VGM Videos Show Face of HME

News

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.

“Don’t eliminate [providers],” he pleads. “They’re a lot of
people’s life.”

Erik Gedusky and his caregivers don’t believe he would have a
life without his home medical equipment and the efforts of his
provider. Gedusky, 25, was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular
dystrophy when he was a toddler. He is in a wheelchair and on a
ventilator, as well as a bi-level. The wheelchair and the portable
ventilator allow him to get out, go to the movies or elsewhere
about town.

“He probably wouldn’t have lived as long [without HME],” says
his mother Cindy Moline.

Over the years, his equipment providers have been instrumental
in keeping Gedusky going. When he got a new bi-level, for example,
“his respiratory therapist came out every day for about a week” to
tweak the settings and ensure that everything was working properly,
says Erik’s home health aide on the video.

“We’ve had to have them in the middle of the night before,” she
says, adding, “Without someone local to service the equipment when
they need to, who knows what would happen?”

Moline says it would probably be “like it was 20 years ago when
they kept people like Erik at home” because nothing was available
to allow them to live outside one room — no special vans, no
portable ventilators.

“So this medical equipment actually means life for him, and
freedom, as much freedom as he can have,” says his mother.

That’s the story VGM wants providers to share with legislators
and others.

Gallagher said the organization plans to use the videos, which
include facts and figures about HME use and competitive bidding
cuts, as they reach out to consumer groups. In addition, he said,
the group is working toward setting up a website so patients and
all interested parties can have access to the videos.

The videos come at a fortuitous time in the turbulent world of
HME as the industry fights for the repeal of competitive bidding.
VGM COO Jim Phillips noted that users of HME and associated
services are best suited to tell the stories about how important
quality equipment and local providers are — and what will
happen if providers go away.

The three videos can be accessed on YouTube at:

“VGM is encouraging our members, advocacy groups and friends of
the HME industry to download the videos and use them when they
visit with legislators, service clubs, senior citizens’
organizations and any other group they can think of,” said
Phillips. “These need to be seen, and it’s our hope that they will
‘go viral.’”

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