Medicare hyperbaric-oxygen therapy fell by about two-thirds over the decade
Medicare's fee-for-service record shows hyperbaric-oxygen therapy — breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber, mostly to treat chronic wounds — falling from about 52,000 beneficiaries in 2015 to about 15,000 in 2024, roughly 72%. Per 1,000 fee-for-service beneficiaries the rate fell about 67%, so the decline is real, not an artifact of the shrinking record.
The decline is real, not a data artifact. Hyperbaric-oxygen therapy has fallen by about two-thirds in Medicare over the decade, and the per-1,000-beneficiary rate fell about 67% — so it is a real decline, not just the fee-for-service record shrinking as beneficiaries move to Medicare Advantage.
The count and the rate fall together. On the fee-for-service record the patient count dropped from about 52,000 in 2015 to about 15,000 in 2024, roughly 72%. Because the per-1,000 rate fell nearly as far, the drop is not an accounting effect of beneficiaries moving to Medicare Advantage — the therapy is genuinely billed less often.
A volume record, nothing more. This page reports the fee-for-service patient count and the assumption-free per-1,000 rate; it makes no claim about why the volume fell or about whether the therapy is right for any patient, and no total-Medicare figure is scaled here.
A record of Medicare fee-for-service hyperbaric-oxygen volume and an assumption-free per-1,000 rate — not a claim about clinical need or appropriate use, and not a statement of why the therapy declined.
Medicare fee-for-service patients receiving physician-supervised hyperbaric-oxygen therapy, 2015 to 2024, with the assumption-free per-1,000 rate.
Not a statement of why the volume fell, and not a claim about whether the therapy is right for any patient — a volume record only. Not all-payer, and not scaled to total Medicare. The per-1,000 rate is assumption-free.