In Australia, demand for sleep studies has risen so sharply that it has been given priority in the current review of Medicare, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.
The area of greatest concern to sleep experts are unsupervised sleep studies which have risen by 142 per cent since 2009. This area has grown at about three times the rate of other Medicare items.
“The area is being hijacked by corporate or non-medical processes and proper careful medical assessment is being lost,” said Dr Desai, who said a commercial operator wouldn’t have been able to diagnose cases like Ms Bain’s.
In many commercial sleep centres, the test results were reviewed by a doctor, who usually didn’t see the patient, and the results were discussed with a sales rep who usually suggested an expensive solution such as CPAP machine.
Get the full story at smh.com.au
