Leading the League

Michael Marnhout’s competitive spirit has brought him a long way, from his days as a football player — with the University of Kentucky, Cal Western and, briefly, the Houston Oilers — to his current position as president and CEO of Lexington, Ky.-based Bluegrass Oxygen.

“I’m a pretty competitive guy,” Marnhout says, explaining that he thoroughly enjoys competing against “the big guys” in HME. Since founding Bluegrass in 1996, Marnhout has grown the company, which offers a full line of HME, to five locations in Kentucky and Ohio. At press time, a sixth was set to open.

The health care industry is as familiar to Marnhout as the Southeastern landscape of his Lexington birthplace — his mother was a hospital administrator up until the 1980s. “We were always around a hospital environment growing up and really learned what patient care was all about,” Marnhout remembers. “It was something that I felt I would like, being around patients and taking care of their needs.” Family has played an important role in Marnhout’s life; he’s worked in the industry with his brother Gary, currently with him at Bluegrass, for some 25 years.

But for Marnhout it seems the idea of family extends to the larger community as well. “He is an honest, compassionate and caring man who loves making a difference in people’s lives … his patients, his employees, his community,” reads a nomination letter for a 2005 HomeCaring Award, which Marnhout took home in October.

HC: In the current HME environment, how do you manage to thrive?

Marnhout: Service and patient care, which is what we’re known for. We have never turned anybody away. We never will. A lot of times, companies will have quotas where they’ll say, “We have to have three good paying patients to set up a free one.” That’s never been part of what we do.

When I first started in this business back in 1982, I went to Mom and Dad and said I’d like to borrow some money. The premise was, “OK, we think that you’ll do well in this, but here’s the deal: Anybody who ever needs something, you’ll always take care of them, regardless.” We’ve always lived by that, and that’s come back tenfold.

HC: What is your current goal?

Marnhout: We’re close to being a regional company. What we really want to do is expand westward to cover the whole state of Kentucky. I think there are some good possibilities for us in regard to possibly purchasing some smaller DMEs in the areas that we’re not in when the competitive bid comes, depending on how the rural communities are affected. It’s completely up in the air right now as to whether they will be affected or not by competitive bid, although the government does have the option to do a blanket price for everybody in 2009. I’ve talked to a lot of the smaller DME dealers, and if that does happen, a lot of them are not going to want to be in this business. I think there’s an opportunity for us in that respect.

Also, we’re in Cincinnati and Louisville, and one of the reasons I’ve gone to Louisville is to align myself to be able to compete for the bid in 2009 and work on economy of scale. Here again, I know I’ll be competing against the big guys — but it all comes back down to service.

HC: What is the biggest reward of this kind of career?

Marnhout: Caring for somebody — being able to take care of an oxygen patient who has not been very ambulatory, get them on a conserving device and up and around to where they can go back to church, go out in the community again, visit with friends. To be a small part of their life.

In the early days, I used to have patients who I would actually pick up and put in wheelchairs to take them to the doctor. So it’s a pretty rewarding thing. I’ve had some different jobs in my lifetime, but I’ve never found anything as rewarding as this is.

Chosen from nominations sent in by readers, HomeCare’s HomeCaring Awards are presented in recognition of distinguished service to the home medical equipment industry. HomeCare is proud to acknowledge the talent, dedication and generous spirit of those who make the HME community a better place, and who demonstrate the caring that HME is all about.