Nebulizer Breathing Treatment
This is the breathing treatment given when someone's airways have tightened up — usually albuterol turned into a mist by a nebulizer and breathed in over several minutes. It is the single most common thing done for an asthma or COPD flare in an emergency department, and it is billed per treatment.
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What it is
A nebulizer is a small compressor that blows air through liquid medicine and breaks it into a mist fine enough to be carried deep into the lungs. The patient breathes the mist through a mouthpiece or a face mask, normally for something between five and twenty minutes, until the cup runs dry. The point of delivering a drug this way is that it lands where it is needed and asks almost nothing of the patient: unlike a handheld inhaler, there is no need to coordinate a press with a breath, which is why it is used for small children and for anyone too short of breath to manage the technique. This code covers the act of giving the treatment for an airway that has narrowed acutely. The medicine itself is a separate charge from the act of administering it.
Why it is done
- To open narrowed airways during an asthma attack, using a bronchodilator that relaxes the muscle wrapped around the breathing tubes
- To relieve a flare of COPD or chronic bronchitis
- To treat wheezing in a child who cannot use an inhaler reliably
- To deliver an inhaled steroid to settle inflammation, or saline to loosen thick mucus
- To see whether the breathing improves with treatment, which itself tells the clinician something about what is going on
What to expect
A respiratory therapist or nurse assembles the cup, adds the medicine, and starts the compressor, which hums audibly. The mist is visible and tastes faintly of nothing much. The patient sits upright and breathes normally; holding the lips firmly around the mouthpiece keeps the mist going into the lungs rather than into the room. Relief from a bronchodilator often begins within minutes. A racing or fluttering heartbeat and a fine tremor in the hands are familiar after-effects of that class of drug and settle on their own. In an urgent setting the treatment is frequently repeated, and breathing is reassessed between rounds.
Questions worth asking
- How many treatments were given, and was each one billed separately? Repeat rounds during a single visit stack up rather than being bundled.
- Is the medicine itself billed as its own line, in addition to the charge for giving it?
- If continuous nebulization was used instead of separate treatments, that is a different code — which appears on my bill?
- What would the same medicine cost from a pharmacy for use with a home nebulizer, compared with receiving it in a facility?
- Was any of the time spent here also billed as observation or as an emergency department visit level?
What Nebulizer Breathing Treatment costs by state
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Texas — 112 hospitals, median $203.49
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in California — 90 hospitals, median $308.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Florida — 78 hospitals, median $406.13
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Ohio — 64 hospitals, median $198.75
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Illinois — 51 hospitals, median $167.20
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Tennessee — 38 hospitals, median $98.55
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Virginia — 35 hospitals, median $158.50
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Wisconsin — 33 hospitals, median $129.80
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Pennsylvania — 32 hospitals, median $252.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Washington — 31 hospitals, median $479.20
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Iowa — 27 hospitals, median $188.17
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Michigan — 27 hospitals, median $814.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Indiana — 26 hospitals, median $120.50
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Georgia — 25 hospitals, median $379.08
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in New York — 23 hospitals, median $240.68
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in New Jersey — 22 hospitals, median $140.25
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Kentucky — 21 hospitals, median $253.20
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Missouri — 21 hospitals, median $139.75
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Minnesota — 19 hospitals, median $161.09
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Oklahoma — 18 hospitals, median $128.70
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in North Carolina — 15 hospitals, median $80.48
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in West Virginia — 14 hospitals, median $460.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Colorado — 13 hospitals, median $581.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Oregon — 13 hospitals, median $210.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Nebraska — 12 hospitals, median $101.64
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Arkansas — 11 hospitals, median $75.40
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Kansas — 11 hospitals, median $158.60
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Mississippi — 11 hospitals, median $60.24
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in South Carolina — 11 hospitals, median $173.50
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Maine — 7 hospitals, median $187.60
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in South Dakota — 7 hospitals, median $252.80
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Arizona — 6 hospitals, median $233.21
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Alaska — 5 hospitals, median $541.32
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in North Dakota — 4 hospitals, median $199.20
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Nevada — 3 hospitals, median $87.63
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Hawaii — 2 hospitals, median $153.20
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Maryland — 2 hospitals, median $765.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Montana — 2 hospitals, median $388.00
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in New Mexico — 2 hospitals, median $199.08
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in Louisiana — 1 hospitals, median $165.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost in New Hampshire — 1 hospitals, median $116.65
Nebulizer Breathing Treatment prices at hospitals
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at CHI Saint Joseph Health - Saint Joseph Mount Sterling, Mt. Sterling — $17.60
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Mercy Primary Care - Bernie, Bernie — $18.75
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at NORTHWEST MEDICAL FOUNDATION OF TILLAMOOK, Tillamook — $24.57
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension St. John Medical Center (St. John Medical Center, Inc.), Tulsa — $29.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension St. John Owasso (Owasso Medical Facility, Inc.), Owasso — $29.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension St. John Jane Phillips (Jane Phillips Memorial Medical Center, Inc.), Bartlesville — $29.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension St. John Nowata (Jane Phillips Nowata Hospital, Inc.), Nowata — $29.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension St. John Sapulpa (St. John Sapulpa, Inc.), Sapulpa — $29.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension St. John Broken Arrow (St. John Broken Arrow, Inc.), Jenks — $29.88
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at SIERRA VISTA HOSPITAL, INC., San Luis Obispo — $34.65
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension Seton Northwest (Ascension Seton), Austin — $35.01
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas (Ascension Seton), Austin — $35.01
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin (Ascension Seton), Austin — $35.01
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at 82-3844150 BMH Crittenden, West Memphis — $37.65
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at 64-0844470 MBMC Yazoo, Yazoo City — $38.13
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at LODI MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION INC, Lodi — $38.15
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at 45-2896080 MBMC Leake, Carthage — $41.85
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at CHI Saint Joseph Health - Saint Joseph Berea, Berea — $42.43
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at TWIN CITIES COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, Templeton — $46.48
- Nebulizer Breathing Treatment at Ascension Seton Smithville (Ascension Seton), Smithville — $47.34
See every published price for Nebulizer Breathing Treatment: the full national range, the state and hospital breakdowns, and which hospitals charge the least.
Nebulizer Breathing Treatment cost — see all prices →Sources
- MedlinePlus: How to use a nebulizer (opens in a new tab, leaves healthcosts.net)
- Wikipedia (opens in a new tab, leaves healthcosts.net)