WatchPat 300 useful for me?

Hi,

I was diagnosed with moderate to severe OSA circa 2014 via in lab sleep studies. They had to do 2, because they couldn’t get enough data to titrate me during the first one. I ended up with a diagnosis of blood oxygen dropping low enough that I was almost put on oxygen, and averaging about 60 OSAs an hour. I’ve used apap therapy ever since (pressure 8.5) and love it. I’ve only slept two nights since 2014 without my machine (due to local power outages - now I have a backup battery)…
Cut to today. I moved across the country in 2018. Joined Kaiser Permanente for health insurance. I go into sleep medicine to get set up sometime in 2018, carrying my dream station SD card… which they can’t read. They show me the price list for the res med supplies they carry. On insurance, it’s still more expensive than buying on my own. I don’t go back and continue buying my own supplies (and at one point. A replacement dreamstation apap) online cause mines getting up above 15k hours.

Ok, now there is the dream station recall and I’d like a new rX so I can buy a different machine. Kaiser wants me to do watchPAT 300 test. I think this test is more about IF I have OSA and not about titration or other fine tuning. I’m resistant because I don’t want to spend a night without my apap (they say I can’t use it for the home test) if I’m just dealing with inflexible Kaiser prescribing rules which are mandating a not so reliable at home test vs old in lab full on tests.

How useful is this watchpat 300? Is this just about diagnosing the presence or absence of OSA? Am I wrong to be resistant to this? Thank you!

The WatchPat home sleep study device is actually fairly accurate.

https://www.itamar-medical.com/wp-conte ... -Final.pdf

Fairly comprehensive amount of data and Kaisar has been using it for screening and diagnosing for many years.
They save the in lab sleep studies for the complicated cases.

My main concern for you would be if you need to go without the cpap for a few days prior to doing the WatchPat to eliminate any holdover effect that might happen.

You are correct that the WatchPat just diagnoses apnea, it doesn't titrate. They will probably then want you to take home a machine for titration before prescribing a machine for you. They have their protocols, and they are pretty inflexible about them. The only part that's useful to you is that you will get the Rx eventually--and the mask used for titration. But you have to jump through their hoops to get there.

Since you are already an experienced CPAP user, once you have the Rx in hand you don't have to play along anymore. Make it clear to them that you will purchase your own machine and they are not to send your info to Crapria, unless it somehow makes sense to get your supplies from them (usually it doesn't and they are a real PITA to deal with). Also ask them to write the RX for "mask of patient's choice". They have a formulary for masks, so usually they write the RX for a specific mask and if you want to change masks you have to get a new script.