LinCare

I switched my oxygen provider from Apria to Lincare in either August or September 2022. When I was with Apria I had a portable oxygen concentrator but when I switched over to Lincare they said I had to wait 3-6 months before I would qualify through them. Instead they brought me out oxygen tanks that way about 10 pounds to carry around and therefore hurt my shoulder and back when I had to use it. I literally had to quit using it because of the pain it was causing. I decided I would just have to wait the 3-6 months and then qualify for the portable oxygen concentrator. I waited out six months and when my provider contacted them the provider was told because I don't go through 8 oxygen tanks a month I can't get one. I called Lincare myself and spoke to Kalani in their Fresno Branch and he told me the same thing. I said you are pentalizing me because it was too heavy for me to carry therefore I wasn't able to use it. He told me that is our policy. I said I am going on an airplane for about a 4-5 hour flight and I need it due to the cabin pressure. He said sorry you don't qualify. I was so mad he told me I could call corporate and talk to them but nothing would change. I was told I could rent the concentrator from Lincare for a $500.00 deposit and $500.00 for 30 days (I only need it 8 days). I said why should I have to pay that large amount of money when my insurance company said they would cover it at 70% after I pay $30.00. He advised me they won't bill insurance. I think that is pure laziness and a way for them to get more money. What does it matter where the money comes from they would get paid either way. So I can get the portable oxygen concentrator if I pay out of my pocket but if they have to bill insurance I don't qualify? That is wrong, wrong, wrong. What did they want me to do let the oxygen out of 8 containers a month so they can deliver more and charge me more?

Long story short: They sent me the wrong headgear and are refusing to
Either reimburse me for the charge or send the correct one.

Whole story: I've been using Lincare for years, getting the same
Headgear for the entire time. A few orders ago, I was shipped a
Different style. It fit so I figured the old one was just
Discontinued. On my last order, they sent a strap that did not fit. I
Called and was told to send it back for a replacememt. I did and they
Sent a box full of nose pillows that weren't in the right size. I
Called again and was told to send it back for a replacement. I did and
They then sent me a frame not the strap. I called again, was told
To send it back and when I called, I was told by a Kelly Golden from
The Escalation Resolution Team that they would not send me a
Replacement. Even though she admitted that the new headgear should
Never have been sent in the first place, that they still carried the
Original headgear and the new strap was "universal". I don't know what
She means by that. The strap doesn't fit. She says that she won't
Send a replacement since she claims that I never sent the wrong strap
Back. Which doesn't make sense for a few reasons. First of all, they
Obviously got the strap back as they tried to send a replacement for
It. Two, why do they even care since they can't sell opened medical
Equipment to someone new. And three, this is really how they treat a
Costumer of this many years. They admit the gear should never have been
Changed, they admit that you sent the wrong strap for this gear THREE
TIMES and they're still reusing to replace it?
Kelly Golden is now refusing to answer my latest email. I would hope
Someone in your company can see how messed up this is and resolve this
Issue. Do I really need to escalate this outside of your company for a
Simple strap?

BEWARE! DO NOT Deal With This Company! They Are Morons! I Don't Usually Waste My Time With NEGATIVE Posts, But This Company Needs To Be Taught A Lesson, And Next Step Is To Place A Call And Email MEDICARE About Their Practices. So In Short, This Is What They Do. They Bring You A CPAP Machine And Its A Nice One ( Thank You) But When It Comes To The Mask And It's Not Comfortable And Preventing You From Using The Machine They Offer To Send You (THEY DO NOT HAVE A TECH COME OUT LIKE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO) They Will Send You Another Mask THE CHEAPEST! LOW QUALITY! ONE ON THE MARKET. If You Are UNSATISFIED With That One { BECAUSE THE SEAL IS SO THIN AND CHEAPLY MADE} They Tell You You Have To BUY ONE FROM THEM. So Of Course If Your DISABLED On A FIXED INCOME A $ 130.00 OUT OF POCKET Purchase Of A Mask Is IMPOSSIBLE. So Instead Of Possibly Taking A Little Loss To Keep Their Customers Satisfied They Act Like Morons On The Phone Saying The Same Thing OVER And OVER And Don't Let You Get A Word In. So Now They Want The Machine Back Ha Ha Ha NEWS ALERT YOUR NOT GETTING IT BACK! Come To My House And TRY TO TAKE IT! NO REPLACEMENT Mask So I Can't Use The Machine Then NO MACHINE. So As Soon As I Save Enough Money To Buy A Mask That Works For Me And I Figure Out How To Disable The Wireless Feature So They Can't Shut It Off. IT's NOW MINE!

Oh Just In Case Sleep Circle / Lincare Is Reading This My Name Is FRANK You Figure Out The Rest.

P.S. THANK YOU FOR THE MACHINE A Lot Of AGGRAVATION To Go Thru With The Employees I GOT IT FOR FREE IT's MINE NOW.!

Oh And This Gets Posted On EVERY SITE I Can Possibly Find On The Internet To Let People Who May Be Considering To Use Your Services To Think OTHERWISE.

I See You Don't Know ANYTHING about CUSTOMER SERVICE But You Will Learn Soon Or You Won't Be Around Too Long.

My husband and I have been locked in for 4 weeks under doctor's orders due to the COVID-19. My husband is 74 years old and has COPD, asthma, emphysema, sleep apnea, congestive heart failure, lung cancer survivor, diabetes and on oxygen 24/7. My husband told the driver I would not open the door to sign and leave the tanks outside the door due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic so I could wipe them down before I brought them into our home, and the response was "no signature, no delivery". He also told my husband he would "pass it through the door for me to sign". Did he really think that made a difference? So we had no delivery of oxygen tanks or cannulas. When talking with the Manager of Lincare in Delray Beach, FL, I was lectured on "not needing portables if we were on lockdown", "your husband has a concentrator, so he doesn't need portables", and he agreed "no signature, no delivery" and "you don't trust my men to be clean?". When I got a little upset with the lecture commentary, I was told "I don't want to speak with you any more, you're out of control and I want to speak with the patient". At that time I said "obviously this is going no where" and I hung up. I called their Customer Care Advocate who referred me back to the same disregarding person. Lincare's Customer Care Advocate is not adequately trained in dealing with customer issues. Interesting, my car wouldn't start and the customer care representative refused to get in my car to attempt starting it, observed social distancing, wore gloves, mask, and stated they had a "no sign" policy in place due to the virus.
Should our power go out, the oxygen concentrator works on electricity. So much for your healthcare Lincare, by putting your signing policy in front of a patient's life. My husband has used Lincare for 15 years.

I have sleep apnea and received my equipment and supplies in the State of Pennsylvania where I maintained my primary residence. I had absolutely no problem with the Pennsylvania provider and my supplies where always delivered in a timely fashion. When I became a Florida resident I was told that I had to switch to a Florida provider in order to be insured under my Medicare and Supplemental insurance coverage. I randomly chose LinCare to provide the equipment. BIG MISTAKE. I initiated the process in March 2018 and complied with every requirement necessary to obtain the equipment from LinCare's Delray Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida office. The process started in March. I am writing this review on July 24,2018 and still have not received my supplies. Every time I called the Delray Office and spoke to the Center Manager I got a different story. I was told on July 11, several months after initiating contact with the Delray Office, that the supplies had arrived and would be shipped the following week. Nothing arrived and I received no notifications. On July 20,2018 I contacted the "I Care Team" at Lincare and a representative of that department called the Delray Office and I was told that the equipment was not shipped because the supplies had not all been received but that they were now in the Delray office and that they would be shipped on Monday, July 23,2018 and that I would receive a phone call with the tracking number. No phone call was received on Monday and I called back the "I Care Team" for a third time. Ironically, the recorded message on the hold message from Lincare says to be sure to treat your sleep apnea to get a good nights sleep and to avoid anxiety and other problems. I have not had replacement equipment for more than 3 months and don't know if they will ever resolve this. I have spent an inordinate amount of time on this with trips to my doctors office to compile records for submittal, phone calls with long hold times, totally inconsistent information from LinCare offices. Avoid this company if you can. What is inconceivable, there must be thousand of sleep apnea patients in south Florida and yet my generic order has not been filled. Stay healthy by avoiding LinCare.

I have tried to order Mom's supplies for two weeks. She's been in a nursing home for over 3 and half years. I have ordered her supplies and had them delivered to the nursing home. I purchased a new cpap from them for Mom in the last two years. After numerous placed on hold calls to no returning customer support person, I finally got to speak to someone. I told them what I needed and they said they would be sent directly to the nursing home the following week. After 2 weeks, I called again only to be told I couldn't order the supplies, Mom would have to due to HIPPA. I gave them Mom's phone number and was told I would have to call her myself. I'm wondering what good will that do if you need to know that she has ok'd me to order supplies. After much run around and frustration I drove to the Peoria location. I was told her account was closed and that she could no longer get supplies from them. I referred to them as "you guys" and was told I was being rude. I asked them what they wanted to be referred to as and was told "you". Then I was told since she was in a nursing home, the nursing home had to order the supplies because Medicare wouldn't allow two people to bill them for the same thing.I said the nursing home did not bill Mom for the Cpap. They again said they couldn't do it. I asked why we weren't told this before and why did they send someone out less than two months ago to fix the cpap. I was told she was on maternity leave and didn't know anything about it. They also have sent supplies to Mom in the nursing home. Why now has this all changed? She said they just found out she was in the nursing home. Seriously? She's been there for over three years. The address given for Mom was her name and the name of the nursing home. The patient is definitely not Lincare's first priority. I'm not sure what their priority is. When I left I said I would never do business with them again. I was very sarcastically told to "Have a nice day". Not once but twice. How rude and how do people like this stay in business?

Called Lincare in Bend OR last November to order replacement supplies. They confirmed they would mail them! In early December I went to the local office since I hadn't received the parts, the office manager told me that my account was cancelled since I didn't order parts on a regular basis.
I asked for a copy of my medical records and went to a different provider NORCO in town who ordered my supplies and delivered them the following week.
In January I received a package with supplies from Lincare (remember, THEY cancelled my account month's ago) I took the supplies back to the local Bend OR office and received a receipt for the return. I also called the main office and let them know that I didn't order any supplies, they had cancelled my account and that I took the box with supplies back to their local office.
In February I received a bill for the supplies I returned, I called the office to let them know I returned them and mailed them the return receipt. BTW, THE LINCARE BILL WAS TWICE as much than the Norco bill for the same supplies!
WE'RE NOW APRIL AND LINCARE CALLED ME TREATENING BECAUSE I DIDNT PAY THE BILL FOR SUPPLIES I DIDN'T ORDER SINCE THEY CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT BUT STILL MAILED ME SUPPLIES WHICH I RETURDED!
INCOMPETENCE 101! AND WORST OF ALL LINCARE WANTED TO CHARGE ME TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE SUPPLIES AS NORCO CHARGED ME!

Lincare is one of several providers of health-related services. The office providing me with service, in Latham, NY, has proven unable to provide the services for which they have contracted in an orderly, effective and efficient way. They appear unwilling to adopt ordinary best practices to deliver relatively simple services, for which they are very well compensated -- by me, by my health insurance provider and by Medicare. Here's why.

I have COPD, and rely on supplemental oxygen, supplied oxygen concentrators (devices that remove nitrogen from air, passing along only the oxygen; this is better alternative than bottled oxygen for many reasons). This entails providing two machines, one for use in the house and one that is portable, runs on rechargable batteries.

The external battery for my portable concentrator has been showing problems for the last six months. I would come back from using the system, put the external battery in its charger and it would not immediately begin charging. I reported this to Lincare, and the firm eventually ordered a replacement -- this took over six weeks, as I recall. When it arrived, a delivery person arranged to bring it by.

Lincare had ordered the wrong battery. It could not be used with my machine.

The delivery person took the wrong battery back, promising to order the correct battery.

I heard nothing further from Lincare through the rest of the summer. But, as cooler weather set in, the battery seemed to revert to normal behavior. When Lincare eventually did call, to arrange delivery of what one assumes was the correct battery, I reported the new situation, and Lincare cancelled the new battery.

Just a day ago, I discovered the external battery has failed definitively. Half the cells are not charging, and the battery-failure signal on the charger correctly reports this.

I called Lincare again. They do not keep parts in stock and claim they cannot get a replacement battery from the maker in less than several weeks. [Other companies selling this same product claim to deliver in days.] Lincare's offer: They would provide oxygen in tanks — one assumes, with one or another home fill-er-up strategy until the local staff got its act together to get the requisite battery.

Oxygen in tanks is obsolete technology. One cannot travel with it: Airlines do not allow it; Amtrak makes it difficult, and in any case, one cannot carry sufficient for, e.g., a trip to town. Driving down to the city is also out; that's a six-hour round trip plus time on site and two tanks fully charged will not last half that long. In the next couple weeks, I have two long-ish trips to make and a meeting to attend and tickets to the ballet. Bottled oxygen is inadequate for any of this.

More to the point, it is not what I am paying for.

I went to the local office (Portland OR area) and knew as soon as I walked in there would be problems. I stood at the front reception area, everyone at their desks doing stuff, totally ignored me. At about the time my patience was running out, someone finally looked at me and asked if they could help me? I felt like saying "no, I just came in from the street to stand and watch". DUH. It never improved. I have had to call every month for 12 months because the billing has been wrong. I returned a piece of equipment after 2.5 mo, was billed for it for 11 months, even though I called monthly about it. Then they had to have me sign a new "pick-up order". I did, still was being billed. Finally someone told me the local office had never sent the new "pick-up order" to them that I had returned the item, and they were contacting the local office to have it sent to them, at which time they could stop charging me for it and credit my account. Month 12 and VOILA, they finally did. I had signed documents for them to charge my credit card rather than bill me every month when I picked up the equipment. I had to call every month for SIX months to ask why I was still getting an invoice when it was supposed to be charged to my credit card? Got multiple excuses. Then was told they had called and left a message. I never got it... oops, turns out they had the wrong phone number listed. I gave the person the correct number. Next month, same problem. This time when I called, discovered that the person had deleted the phone number instead of correcting it, so now they had no phone number. How incompetent can they be? Like they would have ever called me anyway. I can leave a message for them, and give them the phone number they must call me at to reach me, only to get home at the end of the day and find they have called my HOME phone and left a msg to call them back. VERY HELPFUL: NOT.
Now they are still charging my credit card every month for the remaining equipment even though I told them to stop billing my credit card. I was only supposed to "rent" the equipment for 10 months, then my insurance company would pay. Guess what... 3 months later, still getting billed every month. I have spoken to every person in the billing office at least once, they always promise to call me back when they have figured out what was wrong and got it fixed. Usually they never call me back, even though they PROMISE they will.
I have never dealt with such an incompetent company. I have no choice because they are the ones my insurance contracts with. TOTALLY INCOMPETENT. Frustrating waste of my time to try and deal with them.