I picked up my cpap machine from DME 1 (affiliated with a local hospital, same hospital that runs the sleep lab I was tested in, and who owns the doctors office of my primary care physician) back on February 7th. I have paperwork from them stating that it was a purchase and not a rental. I was given a list of various parts, etc, with how frequently my insurance covered replacing them. I was verbally told to call them to order the filter and cushion at the 30 day mark, but that after that they'd call me for the ordering.
30 days was March 8th, but due to my schedule and DME 1's hours I didn't get a call into them till March 11th. I ordered a filter and a cushion as per the paperwork they had given me. They said they'd call me to let me know when it was available to pick up from them as they don't mail those (??).
Two weeks later, on March 25th, I hadn't heard from them, so I called them asking how much longer it was going to take. Got a run around, something about waiting on my insurance, and how it usually takes two weeks, and.....I said whatever and hung up. Called my insurance company to see if there was steps I could take to speed things up. My insurance company informed me that neither require nor expect a check in with them for the ordering of filters etc and that there was nothing to speed up. When I asked if I could change DMEs they said they didn't care as long as it was a DME who accepted my plan they'd cover it. When I asked about ordering supplies online and getting reimbursement they said that it would have to be from a provider who accepted my insurance (ie: not Amazon), in order to be covered. I looked up local DMEs and sent off a bunch of emails to each asking if they accepted my insurance and if they carried supplies for my machine.
On March 26th I had my followup with my Pulmonary doctor, asked about changing DMEs, explained why. I have a feeling he won't be recommending DME 1 any further, he was as unimpressed as I was. He said he was willing to send the needed prescription and info to which ever DME I wanted to go to, he specifically mentioned a locally owned company that had been mentioned positively by other patients. I got home to find that the only DME who'd responded to my email was the same one my Doctor had recommended, AND it was a personalized reply and not a form letter. Works for me. Called them to find out what they needed, and then fired off an email to my doctors office making the request.
Getting the required info sent from the doctors office to DME 2 took most of a week. So today, April 2nd, after speaking with DME 2 and making sure they have everything they needed to get me set up, I called DME 1 to cancel my STILL pending order for a by gawd filter, and to tell them I was closing the account. "Oh, you can't just close the account, the machine is a rental. You'll need to either return it or pay $250 to get it as a refurbished machine."
Hang up on her, call DME 2 back, explain what I was just told. Now its ever so much more complicated. Now my doctor has to send a new prescription for a machine to DME 2, DME 2 has to get appropriate permissions to have a modified rental period. Now I actually need a new patient visit to the DME to pick up a new machine, which means MAYBE next week. Which means........ugh. (to be sure I also called my insurance company and confirmed, it is a rental, why I have paperwork from the DME that states otherwise I have no clue)
$250 is a not bad price for this machine which is essentially brand new. I don't really want to spend the money (I don't really HAVE the money to spend), but hell, then the machine is mine and screw them all. One thing for sure I'm NOT staying with DME 1 for the remaining 8 months, even if it would be easier, if they can't even handle the process to get me a $1 filter I don't want to trust them to get me anything else on schedule either. DME 2 is a completely locally owned company, and so far has been very helpfull within the limits of what they appear to be allowed to do. On the other hand, my initial impression of DME 1 was good too. I ordered a pack of filters from Amazon yesterday, they're cheap and this way I have backups. Course, now that I've placed the order who knows if I'll even have the same machine next week.