Looking for Cash: AdvaCare Opens Third Retail Store

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. — AdvaCare Home Services has opened its
fourth location — its third with HME retail — in
Uniontown, Pa. The company also has locations in Bridgeville,
Beaver and Pittsburgh.

“It’s my fourth location, my third with retail and my second
retail store with distribution (warehouse),” said Tammy Zelenko,
AdvaCare president and CEO, “so it’s pretty exciting.

“You’re looking for cash-and-carry,” she said. “The more you can
do that, the less dependent you are on payers. I’ve been working on
ways to diversify and looking for different revenue streams for the
last five or six years.” The new store has 1,500 square feet
devoted to retail with another 1,200 for storage.

With 78 percent of its business in the respiratory and sleep
sectors, AdvaCare has also expanded its sleep lab management
services, adding two contracts late last year. “Now we’re managing
four sleep labs and a total of 18 beds, pretty much running seven
nights,” Zelenko said.

“We’re helping with the recession, too,” she said. “We bought
two new trucks and we hired eight new employees. We’re moving to a
whole new billing system. We’re doing a lot to make ourselves more
efficient, and we’re expanding.”

AdvaCare is also investing in education for its 49-member staff,
rolling out new programs for respiratory patients and is working
with local home health agencies and hospitals and to identify
patients at risk for readmission. Said Zelenko, “We’re staying
focused on what our core values are and what we do best, and that’s
supporting our patients and keeping them in the home and out of the
hospital.”

Zelenko, whose company won an oxygen contract in the Pittsburgh
CBA in the original round of competitive bidding, said she is
waiting to see what prices will look like in the Round 1 rebid.
While Medicare comprises only 14 percent of AdvaCare’s business,
“we need that,” she said.

And though she’s looking to win a bid again, Zelenko continues
to fight the bidding program, which she believes will result in HME
consolidation and lack of competition. “That means lower quality of
service,” she said. “In our industry, all you are doing is
competing on service. You can’t eliminate 90 percent of providers
and still have quality of service …

“Competitive bidding is just so bad in every way,” Zelenko
continued. “We are still fighting and believe there’s hope that we
can get it off the table completely, just eliminate it. But in the
meantime, you can’t let yourself get caught up in that because if
you do, then you can’t think forward and you can’t plan ahead. I
can’t run a business that way. I’ve got to think we’ll be here for
the long haul — and we will.

“But what that model is going to look like in five years is the
big unknown,” she said. “You just have to position yourself to be
that provider, and we’re working hard at that.”