Friday, December 14, 2007

Organized Medicine Endorses Home Testing

I've previously blogged in depth about the American Academy of Sleep Medicine endorsing home testing for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea. Now the American Board of Internal Medicine has also (implicitly) endorsed it:

The ability to interpret results of polysomnography multiple sleep latency testing, maintenance of wakefulness testing, actigraphy, and portable monitoring related to sleep disorders.The ability to interpret results of polysomnography multiple sleep latency testing, maintenance of wakefulness testing, actigraphy, and portable monitoring related to sleep disorders.
From the ABIM website, training and procedural requirements for sleep medicine certification

The preliminary decision from the Center for Medicare Services regarding home testing for osa is expected today.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I am writing an article for Sleep Review about the issue of home testing devices for the diagnosis of OSAHS and CMS. I would like to interview you about the decision summary published yesterday on the CMS website.

mconsult said...

respbarb or anyone,

can you please provide a link to CMS decision on their website, I couldn't find it

Michael Rack, MD said...

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd/viewdraftdecisionmemo.asp?from2=viewdraftdecisionmemo.asp&id=204&

mconsult, abouve is a link to the CMS decision

Michael Rack, MD said...

respbarb,

you can contact me through the somnus sleep clinic website (see links section)

Daniel said...

Great blog! I'm not clear on how important home testing really is, however. It seems more emphasis should be placed on exercise and other treatments besides cpap, which seems to be the knee-jerk response (in my experience)

more at: http://www.cpapsociety.com

Unknown said...

Well, Daniel, you could always try the didgeroo!

Hey docs, this decision means they could use the ApneaLink, doesn't it?
Are we to expect the restictions on this ruling (whom can order, run and score results) in March.
With the reimbursement $$ also?

Michael Rack, MD said...

The decision will come out in march, but it's my guess that it won't take effect for several months. Restrictions on who can order tests, etc should be available in March- my guess is that it will be any physician. Info about reimbursement should be available by mid-2008. The apnea link would be covered.

Somnonaut said...

Daniel,
As your website correctly leads readers to other sleep disorders, as a patient centric voice in this CMS issue, how do you weigh the pros and cons of HST, and CMS' roll out by non-sleep trained physicians?