I was referred to Lincare from my insurance company and Medicare for a VPAP machine. I went their office in Tempe, AZ for an appointment to get an orientation on the machine and cost involved. I received the new machine and I was very frustrated with the continued usage of the machine because of the mask fit which was very uncomfortable. I had no other options to use the mask as it caused me the lack of sleep. I went back to my respiratory therapist and informed him of my concerns. I was told that I had to get use to it. I tried off and on for a couple of months with no success. I stopped using the machine. I had called Lincare and mentioned that I wasn’t able to get used to the product and wanted to return it. They mentioned that they would contact the insurance company for me to get approval for any further billing. I paid initially for a couple of months but because I never received any billing from them I considered that it was approved. Several months go by and I was going to return the VPAP machine that was essentially on rental and did a online chat with one of their representatives who I had indicated that I had not received any billing via mail or email and I needed to know the status of the account and to return the machine. She informs me that I have a balance of $524.34 and that I had not processed a payment for 9 months since April thru December. I had mentioned that I had never received any billing from them and felt that they had gotten approval to freeze the account since I was not using the machine. She said she will mail an itemized bill to me and that they are sending billing statements via email and not via mail. Well it appears after further investigation on my own that I had received paper statements till March and switched over to a new patient portal that was online that was their preferred billing process and no paper statements would be sent as they were going green. I was never notified of this policy change. She also stated that now I own the machine based upon my transactions that I had not made. So now I have this bill for over $500 for equipment that was only used for a couple of months when they were sending out paper statements. So today I went online and registered for their patient portal which reflects my balance due and requires me to accept the new payment process via email which requires my consent to have paperless billing. I feel that they have been deceptive with how they switched over from paper to online paperless billing causing my account to continue to be billed for services that I wasn’t using nor aware that they may of never requested approval from Medicare. Being a senior on fixed income, I feel deceived and taken advantage of by virtue of there lack of communication.