HME Makeover

Does your company have a vision statement? A mission statement? If so, do you follow them? Have you analyzed your billing department to see how it might...

Revisiting Your Company's Vision and Mission

By Wallace Weeks

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. This is a quote from W. Edwards Deming, one of the greatest business minds ever, whose writing...

Revamping Your Billing Department

By Miriam Lieber

Walking through an HME company, it is easy to see from the outside in. I first get a lay of the land, looking to find the real personality behind the...

Revving Up Marketing, Retail Presence and More

By Colette Weil

When a company is small, its marketing may consist only of a logo and delivering what is asked and required on initial personal relationships. As the...

Deal or No Deal?

Gail Walker gwalker@homecaremag.com

I met a provider at Medtrade Spring in Long Beach who had flown across the country on sky miles (his company pays for all of its purchases with credit...

NOTABLE & QUOTABLE

This Medicare bidding program is a train wreck. But as this program jumps off the tracks, the attitude of CMS is clearly full steam ahead. Tom Ryan, CEO,...

Head Over Heels

By Erin Greer

A land mine may have taken both of Jay Humphries' legs and his left eye, but it didn't claim his wings. The 37-year-old Army vet still takes to the skies...

Scoot Over

By Rebecca Grilliot

Just over the past few years, the landscape of the scooter market has shifted significantly as retail sales grow and Medicare sales dwindle. It is a challenging...

Incontinence/Skin Care

Covidien/Adult Briefs Wings Choice Plus Quilted cloth-like backing breathable side panels anatomically contoured mat designed to provide odor-free protection,...

TRENDS

I think protective underwear is what we're seeing grow more than anything. The reason for that is because it's discreet. It's like underwear; it's not...

Washington Action Reverberates at Medtrade Spring

Medtrade Spring attendees expecting a somber show and bleak industry forecast instead were re-energized as industry efforts in Washington, D.C., took...

R.E.S.T. Easy

By Susanne Hopkins

If it hadn't been for his dad, Chris Depew might never have come up with the idea for the Respiratory Equipment Supply Team, or R.E.S.T. Depew's dad loves...

We're All in Round One

By Tyler J. Wilson

With the July 1, 2008, implementation date for round one of DME competitive bidding looming, the industry is working through every option to suspend the...

Sound Off

By Cara C. Bachenheimer, Esq.

Still struggling with what to say to your members of Congress about the bidding program? Try these sound bites to help explain what's wrong: CMS must...

Your Hidden Asset

By Wallace Weeks

On the heals of bad news about the discounts offered to Medicare in round one of competitive bidding, some providers are pondering their options for managing...

The Senior Market

Louis Feuer, MA, MSW

The population is aging. The group of people over 65 is increasing by huge numbers each year. Elderly people are buying more products for their even more...

Pass the Decoder Ring

By Mary Ellen Conway, RN, BSN

You would think the accreditation requirements would be straightforward and easy to understand, but if the question-and-answer sessions during CMS' teleconferences...

HME PRODUCTS

Symmetric Designs/Headrest The Savant cool, lightweight and can be shaped by hand; provides support at three levels on the head to control lateral flexion...

A Call to Arms

30 years ago Thirty years ago in HomeCare magazine, Leon Miller, then newly elected president of the National Affiliation of Durable Medical Equipment...

Stark Says He'll Try to Stop Competitive Bidding

WASHINGTON At a May 6 hearing convened by the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, sentiment swung to HME as Chairman Fortney Stark, D-Calif., said...

HME Headlines

Check the HomeCare Monday archives at www.homecaremonday.com for these and other industry headlines: Rehab Carve-Out Gets Boost from Senate Trio Pride...

Working Down Denialswith Sarah Hanna

Sarah Hanna

The month of May rings in a new winner in our DME MAC Attack for the highest denial rate on product code K0823 - Group 2 standard power wheelchair. NHIC...

CMS Ramps Up Rollout of Round One

BALTIMORE While the industry's efforts to stop national competitive bidding continue to pick up steam, so does CMS' implementation of round one, set to...