No Pain, No Gain

This year will be a challenging, but opportunity-filled year for the home medical equipment industry — let’s call it a “no-pain, no-gain” environment.

The Internet will continue to affect the evolution of HME software into an essential component of the HME business profitability and productivity equation. Speed, security, affordability, redundancy, improved work flow and real-time access to information — all of these are the benefits of Internet-based HME software products and services.

The biggest HME software innovations in 2003 will revolve around continued early adoption of Internet-based applications by forward-thinking HME organizations. As more businesses adopt HME software packages, they will become as de rigueur as computers, cell phones and DVD players are to the general population.

Of course, there will be challenges to overcome as new HME rules and regulations continue to develop. The level of collaboration between HME entities required to even begin to pull off HIPAA compliance by the Oct. 16, 2003, deadline is equal to the preparations for Y2K. However, many HIPAA requirements will require progressive software vendors to become more efficient and to enable technology tools that are prevalent in other industries. As a result, there will be more attention given to technology, work flow, process improvement and automation in 2003 than in the past 10 to 15 years. This maturation of the industry will actually benefit HME organizations more than ever was dreamed possible.

Another hurdle is those HME businesses that admit to being “technologically challenged.” Even Microsoft realizes that very few users use all the functionality available in Microsoft products — the HME business arena is no different. It will be both a great opportunity and a tough task to persuade these businesses to focus more of their attention and resources on their business software. Although today’s HME software products are more user-friendly than past products, new programs must be more intuitive to make the user experience — and, subsequently, the broad-based acceptance of these applications — more universal.

Brightree has devoted significant resources, time and energy to designing an intuitively user-friendly product. New product capabilities include automating functions that don’t require human intervention — that is, they require no end of day batch processes, and they automate billing, reconciliation and electronic remittance management.

The technology evolution happening in the HME industry right now presents many opportunities. Because the Brightree platform resides on the Internet, we are pushing the envelope on real-time transactions, front-end access and other processes that are the norm in some industries, but have not yet been embraced by the HME industry.

Jerry Knight is president and chief executive officer of Duluth, Ga.-based Fidelis Software, which produces Brightree HME software.