PAP Assessment
Our goal is to assist individuals currently using Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) therapy by facilitating arrangements for follow-up care or obtaining a CPAP replacement unit when needed, and helping in the care of those new to CPAP. This includes assessment of patients whose physicians have arranged a home CPAP loaner program prior to purchase or home AutoPAP titration in place of an in-lab PAP study to determine the optimum pressure setting.
This PAP program enables family physicians and PAP home care providers to identify the status and specific needs of their patients and to obtain help, if needed, in arranging an appointment with their sleep medicine physician either by telemedicine or in person.
For most PAP patients, reassessment can now be done at home. However, if PAP patients have complex apnea, are on therapy such as BPAP-ST, ASV or supplemental oxygen or have health problems such as significant cardiac or respiratory disease, these patients are best studied overnight in a sleep laboratory.
What Is Included in My PAP Assessment?
• A comprehensive PAP questionnaire completed securely online using your own electronic device such as a smart phone or tablet.
• A recent data download report prepared from your PAP equipment showing its status and your response to therapy for sleep apnea. Your consent given securely online as part of the questionnaire submission authorizes your supplier to send us this information. Alternatively, if you have a data download report no more than three months old. you may attach it as part of your questionnaire submission. Most PAP equipment manufacturers have a website with instructions on how to prepare and download your data download.at any time.
• Review by a qualified CPSO sleep physician of your PAP Assessment report incorporating your responses to our PAP questionnaire and equipment data download findings before it is made available to you for download. This ensures that your report is complete and in the proper form for telemedicine or office use with your personal physician. We recommend that every patient book a follow-up visit with their family doctor or sleep physician and offer a secure online consent protocol to facilitate PAP Assessment report sharing with their health care professional.
• The convenience and time savings offered by telemedicine medical visits using your own electronic device. Under the new Ontario Ministry of Health Virtual Care program, videoconference physician fees for PAP follow-up visits are fully paid by OHIP but not the cost of virtual support services such as our PAP Assessment reports. Our PAP Assessment reports also facilitate in person appointments with your physician if so preferred.Our PAP Assessment reports include instructions enabling patients and physicians to easily connect for videoconferencing using the approved Ontario Telemedicine Network link named OTNinvite.