Dental Sleep Medicine Insider March 2015 | Page 17

e
potential sleep apnea patient is to look for
patients on which normally effective I
nterventions are not working. For
example, the patient that is failing to
respond to normally effective blood
pressure medication. The congestive heart
failure patient that is returning to the
hospital within weeks of a prior discharge.
The patient who is initially reporting
symptoms that are suggestive of insomnia,
but is not responding to a normally
effective pharmaceutical intervention.

months (see insert). A home test for sleep
apnea has now become their standard of

Snap Testing Will
Empower Your
Dental Sleep
Solution.
care. .

% BCBS patients using a home sleep test
(Result of policy change in July '11)

Medicare annual sleep testing costs
(Using HST in '11 saved over $100 mil-

Home Test is
Saving Millions.
CMS/Medicare began reporting the direct
savings of a home sleep test that exceeded
$100 million in 2011 (see insert above). As
a result the private insurance industry
began adjusting its guidelines, seeking to
increase the utilization of a home sleep
test. The institution of a required approval,
or pre-auth orization, by BCBS in
Massachusetts resulted in the frequency of
a home test going from 3% to 85% within

and evaluate their dental appliance on a
post-test.

Accomplishing a
Home Sleep Test is
a Snap.

The quality of a complete service solution
offered by Snap Diagnostics is why over
19,000 healthcare practices have trusted
Snap to test over 500,000 patients in their
home since Snap was founded over 20
years ago. There is no capital commitment;
no contract to sign; no cost to the dental
office; and the process is managed and
supported by a local team member. Snap
adopted the approach that quality will
retain customers versus requiring a
contractual commitment. Snap offers a
dental office a reliable, cost effective
solution that they can use for every patient
to assess the risk of apnea and/or snoring

The challenges outlined above are why
sleep apnea patient management took so
long to evolve to a simple solution of a
home sleep test. It also shines a bright light
on why home testing is now the standard
of care. These same challenges are why
many providers and consumers now look
to dental sleep as an one of many
important elements in a solution to
improving sleep apnea patient
management. A
dental office can identify a high number of
patients at-risk for sleep apnea. A dental
office can use the Snap home test to start
the patient down the path of a widely
adopted standard of care. A dental office
can offer many patients an effective
treatment alternative: a dental
appliance. We hope that you will elect to be
part of the solution. We hope that you will
trust Snap to help.