A FULLY ACCREDITED SLEEP CENTER THAT PARTICIPATES IN MOST MAJOR INSURANCE PLANS

Our Center was one of the first in Columbus to be fully accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine: achieving this honor within its first year of operations. AASM accreditation is critical for third party payor coverage of diagnostic sleep procedures.

WE SEE PATIENTS PRIOR TO THEIR SLEEP STUDIES, TO TAILOR THEIR TESTS TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL NEEDS

At some sleep centers, referred patients are never seen by a physician with sleep medicine expertise prior to testing. The patients simply arrive without any prior transmission of relevant history or guidelines for technologist interventions. Their assessment may be assembly line in nature: particularly since the technologists lack advance knowledge of the questions and problems to be resolved during testing. The resulting studies may be inappropriate as well as ineffective as a guideline for long-term effective care.

Our Center regards sleep diagnostic procedures as potent, inherently sophisticated tools that should be carefully planned and customized, to ensure that each individual patient’s needs will be met. Our Medical Director sees each patient personally in advance of any sleep studies, and then provides the technical staff with detailed guidelines, precautions and instructions in every case.

USE OF 1:1 PATIENT: TECHNOLOGIST RATIOS DURING TESTING TO ENSURE OPTIMAL OUTCOMES

Some sleep centers insist upon having all their technologists record two (and in some cases, three) patients simultaneously.

Why is that a problem? Many referred patients are seriously ill. Today--more than ever before--a number of complex therapeutic interventions are available, and they may have to be instituted rapidly: not only to provide guidelines for subsequent care but also to protect the patient from complications during testing.

If a single technologist must record even just one seriously ill patient in addition to one or more other patients at the same time, suboptimal results may result and patient safety may be jeopardized. In fact, some unaccredited centers operate with only a single technologist on duty, without any back-up help in the event of an emergency. The potential dangers of such are self-evident.

The Columbus Community Health Regional Sleep Disorders Center adheres to a policy of intensive staffing to ensure that patients will receive the optimal benefits of individualized care that they should be able to expect. In this setting, the technologist also has time to get to know the patient and provide both the education and caring that helps ensure good treatment results.

PROMPT INSTITUTION OF TREATMENT, TO PREVENT COMPLICATIONS FROM DELAYED CARE

At many sleep centers, neither patients nor their referring physicians receive test results for weeks or months: a circumstance that can leave seriously ill sleep apnea patients at substantial risk of such preventable complications as heart attacks, strokes and highway crashes. Both deaths and subsequent litigation have been reported.

At our Center, all sleep recordings are reviewed and interpreted by the Medical Director on the day following testing. All severely afflicted patients are contacted by telephone or seen in the office on that same day and immediate institution of treatment is ordered, in addition to dictation of a summary letter to the patient’s physician.