According to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine, there is a large market for unauthorized online sales of secondhand CPAP devices, Reuters reports.
“We did not speak directly with sellers or buyers, so we can only speculate on why this market exists, but we suspect that sellers have CPAP machines they no longer use or no longer need, while buyers are unable or unwilling to pay for CPAP through usual methods,” coauthor Dr Ken M. Kunisaki of Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Minnesota told Reuters.
Researchers searched Craigslist weekly in 18 US cities and regions in the month of October 2014. There were 270 advertisements for secondhand CPAP devices, with more available in larger cities.
“We only looked at the posted advertisements, so we do not know how many of these resulted in a sale,” Kunisaki told Reuters Health by email. “We have not seen any data regarding what percentage of CPAP users are using a secondhand device acquired through one of these online markets.”
On average, the devices were listed for $291 and most were $500 or less. Only five of the 270 ads mentioned a prescription requirement, as reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.
As a Respiratory Therapist and a cpap user, I have always gotten my machines through the web (not craigslist). I would never go through my insurance. I even tell my patients to check certain web sites if they don’t qualify by whoever standard it is but they can still get a prescription from their doc. There are good sites that sell machines with a warranty.
We would love to hear the names of sites that sell the machines without Rx involved. It’s clear that there is an entire system setup that forces snoreheads to employ sleep study medicals and doctors to force the prescription, and then for insurance companies to enforce the use of deductibles to pay for the devices. This is the definition of a racket.
I did a sleep study in Houston Tx and the Hospital’s are so busy they said it will take 6-8 weeks for the results. My CPAP was damaged on a recent flight I took and cannot be repaired and I recently had a heart attack, therefore, I need a CPAP machine on an emergency basis that is self adjusting until I can order my new machine with my sleep study results. In addition, I do not want to pay a lot for this temporary fix. Can anyone help me out here ? Thanks Blake