Monthly Briefing June 2026

Shortly after the deadly January 2025 chamber fire in Troy, Michigan, state legislators began working on a bill to regulate hyperbaric facilities.

The initial intent was to require all Michigan hyperbaric facilities to be licensed by the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), the scope of which would not include home use hyperbaric chambers. The National Board was invited to participate in the drafting and editing of the bill’s language. We were, among other things, able to justify changes overly deferential to the influence of one organization. We also argued (unsuccessfully) that home use chambers were inherently dangerous, with at least one fatality, numerous injuries and several pressure boundary failures, so should be included within the regulatory scope.

The bill’s sponsors subsequently removed hospital based and hospital affiliated chambers from proposed regulatory oversight, focusing entirely on free-standing, privately owned, otherwise non-affiliated hyperbaric facilities. While we were not necessarily in agreement with this change we still thought there was sufficient remaining merit for the National Board to continue its support of the bill. We know from  experience that privately owned facilities are more likely to be operated in violation of various compliance standards and norms, so there is still much to gain, not the least from a patient safety perspective.

The bill became two bills as they have been jointly introduced into the Senate (SB 803-806) and the House (HB 5590-5593).  Should they be enacted, free-standing hyperbaric facilities will have a 13-month grace period to come into compliance. Among other things, it will require the presence of a physician medical director, an encouraging step as many are run by owners and others in the absence of a licensed healthcare professional.

The National Board was invited to participate in a press conference announcing the bills. My comments at the press conference are attached, so too a follow-up press release.

Dick Clarke, President

National Board of Diving & Hyperbaric Medical Technology

Michigan Press Conference

Michigan Press Release