HBOT - Harch Hyperbarics Inc. New Orleans, Lousiana

Types of Chambers:
The Family Physicians' Center features five Sechrist chambers: one 3200 and four 2500B's.

Hours of Operation:
Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
The facility maintains 24 hour/day, weekend, and emergency service/physician on-call.

Consultations & Appointments:
Phone interviews, appointments, and New Orleans consultations can be scheduled by calling the office at:
504.348.4357

The Family Physicians Center (FPC) was founded in 1983 as a family practice clinic and minor emergency center. Within the first year it was obvious that an alternative site for hyperbaric oxygen therapy was necessary in New Orleans. Of the more than 30 hospitals in the New Orleans area at that time only one was equipped with hyperbaric chambers. Inpatients in need of HBOT could not be transferred to that facility due to the hospitals fighting over reimbursement. As a result, two monoplace chambers were placed at the Family Physicians Center. This became one of the first freestanding hyperbaric centers in the United States. Patients from the private sector as well as Charity Hospital were treated at FPC. The facility also began to accept patients for a variety of conditions that the hospital hyperbaric facility would not treat. Amongst the first patients in this category were divers with decompression sickness who did not achieve cure in the first few HBOT’s. This was the group in which Dr. Harch discovered that he could treat chronic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury patients followed and eventually adult and pediatric patients with 50 different cerebral conditions as well as other off-label diagnoses. The FPC was also the site of experimental treatment throughout the 1990s.

Today, the FPC remains the primary practice site of Dr. Harch. The facility is equipped with 4 Sechrist monoplace chambers and a bank of transcutaneous oxygen monitors. Both off-label and typically reimbursed indications are treated. The clinic is one half mile from West Jefferson Medical Center with its multiplace hyperbaric department and the high resolution SPECT brain scanner that Dr. Harch has used since 1990. It is readily accessible from downtown New Orleans via the Crescent City Connection (Mississippi River Bridge) and is situated in the Westbank suburb of Marrero.