We all know sleep is important to good health, but for those of us with sleep problems like insomnia, sleep apnea, and general restlessness, getting quality sleep can be difficult. Even more challenging are the costs associated with sleep, including pricey mattresses, memory foam pillows, and sleep-inducing pillow sprays. 

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy is the leading form of treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Before one can begin CPAP therapy, the disorder must first be diagnosed through a sleep study to determine the existence and severity of OSA. Once a determination of OSA has been made and CPAP therapy has been established as the recommended treatment, a prescription for a CPAP machine must be obtained before equipment can be issued.

Patients have a lot of questions regarding prescriptions for CPAP therapy such as: Why do I need a prescription? Where can I get a prescription? How long is a prescription good for? Here we aim to answer these important questions and more.

Sleep studies are the diagnostic tool used to identify sleep disorders.  These are performed under the care of sleep professionals in one of two settings: in-lab or a home sleep test.  There are pros and cons to each environment, but make no mistake.  Completing an in-lab study is proven to be much more effective and controlled than a home sleep test.

One of the biggest concerns when it comes to sleep studies is whether or not a person's insurance plan will cover the cost of a sleep study. And this is a perfectly reasonable concern, because a lot of health services and procedures can be quite costly including sleep studies.

We recently published an article detailing how much a sleep study costs and gave our base rates for services. The prices listed were those that an individual without insurance would have to pay, or the cost to an insurance that we are not in-network with. These base prices are often not a good reflection of what a patient will actually pay for the study.

To follow-up on that article we wanted to clear the air a little further on how health insurance works when it comes to sleep studies. And while it's nearly impossible to write out exactly what one can expect from their insurance companies, we were able to come up with a few generalized tips and guidelines to follow when figuring out whether or not your sleep study will be covered by your insurance.

For whatever reason, getting procedure prices from medical clinics can be extremely difficult. Often, people don't even know what they're expected to pay until they get the bill in the mail after all services have been rendered. It's truly abhorring to think that many of these clinics are very open and helpful in explaining their medical procedures, practice procedures, how they diagnose and treat conditions, but get evasive and dodgy when asked about how much it will actually cost a patient.

At The Alaska Sleep Clinic (ASC) we understand that building trust with patients requires full disclosure and transparency about everything we do in our practice–especially when it comes to cost! Aside from wanting to know how to treat their sleep disorders, the greatest concern patients have is "how much will it cost me?" And this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask, and one that we refuse to shy away from.