What to expect at your first sleep medicine appointment

The first sleep-medicine visit is a consult, not a test night and not a website questionnaire. Bring your medication list, any prior sleep-study reports, and a CPAP download if you already have a machine. Testing is decided in the room. This site will not collect a symptom history in a form.

What is the first appointment actually for?

A new-patient sleep visit is a medical evaluation. Dr. Mahmoud Qadoom, MD, takes a history, reviews what you brought, examines you as indicated, and decides whether a home sleep apnea test, an in-lab polysomnography, more than one night of data, or no sleep test at all is the next step. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s 2017 diagnostic guideline starts with a good-practice statement: diagnostic testing for obstructive sleep apnea should be done with a comprehensive sleep evaluation and adequate follow-up. Polysomnography is the standard diagnostic test when OSA is a concern after that evaluation. A questionnaire does not replace either step. The same guideline’s first strong recommendation is that clinical tools, questionnaires, or prediction algorithms must not be used to diagnose OSA in adults without a home sleep apnea test or polysomnography.

You should not expect to leave with a machine the same afternoon unless you already have a confirmed diagnosis and a separate DME plan. You should expect a working diagnosis or a short list of possibilities, a decision about testing, and a plan for how results come back. If the problem is chronic insomnia without a story that points to apnea, the next step may be cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia rather than a home test. If the problem is witnessed apneas, resistant hypertension, and sleepiness, testing is more likely. That sorting happens face to face.

The office is at 450 Alkyre Run Drive, Suite 230, Westerville, OH 43082. Hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Call (614) 898-9340 with scheduling questions. Directions and parking notes are on the contact page.

How do I schedule without typing symptoms into a website?

Call the office. That is the reliable path. You can also use Healow’s public scheduling page for Mahmoud Qadoom, MD, at healow.com/apps/provider/mahmoud-qadoom-89633. This article does not walk through Healow screens, passwords, or message threads. If the portal is down or you cannot find a slot, telephone the office during those weekday hours. Do not email a symptom list to the general inbox. Email is a poor place for health information, and the public website is not an intake clinic.

This site will not ask you to describe snoring, gasping, or “how we can help” in a comments box. A free-text notes field on a marketing form is how protected health information leaves the practice for a vendor that may not have a business associate agreement. Appointment requests here are a phone number and, when you choose it, the Healow link. If another clinician is sending you, their office can fax a provider referral to (614) 898-9350. That is their job, not a web form on this domain.

New-patient paperwork exists. The patient forms page explains which packets the practice uses (new patient information, records release, provider referral). Hosted form links are posted only when the vendor account is on a HIPAA-capable plan with a signed BAA. Until you are told otherwise, ask the receptionist to send or hand you the blank forms. Do not upload a completed packet to a consumer file-share.

What should I bring?

• Photo ID and insurance card. Both sides of the card if the member ID and PCP are on the back.
• A written medication list. Prescriptions, over-the-counter sleep aids, antihistamines, opioids, and anything you take “only at bedtime.” Include dose and schedule if you know them. A phone photo of bottles is a backup, not a substitute for a list the clinician can keep in the chart.
• Prior sleep-study reports, not just a verbal “they said I had mild apnea.” The scoring hypopnea rule, the total sleep time, and whether the study was a home test or a lab night change what the number means. If you only have a patient portal screenshot, print it.
• CPAP, APAP, or bilevel data if you already use a machine. A 30- or 90-day download, a manufacturer app summary, or the device itself with the SD card. Usage hours, residual AHI, and leak are part of the visit if the question is “this machine is not working,” not only “do I have apnea.”
• Names of other clinicians who manage heart failure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, COPD, or chronic pain, plus recent hospital discharge summaries if they exist.
• A referral number if your plan required one. Bring the authorization letter for TRICARE Prime or an HMO.

You do not need to fill a humidifier or pack overnight clothes for a first daytime consult. The lab night, if one is ordered, is a separate appointment with its own instructions. If you want the public overview of those two tests, read home and in-lab sleep testing after the visit, not as a substitute for it.

Will I get a sleep test the same day?

Sometimes a home-test kit can be arranged quickly. An attended lab night is scheduled, not improvised in the exam room. Either way, the decision is made after the history and exam, not by a checkbox on the internet. AASM’s 2017 guideline allows a technically adequate home sleep apnea test in uncomplicated adults who already have signs that point to a high risk of moderate to severe obstructive apnea (excessive daytime sleepiness plus at least two of: habitual loud snoring, witnessed apnea or gasping or choking, diagnosed hypertension). It recommends in-lab polysomnography instead when there is significant cardiorespiratory disease, neuromuscular weakness, suspected hypoventilation, chronic opioid use, history of stroke, severe insomnia, or another sleep disorder a home device cannot diagnose. A single negative or failed home test is supposed to be followed by polysomnography if suspicion remains.

Your insurer may want a home test first even when the guideline would send you to the lab. That conflict is worked out with the authorization desk, not by you picking a product on a shopping site. The first visit is where the clinician documents why one path or the other is medically appropriate. If you already completed a home test that was inconclusive, bring that report so you are not repeating a night that did not answer the question.

No one on this website will ask you to self-diagnose from a quiz and then auto-ship a device. Questionnaires can support a conversation. They cannot, under that AASM recommendation, be the diagnosis.

What should I not put in an email or a web form?

Do not type a suspected diagnosis, a list of nighttime symptoms, or “I think I have sleep apnea” into a contact form, a comments field, or an unencrypted email. Those sentences are health information. This practice’s public pages are built so that you call or use the Healow scheduler, then give the clinical history in the exam room or on a telephone line staffed by the office. If a page on this site ever asks for a free-text “additional notes” box about your sleep, treat that as a defect and use the phone instead.

Do not put a condition name in a query string if you bookmark a thank-you page. That is a tracking problem as well as a privacy problem. You do not need a tracking parameter to get an appointment.

What happens on the day?

Arrive a few minutes early with the items above. Expect questions about sleep timing, shift work, caffeine, alcohol, naps, driving, and how a bed partner describes your breathing. Expect questions about blood pressure, heart rhythm, diabetes, mood, and pain medicines. A limited exam may include the airway, neck, and lungs. You will not be attached to EEG leads in the consult room.

Leave with a written sense of the next step: home test, lab night, no test yet, records from another lab, or a follow-up after you obtain a referral. If a test is ordered, ask who interprets it (the sleep physician who saw you, or a remote reading service) and how you will get results. Results by patient portal or a return visit are both used in sleep medicine. Ask which one this office will use for you. Do not invent a Healow results workflow from this article. If results posting is unclear, call (614) 898-9340 after the visit and ask the staff member who scheduled you.

If you use PAP now and the visit is about intolerance, bring the mask that actually sits on your face, not the one in the original box. Fit and leak are easier to discuss when the hardware is on the desk. If the visit is about a possible implant or an oral appliance, the first appointment is still the medical evaluation. Surgical or dental next steps come after a diagnosis and, for hypoglossal nerve stimulation, after criteria and endoscopy that are not done at the first handshake.

Book through appointments, or call during Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Bring the list, the reports, and the download. Tell the story in the room.