if I tell them I am unemployed if they will give me the “unemployed “ price like they did with the medications. Worth a try. LOL
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