Neither Snow nor Rain nor Gloom of Night Will Keep HME Providers from Their Appointed Rounds

ARLINGTON, Va.–After a deadly storm that coated much of the
Plains region in ice last week, the American Association for
Homecare, the Midwest Association for Medical Equipment Services
and VGM Group praised the efforts of HME providers to care for
their patients.

At the height of the storm, more than a million customers in
Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were without power, according to news
reports, and more than 280,000 homes and businesses were still in
the dark as of Friday.

In several states, seniors on home oxygen were taken to warming
centers or shelters because of the power outages, AAHomecare said.
“But in all states, home oxygen providers had prepared for the
storm and responded with extra visits and contacts with
patients.”

In its Wednesday newsletter, the association reported the
following first-hand accounts:

–Tim Moore, a regional manager at Wilkinson Home Care
Equipment in Nevada, Mo., noted that in two of the
communities they serve, more than half the population was without
power. “We have filled and delivered well over 100 tanks in the
last three days to keep our current patients, nursing homes and
some of our competitors (who had no power, but had customers in
need) in a constant supply of oxygen. We have made daily runs 65
miles south to Joplin [Missouri] to ensure that our store there had
enough tanks to handle the needs that might arise.

“We have made these runs regardless of weather and what might
happen, because these are our customers. Just because the roads are
bad, or the power is out, we still have an obligation as providers.
I drove to Joplin on Sunday and delivered about 30 tanks to a
nursing home without power, and to our own store. We have employees
without power in their own homes, who are working to meet the
[patient’s] needs. We had one store without power for about 48
hours, but we had the manager stationed there in case customers
came by to get tanks or supplies. These are the things that make
this industry different from so many other health care
entities.”

–Maria J Lucas is CEO of Asthma & Respiratory
Services of Oklahoma, which covers most of northeast
Oklahoma and into the Oklahoma City and Enid areas. The company
takes care of ventilator patients as well as oxygen patients. “I
have to say our team has done a remarkable job of planning for this
storm. We were hit last year with several major ice storms and we
learned from that experience! We started midweek last week
contacting our patients and making sure they were stocked up before
the storm hit…. We have a break now in between storms, and we are
again rushing to get our people covered for the next storm that is
moving in on Friday. We do ground our fleet when the weather is at
its worst as we do not want to have our employees in danger, but we
are out again just as soon as possible.”

—Family Medical Equipment in Altus, Okla., has
oxygen customers in the southwest part of the state. According to
the company’s Josh Drake: “We used the time available prior to the
storm to contact each customer who may be affected. We spent many
extra hours in service calls and mileage, above our budget, to
deliver extra oxygen to each patient in our service area.” While
Family Medical will not receive any extra reimbursements for its
efforts, they note with satisfaction that, “not a single customer
had a shortage of oxygen while electricity was off.”

—In Hampton, Iowa, Long Term Medical Supply
has seven locations serving home patients and nursing facilities,
three of which were severely affected by the storms that hit
Southern Iowa earlier this week. Mari Banse of the company’s
corporate office described one phone conversation from the week:
“When I received a call from one of our store managers down in
Osceola, Iowa, today sharing his feelings and stories with me about
the amazing effort he was putting into his job, it almost brought
me to tears.

“In the earlier hours of the morning this man started out in the
pitch black, eerie town that got around three inches of rain
turning into ice that took out all of the power and was taking down
trees. Concerned about the safety of his patients, he began to
travel from home to home to ensure that they were safe and not
afraid of their lack of power and inability to get to a safe place.
He shuttled people to shelters that were set up at the local
hospital and casino, even going above and beyond his job
description he took hot meals and blankets to elderly patients.
This was an area that some streets were not even passable due to
downed trees. When he couldn’t get down roads he made sure that he
got in contact with them somehow to make sure that they were OK
just to get a cheerful response that everything was OK.”

Late Friday, the National Weather Service had again issued heavy
snow warnings for Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas, with up to 9
inches expected in some areas. The latest storm could hamper
restoration of power or cause new outages, officials said.