Building Your Mobility Business

The mobility market might be troubled these days, but there are still plenty of ways to boost your revenues and even work your way into some new niches.

For example, manual wheelchairs are the mainstay of the home medical equipment business, yet very few sales reps spend much time analyzing how to sell these products. And as you look for ways to expand your business, lifts, ramps and transfer devices comprise a great market niche to consider.

Try these and the other suggestions that follow for building up your company's mobility business.

MANUAL WHEELCHAIRS

Understand the differences in the manual wheelchairs on the market. Can you tell your customer the difference between the leading name brands and the not-so-leading name brands? Differentiate yourself from other HME companies by becoming an expert in different product line segments.

• Do you know the top diagnoses for people who need a manual wheelchair? Can you tell what they are for Medicare patients? For Medicaid patients? For commercial patients? The best way to “sell” a chair is to talk about specific patients. Help referral sources find the patients who need them.

• Design a creative package for patients who need a manual chair and also need other HME products. For example, a post-hip patient may need a manual chair as well as bath items. Work with your referral sources to offer packages to patients, and promote them to referral sources by diagnoses. You can also sell these to managed care organizations.

• Think about product formularies for wheelchairs: These brands are best for these situations; those brands are best for other situations. Conduct mini-focus groups to make sure that the brands you carry are the ones your patients want. Consider less medical-looking options, for instance, for higher-end patients and those who have money or are image-oriented. Looks do sell.

• Train your intake employees to understand which chairs match which kinds of customers. Offer to order chairs that aren't in your regular menu if people want them.

To show patients wheelchair possibilities, consider an e-mail option or having your reps or other personnel visit them before they leave the hospital. Make the sale personal. Then, patients will really love your business, and happy patients mean happy referral sources.