Archive: September 2019

A. The culture you create and the employees you hire will determine if you will be Kodak or Amazon.George Eastman, Kodak's founder, realized the need to embrace disruption outweighed his concern of failure. He did this twice, 1) giving up a profitable dry-plate business to move to film and 2) investing in an inferior color film product.Kodak didn't need to fail. It was their culture and decision making that determined their fate. Executives were afraid to fail. Kodak wasn't surprised by the...

Baby boomers wanting to stay at home despite mobility limitations is the key driver in the home accessibility market, specialists in the field say. The desire among boomers to avoid assisted living or skilled nursing facilities is strong and they are willing to pay for modifications that allow them to remain at home and “age in place.” Because HME providers serve these potential clients as mobility patients, they are in a great position to handle these home modification services as...

The bids are in for Round 2021. Now the HME community will wait until sometime next summer to see the prices set through the bidding process and a final announcement of contracted suppliers in the fall of 2020. The uncertainty as to how Medicare reimbursement rates will shake out presents business planning challenges for every segment of the HME sector, whether a company is in a bidding area or in a non-bid/rural area using bidding-derived pricing. The results will also impact rates from the spectrum...

A. There is a lot of information available in this industry about expanding retail sales of HME products to your patients. You see it in many publications, at Medtrade, at regional or state association meeting as well as manufacturer sponsored events.  While the information provided is useful and accurate when it comes to physical merchandising and sales methodology, It falls short when it comes to addressing the “retail apocalypse” by re-emphasizing tradition retail models. Amazon...

ATLANTA - Every company has a culture, whether they realize it or not, and those with stronger cultures are typically better performers, says Sharon Bock, director of marketing at Allegiance Group. HME News recently spoke to Bock and Bruce Gehring, senior vice president of business development at Allegiance, who are co-hosting a session at Medtrade called “Creating a Culture to Improve Collections" about the different types of culture and how they can be improved. HME News: So what exactly...

BUFORD, Ga. - Having already built one successful business, the team behind UroStat Healthcare hopes to repeat their winning formula for a second time.Craig Stevens, UroStat's CEO, and Bert Burns, part owner, previously worked together at UroMed, which Burns founded in 1996 and sold to AssuraMed in early 2014. At the time of its sale, UroMed served 7,000 patients in 48 states.UroStat, which marked its first year in business in July, offers catheters, ostomy and incontinence supplies, and accepts...

A. When was the last time you based strategic business decisions on reliable, quantifiable financial data that you were confident in? If you are not making data-driven decisions daily, outsourcing this critical function is the fastest way to make a gap a point of strength.After 10 years of working with healthcare businesses—from assessing financial performance for credit worthiness to equipping them with finance/accounting horsepower—I continuously come across decision-makers who lack...

VACAVILLE, Calif. - When Wendy Jackson opened Jackson Medical Supply with her husband in 1999, they were the only game in town. Twenty years later, they still are.    "We started the business because there was a need in Solano County and in the Vacaville area, which at the time was a little less than 100,000 people,” she said. “They didn't have any local DME companies.”The couple started slowly, selling shower chairs, pillows, and wound care products out of their...

ATLANTA — Given that Medtrade is an exposition for healthcare providers, it seems natural that health and strength would be predominant themes among exhibitors in 2019. For the industry's purposes, these terms refer to the fiscal and operational outlook for HME companies, as well as determined advocacy on Capitol Hill. For instance, at Irving, Texas-based McKesson, the Medtrade booth theme is “Stronger Together,” which emphasizes the significance of unity within the industry,...

A. It's a common practice for HME providers to rent equipment to their patients. The arrangement works out well, for the most part. The patient doesn't have to pay the full price of their device up front, and the provider gains a steady source of recurring revenue. It's win-win. Unfortunately, this arrangement exposes providers to certain risks that their insurance policy may not always cover.What happens, for example, if a patient passes away while in possession of your expensive equipment? Their...