Best of the Brand X oxygen concentrators?

March 23, 2020 7:19 AM

I'm trying to put together a little home care setup for a medically fragile friend in case of need. Note: I am a physician and will only fire up the oxygen in consultation with another doctor who knows what s/he is doing!!! I see a lot of cheap oxygen concentrators around. Has anyone actually used one of them? (The would-be patient is superstitious and refuses to just rent a good one.) Thank you for your thoughts.
posted by 8603 to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Most of the cheap concs I see around are portables. Are you looking for a POC, or just a cheap stationary conc? If it’s the latter, you’re going to get much more bang for your buck from a 2nd hand unit. I work in DME, and so long as I had access to parts I’d pick a ten year old Inogen in a crisis over a brand-new no-name unit any day of the week, especially if you’re envisioning any sort of high-literflow usage.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:53 AM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

[to clarify, I’m not saying Inogen is better than their major competitors. I just think that a major brand with a track record and serviceability is worth paying for]
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 10:02 AM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

When my partner got super sick with pneumonia we had a used Inogen in our house for months thanks to Medicaid and it worked great. He was using it 24/7 as well, could barely walk from bedroom to living room for some of that time. It was the size of a window ac unit upright on wheels and it wasn’t portable, because we had it plugged into the wall. it ran kind of loud, but it worked great.
posted by zdravo at 2:55 PM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, guys! I'm looking for anecdotes about the really cheap ones, $500 or so. Has anyone found a cheap one that actually works?
posted by 8603 at 3:54 PM on March 23, 2020

At that price, I wouldn’t buy anything new. I’m not sure where you’re located, but if I were in your shoes I’d be calling around to DME suppliers and asking them if they have any used concs that are slated to be replaced (unfortunately, in the given circumstances they might not). I’d recommend smaller vendors to start with, then work your way through the local branches of national vendors like Norco (if you want to MeMail me your location, I might be able to scrape together some leads). And if they don’t have any, you might still make some useful contacts in case you buy one off Craigslist that needs servicing.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:28 PM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]