How Sleep Apnea Treatment Can Reduce the Risk for Common Health Problems

When patients arrive in your office, they may or may not realize they have sleep apnea. Even once they learn their symptoms, they may choose to forgo treatment and assume it will “go away on its own.” As a dentist, it is your goal to help individuals embrace and achieve a better quality of life; however, this can be difficult if you and your staff are too busy keeping up with the administrative and financial side of operations. Discover how a medical billing company can better assist your practice so that you can offer more timely care to patients who are at risk for serious health conditions.  

How Sleep Apnea Can Affect Overall Health

Sleep apnea might seem like a nuisance that causes sleep deprivation; however, it is far more dangerous than that. Being unable to achieve adequate rest can leave a patient feeling tired, but it can also make it more difficult for them to function at work, thus, reducing productivity and putting their professional career at risk. Not to mention the hazards of driving while fatigued. But exhaustion isn’t the only consequence of sleep apnea. Other, more serious issues that can develop include:

• High blood pressure: The continuous waking throughout the night because of ceased breathing will cause the body to go into “panic mode” and raise a patient’s blood pressure. Depending on how many times each night this happens, they might need medications to improve their condition.
• Heart disease: When a lack of oxygen occurs because of sleep apnea, an individual may be at risk for a heart attack, stroke, and atrial fibrillation.
• Diabetes: Inadequate sleep can potentially cause the body to not use insulin correctly, resulting in the development of diabetes.
• Weight gain/obesity: If a patient is overweight and fat deposits form around the neck, it can make it harder for them to breathe at night. Plus, if they’re tired, they’ll be less likely to exercise and maintain a healthy weight.

Other potential problems include asthma and acid reflux, both of which can be reduced with the help of sleep apnea treatment.

How You Can Help

As a dentist choosing to provide sleep apnea services to patients in your area, you’re already a step ahead of your competition. However, if you want to make sure you’re offering the most successful solutions, you’ll need to make sure that you and your staff are devoting the necessary time and effort to your patients. Remember, many of the individuals who come to see you may not realize they have sleep apnea or take it seriously. It is your job to help them understand the potential consequences of avoiding treatment.

To do this effectively, it’s best to seek the help of a trusted third-party billing company to handle all the aspects of medical billing, so you and your patients can get the approval needed to move forward with treatment.  

About Brady Billing
Want to make the billing process easier on you and your staff? At Brady Billing, we specialize in dental offices that provide sleep medicine services and offer billing services for dentist offices throughout the country. By offering a range of billing services, we can assist in answering your questions and providing a complimentary consultation to discuss available services. To find out how we can help you, visit our website or call (844) 424-5548.