Home Oxygen Qualifying Criteria
Applies the qualifying criteria for long-term home oxygen therapy to a resting room-air measurement.
Open the calculator → Runs in your browser. Data leaves only if you deliberately send a problem report from the interactive tool.
Example
- Oxygen saturation, percent
- 89 %
- The measurement was taken on room air
- Yes
- The measurement was taken while the patient is clinically stable
- Yes
- Dependent edema suggesting congestive heart failure
- Yes
Result: a saturation of 89 percent qualifies with a supporting finding
The tool opens with these values already filled in. Replace them with your own.
What the result means
- Qualifies outright
- An arterial oxygen tension at or below 55 mmHg, or a saturation at or below 88 percent.
- Qualifies with support
- A tension of 56 to 59 mmHg, or a saturation of 89 percent, together with dependent edema suggesting congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension or cor pulmonale, or a hematocrit above 56 percent.
- Does not qualify
- A tension at or above 60 mmHg, or a saturation at or above 90 percent.
- The measurement conditions
- At rest, on room air, with the patient clinically stable. A value from an exacerbation or on supplemental oxygen does not establish a chronic need.
- 89 percent
- Qualifies only with a supporting finding. It sits one point from 88 percent and is routinely read as though it were on the same side of the line.
- Coverage is not evidence
- The 2020 ATS guideline recommends continuous oxygen for severe resting hypoxemia in COPD and interstitial lung disease, and not for moderate resting hypoxemia.
What you enter
- Arterial oxygen tension, mmHg
- Oxygen saturation, percent
- The measurement was taken on room air
- The measurement was taken while the patient is clinically stable
- Dependent edema suggesting congestive heart failure (a supporting finding)
- Pulmonary hypertension or cor pulmonale (a supporting finding)
- Hematocrit above 56 percent (a supporting finding)
How this is calculated
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. National Coverage Determination 240.2, Home Use of Oxygen. Jacobs SS, Krishnan JA, Lederer DJ, et al. Home Oxygen Therapy for Adults with Chronic Lung Disease: an Official ATS Clinical Practice Guideline. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2020;202(10):e121-e141. Read the source ↗
A reference and educational tool. Not medical, legal, or financial advice, and not a substitute for clinician judgment.