CardioNet MCOT vs eCardio ER920W

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Anonymous said:
This is the most action I have seen from this board in months!! Thanks OP for stirring up more stories about that "unit" shipped in a freaking suitcase! I was about to give up looking here but
this usually is a very entertaining site. It was turning into the LifeBitch board until this. Maybe there really is life at CardioNot!
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Yes. The Cardionet actually does come in an awfully large case which could be mistaken for an ugly suitcase. Mine was ordered years ago by a physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Trust me. Patients are able to get a copy of their entire reports. If I remember correctly, it's just the incidents or something along those lines. My report was about 100 pages in length. My doctor's physician assistance hated the fact that I had requested my report. I did not use it for night reading. But I did take it to my other providers.

At that time, my insurance provider was BCBS and CardioNet was _not_ covered at all (at first). I recall receiving statements for about $5,000 to $6,000 over a period of 6 months or so. I repeatedly complained to the Brigham and Women's billing department about this and it was eventually covered by BCBS after much, much hassle.

In regards to "clinical utility" or "outcomes" or whatever you call it, the device was of absolutely no benefit, that is, it was pure garbage (in my particular case).

See, I already strongly suspected that I had autonomic dysfunction. I had taken my BP and BPM while supine, sitting, and standing according to medical texts. Years later I underwent formal Autonomic Function Testing at a different hospital which verified autonomic failure.

The Cardionet, in my case, was of no immediate or direct benefit.

And unfortunately most cardiologists and neurologists at some of the allegedly best hospitals (Reuters Top 100, US News Best Hospitals) are NOT at all familiar with Autonomic Function Testing, Autonomic Neuropathy, Autonomic Dysfunction, Autonomic Dysreflexia, or Autonomic Failure.

In summary, if you suspect you have any Autonomic injury of any kind, BE CERTAIN TO AVOID Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire for healthcare.
 










































My doctor wanted me to wear an ecardio unit and I received one from ecardio. The first unit lasted about 3 days. I talked to 3 people who helped get the unit going. It then failed. Ecardio sent another one and I talked to some more people to get it going\registered and wore it about 10 days. Then I call to find out how long I have to wear it and they don't have any record of me and can't find me in their data base. I gave a gal there my name and number and they have never called me back to say their sorry or anything. I am never going to use them again as they don't care and it can happen again to where you wear this thing day and night for many days and then they can't find your info. Terrible company!!!
 






Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for your constructive coments , we here at eCardio take issues serioulsy as we are strongly committed to quality service. We wish to research your issue thoroughly and would very much appreciate a call from you at your convenience so we can get more details. You can contact me through the main company number and I am available weekdays.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Jess Fitzsimons,
Director of Monitoring at eCardio Diagnostics.
 


















Anonymous said:
My doctor wanted me to wear an ecardio unit and I received one from ecardio. The first unit lasted about 3 days. I talked to 3 people who helped get the unit going. It then failed. Ecardio sent another one and I talked to some more people to get it going\registered and wore it about 10 days. Then I call to find out how long I have to wear it and they don't have any record of me and can't find me in their data base. I gave a gal there my name and number and they have never called me back to say their sorry or anything. I am never going to use them again as they don't care and it can happen again to where you wear this thing day and night for many days and then they can't find your info. Terrible company!!![/QUOTE

The post above was not written by a patient...really obvious because systems are in place in all major monitoring companies that do not allow for a company to "loose" patient information once a baseline has been documented. If this person wore any monitor for 3 or more days, then 10 additional days, there would be plenty of info in the company's database. This is a competitor trying to stirr up trouble with false statements...not very smart!
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Dear Jess,
I called your office today but got your voicemail. I imagine you were outside on a smoke break with the rest of the delinquents that work there. I zero'd out to get transferred to someone who still could not find me in your system. I come to find out that this is not the first time a patient has been 'lost'. I was told this is not your system it is a temporary one and that I should call back. Thanks for your help. Great customer service.
Regards,
Annonymous
 












Anonymous said:
Dear Jess,
I called your office today but got your voicemail. I imagine you were outside on a smoke break with the rest of the delinquents that work there. I zero'd out to get transferred to someone who still could not find me in your system. I come to find out that this is not the first time a patient has been 'lost'. I was told this is not your system it is a temporary one and that I should call back. Thanks for your help. Great customer service.
Regards,
Annonymous
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I read this post a few days ago and it got me to thinking the author of the above post is lying about his/her actions because the actions don't add up. BTW..I don't work for either company, but if you indeed called the company that Jess works for, got his voicemail, then didn't leave a message anytime/either time you've called, either you have no beef at all or you are too cowardly to leave a message, but clearly you are a jerk. If you were so upset, why wouldn't you leave the guy a message? He reached out to you, offered to help rectify what appears to be your made up story and all you've done is complain. You must be a fraud who is out to cause trouble! People like you need to be kicked off this board. And, who are you to assume or "imagine" that anyone is outside on a smoke break, when you don't even know the person...you are a jerk and I hope you don't work for the same company as I do!
 


















Okay. My BIGGEST beef w/eCardio after using their monitors 3 times is their failure to provide a caller ID when they call the patient. I'd venture that most people have Caller ID on their telephone service now. I usually do NOT answer a call that is not identified. But I was aware that eCardio in the past had not provide caller ID when they called me. They had made several trying to get a hold of me that I hadn't answered since I had no idea it was them. One of the times the call was in regard to a "critical" event I was enduring. They called my cardiologist who DOES use caller ID when he calls me so that he could contact me. Three weeks of nuisance calls in order to not miss an eCardio call did NOT endear eCardio to me despite I still preferred them to CardioNet.

My only other beef w/eCardio is one I also have against CardioNet as well and it is their billing of these newer event monitors, the ECAT and the MCAT. Most insurance companies consider these types of event monitors as experimental. Medicare has approved them. So - Medicare pays their 80% of the allowed amount - and our secondary BC/BS does NOT pay our copay. Whereas if we use the eCardio's ER920W our BC/BS picks up our copay. That copay was $150 for each of the 3 week runs we've done. CardioNet was the first one to pull THAT stunt on me.

Both eCardio and CardioNet don't reveal that to patient or doctor. They don't even offer the older ER920W type monitors to the doctors leaving them under the impression they are not available. Yet if the doctors request the ER920W type of monitor they are easily and readily provided.

I am assuming that the main reason so many insurances consider the MCAT and ECAT experimental is that they can NOT relay data via a landline as the ER920W could if cellular service wasn't adequate. We live in a very poor cell reception area. We've tried several different cellular services and the ony one providing reliable reception is Verizon. eCardio uses AT & T cellular and it just isn't adequate for our particular area. The ER920W was able to transmit data via landline or cellular.

Despite I prefer eCardio over CardioNet I'm going to talk to my cardiologist about using yet a different event monitoring service next year - and I know enough now to discuss billing and type of cellular service, etc. with the monitoring service before I agree to their sending the equipment now.
 






the reason some providers say the mct type devices are experimental and the 920w is not is because they are two different types of devices. The mct, ecat devices are mobile telemetry and the 920w is just an auto record, auto send event recorder. They perform very different functions. Since the 920w is just an event recorder there are no reimbursement issues with event recorders. Both Cardionet and Ecardio play loosely with costs and reimbursement issues and when approached they speak in code and in circles.
 






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