AFFORDABILITY
Underserved people in the U.S. have barriers to access and affordability of sleep assessments and treatments.
Sleep assessment, diagnosis, and treatment is not attainable for many people in the U.S. because of cost, silos of access, Center for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) only allowing in lab studies for Medicare patients. These issues contribute to the lack of diagnosis and opportunity to treat a contributing factors (insufficient sleep & sleep disorders) to chronic health problems. Even commercially available sleep trackers are costly and more attainable for those with more financial resources. Sleep is not a luxury and access to healthy sleep should be accessible to all across the lifespan.
-Sleep Deserts (Access)
-Medicare Not paying for home sleep testing (Access)
-Pulse oximeters inaccurate for dark skinned individuals (Barrier to accurate reading and like covid delaying treatment prioritization based on inaccurate readings-Access)
-Overall cost of sleep testing, medications, equipment (Affordability)
Affordability and access to assessment, diagnosis and treatment for socioeconomically challenged minoritized populations-copays, location of assessments, supports for treatment success, affordability of devices with oxygen measurement (Digital equity issue)
Access to tonsillectomy's for Black and Latino down syndrome children who have sleep apnea
Sleep studies for minority children with downs syndrome (LAURIE CHILDRENS Hospital!!!!!)
Need to come up with solutions!
