Sleep Apnea: Positive Airway Pressure Therapy Prescribed

INACTIVE REVIEW: This measure review is older than five years.

Patients who were prescribed positive airway pressure therapy as a proportion of all patients aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of moderate or severe obstructive sleep apnea

Date Reviewed: April 8, 2013

Measure Info

CMS 278
Measure Type
Process
Measure Steward
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Clinical Topic Area
Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Care Setting
Outpatient
Data Source
Claims
Electronic Health Records
Paper Medical Records

The PMC supports this measure because it aligns with the ACP guideline. The ACP Guideline recommends that continuous positive airway pressure should be used as therapy for patients diagnosed with OSA (Grade: strong recommendation, moderate-quality evidence). However, ACP recommendsmandibular advancement devices (MAD) as an alternative therapy to continuous positive airway pressure for patients diagnosed with OSA who prefer MAD or in those with adverse effects associated with CPAP (Grade: weak recommendation, low-quality evidence). While this clinical situation will fall into the measure exclusion criteria, the PMC suggests it would be more clinically useful if this measure included an option for physicians to satisfy the measure if patients use MAD as a second-line therapy.