Mobile Sleep Apnea Testing Is Available

I think this is pretty amazing, whenever we talk about Sleep Apnea tests we mean that you have to go to a sleep lap and spend the night there hooked up to their machines. This means you have to drive (or be driven) to the location , which could be miles away, and then spend the whole night there. The cost is in the region of $1900 which is a huge expense for any insurance company, or even worse medicare.

This is all changing now, today I read a press release which included

Precision Pulmonary Diagnostics (PPD(R)) recently added portable monitor testing to its diagnostic offerings of sleep apnea in commercial drivers. PPD is an industry leader, providing turn-key sleep apnea disease management program and lab network.

There is such a big market for sleep apnea tests among commercial carriers that they have designed testing equipment that is portable. They quoted the govt as saying that as many as 28% of all commercial carriers have sleep apnea. That is a scary statistic if it is true, does that mean 1 in 4 of the truck drivers in the country are hauling heavy loads (and some dangerous ones) while they are suffering with the effects of sleep apnea.

A guy who has had a terrible nights sleep and is now driving a semi at some crazy speed is not a great idea. So I think the new portable testing units are a great idea. If they can make the freeways a safer place that has to be good doesn’t it?

The other upside of this testing is that it will save the health insurance companies a fortune, they can also test the full fleet a lot quicker than if the traditional testing methods are used.

You can read more about the new product and all the services they offer on their company website http://www.precisionpulmonary.com/ They even have a couple of videos, one from the employers point of view and one from the drivers point of view. A very informative and impressive site.