Can You Use Medical Insurance to Pay for Sleep Apnea Therapy?

After feeling groggy in the morning and exhausted during the day for years, you’ve finally decided to do something about it. Like most people these days, you start by researching online, and it seems pretty clear that you have sleep apnea. A little more digging shows you that the disorder is very treatable, but a concern immediately pops up in your head—the cost. Can you afford sleep apnea treatment in Albuquerque? Fortunately, if you have medical insurance, you can likely use it to get the care you need without breaking the bank.

The Stages of Sleep Apnea Therapy

To understand how medical insurance can be applied to sleep apnea therapy, it helps to know how the process usually goes. First, a patient visits their doctor, and then they are typically referred to a sleep doctor so they can take a sleep test. After this, if the patient is diagnosed with sleep apnea, they can then begin treatment, which may involve CPAP therapy, oral appliance therapy, or corrective surgery in rare cases.

Will Medical Insurance Cover Everything?

Because sleep apnea is such a serious threat to someone’s overall health, in most cases, yes, medical insurance can be used to cover sleep apnea therapy. Not only that, but it can be applied to each step of the process, from exams to testing to treatment to follow-ups. Whether a treatment is provided by a sleep doctor or a sleep dentist (who make oral appliances that are worn to bed), medical insurance can help offset the cost.

 In the case of sleep dentists, this can be a bit confusing for those with dental insurance. The reason medical insurance can be used even though someone is being treated by a dentist is because the doctor is addressing a medical issue, not a dental one.

How to Get Started

If you would like to use your medical insurance to help pay for sleep apnea therapy, then the first thing you should do is read over your policy to see what will and will not be covered. If you can’t figure this out on your own (because many plans are written with confusing language), be sure to talk to your provider or consult with your doctor’s team. They’ll be able to outline how your coverage works so you know what to expect each step of the way when it comes to out of pocket costs.

With medical insurance, getting sleep apnea care is easily affordable, and the benefits of treatment are nearly endless, making them well worth any investment.

About the Practice

Craniofacial Sleep Medicine and TMJ is led by Dr. Eric Coontz and Dr. Youngchoon Joe Fischer Hamm. Both have extensive experience and training treating both sleep and TMJ disorders, and their office is more than happy to work with patients’ medical insurance to help make their care affordable. To learn how you could use your plan with them, or to discuss financing, you can get in touch with the practice by clicking here.