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oxygen supplier issues


rowdy730998
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Pacific Pulmonary has supplied oxygen in the past but the new arrangement with them is unacceptable. LinCare will not sell me oxygen because I am not covered by insurance -Medicare won't cover it.

Are there any oxygen suppliers out there with real customer service? How difficult is it to adapt industrial oxygen cylinders to my mask? or refill existing tanks from the large industrial tank?

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rowdy',

This is the only part of your question that I know anything about.  If you have the regulator for larger tanks (a CGA 540 regulator), it will fit on any industrial (welding) oxygen tank, and of course your mask will still connect fine to your regulator.  Smaller medical tanks use a regulator (CGA 870) that won't fit on any industrial tank. I don't know how to insert images here, so this is a link to what a CGA 540 medical oxygen regulator looks like: https://www.amazon.com/CGA-540-Style-Oxygen-Regulator/dp/B006GERK0M in contrast to the CGA 870: https://www.amazon.com/Medline-HCS8715M-Oxygen-Regulator-Connection/dp/B00KG8DNKU/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1535422718&sr=1-3-fkmr0&keywords=cga+860+oxygen+regulator

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Hi Rowdy....

….no insurance myself for many years....and this is admittedly a few yrs back....but I marched into a Lincare shop...WITH a script for O2...and committed to paying cash DOWN. Over the yrs it was "sometimes" a problem...but all depending on the particular shop MGR. Mostly they were happy to oblige...MONEY talks. Try a personal visit with the Mgr...a sincere face with a cogent narrative for a problem goes a long ways....otherwise CHf just gave ya  a good alternative...

Best

Jon

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Thanks for your input everyone. I have been unable to get the industrial or AirGas types to sell to me. It may be a California thing. Do you know what supplier did $10 tanks around the country? I have paid from $10 to $25 and would really welcome a national supply that would make travel more comfortable.

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...for me....periodically from 1985 to a few yrs ago... it was Lincare at $10/tank.....eventually $12 then $14. Used to order up tanks when I travelled using their online "travel 

arrangement"..... worked exceedingly well with no complications....Oklahoma and CA (multiple times)….

Best

Jon 

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I THINK it was Lincare but I'm not 100% certain.

From what I've gathered from others...and my own experience, your local office (of what ever supplier you can name) makes all the difference when negotiating rates. I had a supplier that was good as gold for years but when the management changed I was treated like a liar and a thief. Long story short, they had failed to charge out several tanks and accused me of stealing them. How I was supposedly able to steal these tanks from outside a locked cage was never addressed. Apparently anything but blaming employee incompetence was an acceptable answer.

Needless to say I'm no longer with this vendor.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
On 8/30/2018 at 4:11 PM, rowdy730998 said:

Thanks for your input everyone. I have been unable to get the industrial or AirGas types to sell to me. It may be a California thing. Do you know what supplier did $10 tanks around the country? I have paid from $10 to $25 and would really welcome a national supply that would make travel more comfortable.

What was Airgas' reasoning for not selling to you?

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Just go to a welding gas supplier and purchase or rent a tank.  They come in sizes from about 16 inches tall to around 4 feet.  The bigger they are the more O2 they hold.  I use one that is about 3 feet tall and it lasts me 2 or 3 months with DAILY us for up to about 30 minutes each time.  Costs about $20 exchange the tank for a full one. You will have to purchase an oxygen regulator for welding tanks.  It hooks up to a welding hose but you can get a fitting that connects to it and allows you to attach a "food grade" plastic hose to it with a small hose clamp.  I then just hook up a standard "blow gun" from Harbor freight to it and set the regulator to a pressure that allows me to stick the blow gun in my mouth and feeds O2 at a pressure/volume that allows me to take a normal deep breath from it.  You can then take the tank to the same "Brand" welding gas supplier pretty much anywhere in the US, any time they are open and exchange your tank for a full one.  I suggest buying a regulator sized for one of the "mini" Oxy/Acetylene welding tank sets used buy Air conditioning or refrigerator service companies.  The same regulator should fit ANY size of welding oxygen tank the suppliers have, and the smallest O2 regulator you can buy will put out more than enough O2 for this purpose..  It works best if you always carry your paperwork from the original place from when and where you purchased or rented your tank.  I happen to be a welder, so I actually OWN my tanks and have 2 different sizes.  And you don't need to tell the gas supplier that you use the O2 for cluster headaches.  In some cases it might help, but in other cases they may refuse to sell you the tank or re-fill it.  They will say that you MUST use only "medical" O2 and tanks for that.  But the truth is that you can follow one of their delivery trucks to any hospital and watch them unload the very same large, standard, all green heavy steel tanks used for welding at the hospital, where they are then taken to their basement "tank room" where they have a whole bank of those "welding" tanks hooked up to feed the entire hospital with "MEDICAL" O2.  (What a joke!)   By the way, I use NEXAIR for mine.  It's the same company I bought my tanks from about 40 years ago, but they have changed names several times.

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