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It's a little unusual lately to hear that someone is starting a
new HME business. In fact, said Phil Stone, when some people hear
that "they think I've just been let out of the asylum. Maybe I am
crazy, but there's a lot of emotion in this, too."
Stone is a pharmacist and former OptionCare franchise owner
whose location was sold to Air Products Healthcare in 2003. I met
Phil that year in Washington when we were both lobbying our Georgia
legislators at an AAHomecare fly-in.
Since then, he's been under a non-compete, "but that's over,"
Phil said, and when Air Products opted out of the HME business last
year, he and his son Cham began working to get back in it.
"I just felt like there was a gap in the community when Air
Products closed up," Phil said. "I know it's much more difficult
now than when I started — you didn't have to be too smart
— and it's probably the absolute worst time to get back in.
But now is when I think there's a need in the community."
Is he worried about competitive bidding? Yes. Is he worried
about the endless list of new regulations and audits? Yes. Is he
worried he might not make it? No.
"I know it's going to be tough and we're going to have to work a
different way," said Phil. "But there's always going to be a need
for what we do, and if we can figure out a way to do it and make a
margin, we'll weather the storm. I still think there's a need, and
I still think there's a way to do it."
Why is Phil so sure? Because, he said, "we don't even have our
doors open yet and we've already had people coming in and calling
us for weeks."
I talked with Phil and his sales manager Kathy Hope on the day
they were putting out the new signs for Peoples Home Medical in
Covington, Ga. "It's exciting that we're going to be doing
something people are asking for," Kathy said.
Explained Phil, "We've got people telling us they don't feel
comfortable using an oxygen provider in Atlanta — and we're
only 30 miles away."
Here's where the emotion comes in. "I've been on both sides," he
continued. "Big companies don't always look at what smaller
companies do as being a part of the community, but we're all about
being a community-based provider. We want to be the company that's
taking care of the needs of the people who live here."
You might not make a profit on some things, Phil said, but you
provide those items because your customer needs them, and when you
do, the reward is usually the rest of their business. Companies
that don't do business that way, that don't view their patients in
a whole perspective, that can't give that fast response time, he
said, "just have a different slant."
It seems legislators do, too, and Phil Stone, who is "starting
over from scratch," said he'll soon be lobbying again to help
protect his small HME. "Home care is a local thing," he said. "This
is a Covington, Ga., story, but it happens everywhere."
And the only scary thing about that, according to Phil, is that
down the road if legislators and regulators have their way, "I
don't think there's going to be too many of me out there."
