VGM Videos Show Face of HME

WATERLOO, Iowa — Who can best tell the story of home medical care? If you answered the beneficiaries of such care, you're spot on, according to the VGM Group.

The Waterloo, Iowa-based member services group has introduced three YouTube videos that feature users telling their own stories about the effect their HME and those who provide it have on their lives. The users also address the drastic changes competitive bidding will have on their quality of life if the project goes into effect as planned on Jan. 1, 2011.

The videos are the outgrowth of VGM's belief that the people who have experienced HME and the service that independent providers give are the most eloquent in making the case against the Medicare bidding program.

"We wanted to do something that providers could send out to local media and advocacy groups and that they can get out to the legislators and say, 'We're here to serve,'" said John Gallagher, VGM vice president, government relations. "Here, truly, is the face of our industry."

The stories, though brief, are compelling.

Angie Plager, Ms. Wheelchair Iowa 2009 and president of the Spinal Cord Injury Association of Iowa, talks frankly about the role her power wheelchair plays in her life.

"I'm not glued to the seat, but I might as well be," she says in the video. Her chair is key to being able to lead a life out of bed, she says.

"As long as your equipment works, you're not disabled," Plager says. And right now, she knows that when her equipment breaks, someone will be there swiftly to fix it.

In the video, Plager recounts a time at an evening family get-together when her wheelchair's joystick shorted out. She called her company, which sent someone out that night with a loaner while the other one was fixed. "I didn't have to be in bed all weekend and I could have dinner with my family," she says.

Plager values the company that has served her for all these years. "They go out of their way to help me because they know this is my lifestyle," she says.

In another video, Larry Anderson, a COPD patient for seven years, discusses his relationship with his HME provider.

"You can talk to the owner of the company if you want to," he says. "You can't do that at Walmart or any big place … It's just a thousand percent different." And the company is quick to respond when he needs new oxygen tanks or his equipment breaks, he says. "Now if the machine breaks down, immediately they bring another one. That won't happen with a big outfit."

Anderson has a message to legislators about competitive bidding, too.