All home medical equipment companies brag and sell themselves on providing “quality services.” But do they really meet their claims? Quality is often the little things HME providers do that seem routine. Routine assessments of both the home environment and the patient’s use of equipment will not only assure quality patient services but may also reduce the company’s liability, should something go wrong. While such assessments can be used for all patients, they can be particularly helpful with patients undergoing various types of respiratory therapy. Each time a representative of your HME organization goes into a patient’s home, he or she should review both the environment and the patient for three important issues: Whether it’s on follow-up service visits or just during delivery of supplies,…

While respiratory manufacturers and providers face many legislative and regulatory issues, none has had as much impact as the changes included in the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA). These include changes in the payment formula for respiratory drugs; special Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) pricing for certain types of durable medical equipment such as oxygen and oxygen equipment; a transitional freeze on DME rates; and competitive bidding. However, as the government implements these provisions of the law, the respiratory community has banded together to advocate against them to Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CHANGES IN THE PAYMENT FORMULA FOR RESPIRATORY DRUGS Beginning in 2005, the payment formula for respiratory drugs will switch from the current 80 percent of the average…

The seating and positioning market is … pick one: growing, slowing, both, neither. Perhaps more than any other market in the durable medical equipment industry, the prognosis for the health of the seating and positioning market most closely mirrors that for the entire industry. On one hand, growth factors for DME and seating and positioning are in plain view. The population of potential end users is booming, manufacturers are introducing better and more cost-effective products and the federal government has authorized several long-awaited improvements, including new, more specific HCPCS codes for many seating and positioning products. “The marketplace for all DME products is growing tremendously,” says Steve Schlegel, product manager for seating and positioning for Invacare. “Looking at the exceptionally large population of people getting…

Jack Palance had it right. In the 1991 comedy “City Slickers,” Palance slowly leaned over to Billy Crystal and divulged his secret to life: one thing. That may be the secret to business, too, at least for some providers. In the wake of the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), HME owners are scrambling to optimize business plans and stay on track for long-term success. According to some industry experts, a good option may well lie in one thing — expanding your business to solve the problems of a specific customer group. In other words, your future could be hiding in one or more of HME’s niche markets. Specialty — or niche — business has a seductive sound, especially as the respiratory and mobility markets, long the…

You can’t keep a good market down. Take the power wheelchair market, for example. It has endured a DMERC policy clarification that stalled thousands of payments for power wheelchairs to home medical equipment providers; it has long grappled with an inadequate Medicare coding system; and it has had to compete with an influx of offshore manufacturers, many of whom undercut both prices and quality. But it’s still one of the best HME markets out there, manufacturers say, and there is nowhere to go but up. “The market has steadily grown because the population continues to [get] older,” says Cy Corrigan, national sales manager for Pride Mobility Products, Exeter, Pa. “Individuals have had their freedom, they’ve seen a lot more than our fathers’ fathers saw in…