Dental Sleep Services

To listen to these Podcasts click on the boxes below each title.

Non-Compliant and Intolerant CPAP Patients

Oral Appliance Therapy as an Alternative to CPAP

The CPAP Model of Oral Appliance Therapy

Patients as Good Candidates for Oral Appliance Therapy

Caution About Working with a Non-Trained Sleep Dentist

Oral Appliance Treatment Protocol for OSA

Three Concerns about Oral Appliance Therapy

To find out more about how to serve your CPAP intolerant or non-compliant sleep patients by adding a dental sleep option to your sleep service business please contact the SCMI office at 1-888-556-2203 or email Dr. Jamison Spencer.

A significant number of patients who are diagnosed with sleep apnea are either CPAP intolerant or unwilling to wear a CPAP. And we know that many people will not even get a sleep study because they have negative thoughts about CPAP.

What happens with these patients? The disappointing reality is that these patients usually have no treatment. They continue to struggle through life risking their safety, battling poor job performance, experiencing relationship difficulties and eventually having serious health consequences.

As sleep professionals our passion is to help people with sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. So when it comes to untreated, diagnosed patients we hit roadblocks as to how to help them.

Oral appliances are an option for these patients. Yes, oral appliances, custom fit by a trained sleep dentist, can be a good therapy option for the CPAP intolerant or non- compliant patient.

You will improve your sleep patient care service for this group of sleep patients while positively impacting the percentage of successful outcomes by working with a trained and experienced sleep dentist. Educating patients in advance of all types of treatment (i.e. oral appliances) often improves their willingness to have a sleep study done. It also frequently improves the patient's acceptance of a CPAP trial.

This is good news for you and your patients! Typically a dental affiliation will increase the number of sleep studies performed in your sleep lab through qualified dental referrals.

If they turn out to be a candidate for an oral appliance and are fit with an oral appliance by a trained sleep dentist, that sleep dentist will refer them back to your sleep lab for titration of the appliance to objectively evaluate the efficacy of the therapy. This would benefit many patients and improve your sleep lab's bottom line significantly both for previous patients in your files and for future patients you will serve.

SCMI has developed a sleep dental program and has an affiliation that will provide leads to qualified and trained sleep dentists in your area.