ATS Home Oxygen Patient Survey

One of my greatest pet peeves is the fact that the medical community in general, the insurance companies, the supplemental oxygen suppliers and the bureaucrats who write protocol, treat all patients who receive supplemental oxygen as if we all have COPD.

Medicare basis supplemental oxygen coverage on studies involving patients with obstructive lung diseases, primarily COPD.  Insurance companies follow Medicare's lead and reimburse based on Medicare coverage. Oxygen suppliers provide the bare minim that they can get away with based on what they can be paid for their service. Patients with restrictive lung diseases are often left short of what they need.

The American Thoracic Society has posted a major survey asking for our input on how we use supplemental oxygen, and asking what we need.

This is a very well written survey and it asks all the right questions. As a general informational survey, this is one of the better ones I've taken.  It covers pretty much all aspects of home oxygen use.

If you are on supplemental oxygen, please take the survey.  If you know someone who is on oxygen, please forward it to them

The Survey - ATS Home Oxygen Patient Survey

I wrote a nice long post about the different need of patients with these two basic categories of lung disease, but deleted it.  I don't want to influence your answers.  That is a great idea for a post though, so if you are interested I'll put one up soon.

Above image grabbed from wiseGEEK