Driving Your Revenue

In an industry fraught with layers of Medicare rules and regulations, reimbursement cuts and market saturation, how does the average home medical equipment provider plan for the future? More important, how does the provider of HME services maintain profitability so that there is a future?

In truth, there is only one sensible answer to this question: It is time to come up with ways to reengineer your business. Walking away from this industry in desperation is not necessary. Rather, you can continue to pursue referrals for orders that will earn a profit and accept orders for which documentation is available.

Alternate Ways to Drive Revenue

First, determine whether there are ways to provide additional equipment to your patients by searching the top diagnoses in your current census. What other products might these patients need? One prime example is with respiratory and diabetic patients, some of whom might also need enteral nutrition. If you added these or other products, how much additional revenue would you garner?

Additionally, if you explore a new product category like enteral nutrition, you may be able to enter an entirely new referral environment and earn even more business. For example, certain enteral nutrition patients are now supplied by their nursing home.

However, under competitive bidding, these nursing home providers would be forced to become accredited and submit a bid like every other supplier. Many of these facilities are not interested in doing so, leaving the patient without a supplier. That supplier could be you.

Operational Efficiencies

Regardless of which opportunities you choose to expand your business, now is the time to enhance your operational efficiencies. Start by surveying your staff to determine your areas of weakness.

Visit with each department and observe your employees as they perform their job functions. Do they maximize use of the computer system/automation or do they use manual tracking systems like files, hand-written logs or excel spreadsheets? Some do all three.

The question should not be if the software can handle this function; rather, it should be how the data can come out of the software if it was entered. How long should it take to get each job done?