Category: Conservers and regulators
By HME News Staff
Updated Tue February 28, 2006
Key market issues:
- Spiraling prices - Competition from foreign manufacturers is driving down prices of oxygen conserving devices. On the surface, that would appear beneficial to the provider, but inferior quality products present safety risks to patients.
- Lack of consistency - The absence of uniform standards for conserving device manufacturing has resulted in differing flow rates at the same meter settings. AARC is seeking new guidelines to assure consistency among all makes
and models.
- Revising prescriptions - Physicians base their oxygen prescriptions on continuous flow rates when they should be considering that modern respiratory equipment uses demand and
pulse oximetry.
- Ratios escalating - Conservation ratios notch upward each year to the point where some gauges show 10:1 or 12:1. These ratios are too high to saturate patients, respiratory specialists say.
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