The Referral

You may be referred by your General Practitioner or Specialist Physician for a sleep disorder consultation at the Kelowna Sleep Clinic. This may occur because you or your physician suspects you have a sleep disorder. Your referring physician would like a sleep disorder physician to conduct a clinical evaluation as well as appropriate testing such as a nocturnal polysomnogram. Sometimes a patient already has been diagnosed with a sleep disorder but for some reason it is not well controlled. Your referring physician may be requesting further diagnostic evaluation and management of your condition or sometimes just fine tuning of the treatment.

Your referring physician will fax the referral to our office (fax number 250-862-3052). The referring physician may use their own referral form or our The Sleep Clinics referral form.

The Questionnaire

When we receive your referral we contact you by phone and arrange to send you an email link to fill out our Online Sleep Disorder Questionnaire. The questionnaire also includes a Bed Partner Questionnaire that tells us what others notice about your sleep. The Bed Partner Questionnaire can also be completed online or printed and given to your bed partner, family member or roommate to fill out.

Alternatively, our staff can arrange to send you the Questionnaire by email, fax, or regular mail, or you can download the Sleep Disorders Questionnaire in a fillable pdf format. Once you have completed the Questionnaire, please fax, scan and email, or mail it back to us.

The questionnaire is very important as it allows our staff to triage your condition and determine how urgent you need to be seen. For long distance patients it also helps us determine what kind of sleep studies you may require as well as any special preparation you may need to do prior to arriving for consultation. This makes your trip as productive as possible.

Directions

The staff will send you directions to the Sleep Clinic as well as information about parking. This information can also be found Contact Us link.

The Consultation

When you arrive you will register at the front desk. You will present your health care card and your completed Sleep Disorder Questionnaire if you did not complete it online. The sleep disorder physician will review with you your sleep questionnaire and bed partner questionnaire along with any previous sleep disorder testing you may have had already. He will go over your sleep and general health history in more detail and conduct a limited physical exam.

Booking a Sleep Study

Many sleep disorders require some form of overnight study to make a diagnosis or to determine optimum treatment. Usually the physician will order a nocturnal polysomnogram to provide a more objective evaluation of your sleep. Sometimes other tests are ordered as well. The study is scheduled at a time that is convenient for you. The staff will explain in more detail what is involved in having a sleep study and a sleep study information handout is provided. You will have the option to take a tour of the sleep lab. We will book a follow up visit for you to return to the Clinic to review the sleep study with the physician on the computer. After you have seen your sleep study, your diagnoses will be discussed and treatment options reviewed and prescribed.