Specializing Successfully

Diversification. It is one of the most frequently mentioned words in home health care today, because it's one way that enables HME providers to remain solvent during uncertain times. In contrast, however, one Seattle company has chosen to concentrate on a single disease state, and is discovering that specialization is the key to its success.

Swedish Sleep Therapy Supply, which is owned by Swedish Medical Center, is the only hospital-based HME in the Pacific Northwest that focuses exclusively on sleep therapy products and services. The strategy is working quite well. The seven-year-old company generates $2.9 million a year in revenue for equipment used to treat the sleep apnea population. The provider currently serves 3,500 patients from its main location in Seattle and a satellite office in Wenatchee 200 miles away.

“We specialize in the sleep apnea population because we have a different attitude about it,” says John Basile, BS, LRCP, the company's manager.

Making a Connection

For Basile and his staff of five respiratory therapists, the company's standout difference — and a cornerstone of its success — is rooted in education. As soon as the company receives the physician's order, events are put into motion that are designed to educate and empower the patient to use his equipment as prescribed, which results in his feeling better and an overall improvement in his health.

This is great for the patients and for Swedish Sleep Therapy Supply. The relationship between sleep apnea patients and their providers has the potential to be a lifelong one.

“These patients are going to be on CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) for the rest of their lives — not temporarily — and they will be your patients the rest of their lives if you invest in the benefit of their success with the therapy,” says Basile. “If your patients end up being successful on therapy, they will return every year and buy supplies, and at the end of five years, they're going to buy another machine.”

Basile emphasizes that the way to teach patients how to be successful with CPAP — and all positive airway pressure therapy — is to combine education with patient contact. It is part of his company's formula.

“Patients are not going to be successful with just education alone — they need support, contact and communication, especially in the first week,” he explains. “If you lose them in the first four days, you've probably lost them forever.”