Oxygen Costs

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BLS Systems Limited

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Greetings all. Although there are prescribed costs that are charged to the customer for the application of oxygen, I am hoping that someone can shed light on the actual cost of the gas. As someone raised in a Canadian hospital setting, the liquid bulk magically appeared and we never worried about usage or the associated cost. US based ambulance settings are vastly different.

Do services get charged per cylinder size or by volume?
 
I work as an independent contractor and I am responsible for my own supplies, including O2. I get my D tank filled for about fifteen bucks at a dive shop. So, filled to 2000 PSI it comes out to about $0.05/liter.

They charge different rates for different size tanks.
 
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Isn't O2 for diving different than O2 for med use, after all you don't need a prescription for dive air? I am thinking dive air is not same qty of O2. Just asking.
 
The service I work for gets charged a flat rate per bottle filled. So it does not matter the size of the tank just the number that we are having filled. It is odd but I dont try to understand why my company does what it does.
 
Sandog said:
Isn't O2 for diving different than O2 for med use, after all you don't need a prescription for dive air? I am thinking dive air is not same qty of O2. Just asking.
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Not to my knowledge. There are different blends of breathing gasses, but they do have pure Oxygen; about as pure as it can get, it's about 93% O2 with about a 3% tolerance in either direction.

If I were getting industrial oxygen, then yes, that would be a problem.
 
If I am not mistaken, dive air is just compressed air where O2 for med use is pure O2.
 
Just to satisfy my curiosity, I called Ocean Enterprise Dive shop of San Diego, one of the big shops here. They confirmed that dive air is just compressed air, and not same as med O2. I don't know what you contract in but you could be doing a boo boo.
 
Sandog said:
Just to satisfy my curiosity, I called Ocean Enterprise Dive shop of San Diego, one of the big shops here. They confirmed that dive air is just compressed air, and not same as med O2. I don't know what you contract in but you could be doing a boo boo.
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Naw, the place I go to sells oxygen. They sell dive air as well as other blends of "breathing gasses"such as nitrox, heliox, and trimix.
 
Got it...
 
Do they sell USP "Medical Grade" oxygen?

It's no different from welding oxygen, except for the fact that it's certified as “medical grade” and tracked as medical oxygen. Not using USP Medical Grade Oxygen would be a liability I wouldn't want to assume.

Also, I was under the impression that the Pin layout on medical grade Oxygen regulators was different from industrial grade oxygen to prevent its use in medical cylinders.
 
n7lxi said:
Also, I was under the impression that the Pin layout on medical grade Oxygen regulators was different from industrial grade oxygen to prevent its use in medical cylinders.
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It is, or at least it should be.
 
My understanding is that medical grade is at least 99% pure. Home oxygen concentrators get around 93-95%. As a transport RT, we considered filling our cylinders with aviation oxygen since it can be performed right at the plane, but the idea was abandoned as it wasn't "medical grade" (I heard it was actually a higher grade like 99.5% pure).
 
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From my understanding, all of the oxygen comes from the same place, the LOX, or liquid oxygen, truck.

The difference is the certification and tracking of cylinders. It's a liability issue only.

Many vendors that supply welding and medical oxygen will ONLY stock medical oxygen to make the record keeping easier.
 
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n7lxi said:
From my understanding, all of the oxygen comes from the same place, the LOX, or liquid oxygen, truck.

The difference is the certification and tracking of cylinders. It's a liability issue only.

Many vendors that supply welding and medical oxygen will ONLY stock medical oxygen to make the record keeping easier.
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That's what I've heard.
 
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