In order to ensure that you are receiving adequate therapy for your sleep apnea condition, you need to be able to quantify how effective your CPAP device is working while you sleep. This is why CPAP Compliance matters. At its most basic level, CPAP Compliance is essentially a measure of how many hours per night, and how many nights per month you are receiving optimal therapy.
This is an important concept to understand for two main reasons. Firstly, you want to ensure that you are receiving sufficient treatment for your sleep apnea. Inadequate treatment could leave you at risk of serious health issues. Secondly, your medical insurer, possibly your employer, and in some cases even the government want to confirm that you are using your machine adequately. Thankfully, SomniFix has developed a foolproof solution to increasing your CPAP Compliance score to help both improve the quality of your sleep and meet Compliance standards.
Since medical insurers, such as Medicare, often subsidize the cost of CPAP device rentals and purchases, they want to ensure that their money isn’t going to waste. If your CPAP device sits in the closet collecting dust most nights, it’s not in their best interest to subsidize its cost. Therefore, they first want to verify that you are a suitable candidate for CPAP therapy. Beyond that, they want to see that you are making an effort to wear the device frequently and use it effectively.
CPAP Compliance for medical insurers, including Medicare, is defined as using the device on at least 70% of nights, for a minimum of 4 hours per night. This means that over the course of a month, you need to effectively use the device for at least 22 out of 30 days, for at least 4 hours on each of those nights.
To understand why you may be falling short of the CPAP Compliance standard for medical coverage, you need to be able to analyze your CPAP Compliance Report. This report will help you understand your current situation, and some potential pathways to increasing your CPAP Compliance score.
When taking a look at the report, you’ll typically find four key metrics: AHI, CPAP Leaks, Pressure, and Usage. Here’s how to understand what these metrics mean.
Also known as AHI, this is a count of how many apneas or hypopneas you experience throughout the night. This occurs when the airway at the back of your mouth and throat collapses. This is measured as a rate of apneas per hour, which helps your doctor determine the severity of your condition.
CPAP Leaks tracks when air leaks out of the seal formed between the CPAP device and your airways. This is the number one enemy of CPAP Compliance. Even if you use your device all-night, every night, leaks render your CPAP ineffective, which brings down your Compliance score. The most common issue here is air leaking out of your open mouth, which tends to happen when you sleep. Thankfully, SomniFix has created the ultimate solution to stopping CPAP leaks, which can drastically boost your effective CPAP usage.
As the name implies, pressure is the key component of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy. The pressure generated by your device is what keeps your airway from collapsing, therefore preventing apneas from occurring. Pressure is typically presented as an average pressure from throughout the night or period of observation.
Quite simply, usage is the amount that you wear your mask, measured in time. Modern masks can tell whether you’re actually wearing the mask, or if you’ve just turned it on to try and trick the machine. This is the main metric that insurers care about. That said, if CPAP leaks are inhibiting the mask’s performance, your Usage number will drop significantly.
As mentioned, Usage is the main metric that insurers look to in order to check your CPAP Compliance. However, even if you wear your mask every single night for 8 hours per night, you still might not hit the minimum 4 hours of Usage. How is that possible? It’s because CPAP Leaks are rendering the mask ineffective.
When air leaks through the mask perimeter, or more commonly, through openings in your lips, the pressure of the mask reduces. When the pressure reduces, the mask cannot operate effectively. Since the time spent wearing the mask while it is in this state does not count as effective therapy, it does not count towards your Usage number.
This is a very common problem among CPAP users, especially those who are chronic mouth breathers while they sleep.
Since mouth leaks are the number one enemy of effective CPAP usage, the best way to increase your CPAP Compliance score is to eliminate mouth leaks. How do you eliminate mouth leaks? Well, quite simply, you keep your lips sealed.
In the past, users experiencing this problem have resorted to bulky, hot full face masks, or cumbersome, irritating chin straps to help keep their lips sealed. However, these solutions are impractical, rudimentary, and downright uncomfortable. Thankfully, SomniFix has developed the ultimate solution to eliminating mouth leaks when using a CPAP device.
SomniFix Strips are specially designed to keep the lips sealed while you sleep. A gentle, skin-safe adhesive keeps the lips together, preventing the entry or exit of air. When used in combination with a nasal mask or nasal pillow, this is the ultimate solution to increasing the effective usage and, in turn, the Compliance Score of your CPAP therapy.
Tens of thousands of CPAP users have made the switch to SomniFix and are now getting more restful, restorative sleep. See for yourself how SomniFix has made it possible to get a great night’s sleep with a CPAP device.
Beyond the obvious of how often you wear your CPAP device, we’ve determined that eliminating mouth leaks is the most effective way to increase your CPAP Compliance Score. However, there are other factors that can help you improve your score that you should consider. These include:
We’re confident that using SomniFix Strips will help drastically increase your CPAP Compliance Score and improve the effectiveness of the therapy you are receiving. However, we understand that you may be skeptical. For that reason, we offer a 7-night SomniFix guarantee. If you don’t love your sleep after a week with SomniFix, we’ll give you your money back.
If you don't LOVE your sleep in 7 nights, we'll give your money back guaranteed! 🌟
