The Sleeper of the Season?

Fears of competitive bidding, narrowing reimbursements and increased regulation have loomed large in the beds and support surfaces market, but the effects may not be nightmarish as they once seemed. In fact, several manufacturers in this category report sales are up from the previous year, thanks to the growing demographic of people who need these products.

“Normally bed sales in the summer are slow, but this summer [we saw] a steady increase,” says Sue Plaisance, director of sales and marketing for Sleep Safe Beds. “There's a lot [going on with] Medicaid and approving issues about restraint beds, and we thought that would affect sales; we were expecting a downturn.

“We're surprised, actually. In reality, we've seen an upturn … we've been growing more than 60 percent every year for the past five years.”

A Growing Need

Plaisance acknowledges that her company can't grow its product line at that rate forever, but there are several reasons the category isn't comatose. Chiefly, the need for beds and support surfaces isn't going away.

“We do have an aging population who wants to be treated at home,” says June Brennan, senior product manager for Gaymar, “hence the need for home care products will continue to grow.”

Mike Sedlak, group product manager for beds and therapeutic support surfaces for Invacare, agrees. “If we focus just on demographics and aging population, we're coming into a time period when more people are entering the senior category than ever before — they're entering the category at a rate of 1,000 per day,” he says. Seniors are living longer and requiring care for a longer period of time, meaning there's more need for better support surfaces in the home.

Meanwhile, “the younger generation is less active,” Sedlak adds. “Obesity is causing problems for individuals and diabetes. If [you're] bedridden, that can lead to pressure ulcers. For providers, this provides greater growth potential in the marketplace because these patients will need some sort of extended care.”

There's clearly an increasing need for product, says Mark Bidner, CEO of Anodyne Medical Device. He notes industry analyses predict annual growth in excess of 23 percent through 2012 when looking at sales of beds and support surfaces in all markets including home care, acute care and long-term care.

The home care market alone should not be far off from those figures, he says, adding that he expects the beds and support surfaces segment to continue solid growth for another 10 to 15 years.