Home Oxygen Therapy
KCE Reports 156 (2011)
People suffering from chronic lung diseases need sometimes an oxygen complement at the house. In Belgium, this treatment can be prescribed without restriction by any doctor and one notes a clear increase in the expenditure these last years. Several authorities of decisions are implied in the organization of oxygen treatment, just like of the professional bodies or deprived, and there is a lack of integrated approach. The federal Center of expertise on health care (KCE) recommends a price adjustment and a use of the least expensive forms of treatment, since they have all the same effect on health. Moreover, the oxygen treatment of long life should be held to the patients for whom scientific evidence shows an improvement related to this treatment: people with a lack of severe breath due to a BPCO, a cystic fibrosis, a cardiac decompensation or respiratory diseases.
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