Mirror, Mirror

Happy 2003! We’re especially excited to welcome this New Year, because it’s HomeCare‘s 25^th.

Digging through past issues, we discovered that, although the magazine’s look has changed, and important players have come and gone, the concerns of the industry have remained relatively constant. The same hot-button issues — like competitive bidding — are stealing the headlines, and providers’ interest in innovative products and how-to advice is as insatiable today as ever.

In the late 1970s, the HME industry was coming into its own and searching for a strong identity. Against this backdrop of self-discovery, HomeCare debuted in 1978, as a spin-off of a publication called Rental Equipment Register. In the showrooms of more than a few rental companies, manual wheelchairs were taking the place of party items, and providers of this equipment needed a voice.

By the 1980s, the industry and the magazine had changed looks a few times before settling into a comfortable cycle of growth and prosperity. It was the “Age of the Golden Commode,” as well as the era of AIDS. Despite a few regulatory bumps, the decade was a boom time for HME.

Dramatic legislation framed the 1990s like bookends, defining the direction of a thriving industry. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 changed the way the country looked at disabled people forever, and consequently it changed the demands that disabled people made on HME. Wheelchair- and oxygen-dependent people were going everywhere, and they needed products that could keep up. As the products became more complicated, so did the requirements for providing them. Lawmakers began to suspect the government was paying too much for equipment that required more service than ever before, and in 1997, the Balanced Budget Act cut some providers’ profits by more than 30 percent.

By 2000, a few providers had left home care, but most prepared for what they now knew could be a bumpy ride. True to its character, the industry looked to new technology for answers. Providers bought HME software that streamlined their business, and they began to use the Internet to connect with each other, learn valuable skills and keep abreast of current events. The products became lighter and more efficient, and so did HomeCare. Offering a Web portal for the HME industry, HomeCare provides weekly updates via e-mail, links to vital resources and a paperless version of an old standby.

On behalf of all the writers and artists who have created a magazine that reflects a dynamic industry, we at HomeCare would like to say thank you for taking us along for the ride. We look forward to being your mirror during and beyond the next quarter century.