[jrockway]

I think the modem worked its way in there because some employers mandate compliance and that's how they check. (Think safety-critical jobs like driving a train; if you're diagnosed with sleep apnea and don't use the prescribed mitigation, you can't drive the train. Too many people feeling "fine", falling asleep, and running their train around a 30mph curve at 80mph.) Insurance companies obviously love the excuse to not pay, but that's probably not the primary purpose for telemetry.

You can buy your CPAP outright for around ~$1500. This is a problem for many people, but probably not HN readers. The telemetry basically facilitates an interest-free loan that lets you pay for the machine over a couple years. More favorable financing than a credit card, so people aren't getting super screwed here.