2004 Forecast

The turbulent legislative and regulatory issues that sent home medical equipment providers on a screaming roller-coaster ride this year apparently haven't affected their buying plans. According to the results of HomeCare's annual reader survey, HME/DME dealers are forging ahead to 2004 with intentions to buy products in a pattern that has changed little over the past several years.

Manual wheelchairs remain in the No. 1 spot on providers' product shopping list, followed by ambulatory aids and nebulizers, bath safety products and beds and mattresses. But for the first time, power wheelchairs broke into the list's Top 10 territory, reflecting a general increase in consumer awareness of — and demand for — the products that can improve their daily lives.

In fact, providers told us they expect power wheelchairs to be their fastest-growing mobility product next year — edging out manual wheelchairs by a small margin — and to account for their second-largest revenue gain, behind only respiratory products. This is in spite of “Operation Wheeler Dealer,” an initiative by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aimed at curbing fraud and abuse of the Medicare power wheelchair benefit. Of course, at the time of the survey, providers had yet to feel the full impact of the CMS action.

In the respiratory segment, a growing, educated patient base also is driving the market in sleep disorders. A whopping 84 percent of the respondents who are involved in the respiratory market say they sell sleep disorder therapy equipment. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and bi-level devices, on 59 percent of respondents' purchase intention lists for next year, edged out oxygen concentrators.

However, as the incidence of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) continues to rise, nebulizers will be providers' top respiratory purchase overall.

Providers are maintaining strong buying strategies as well despite a slate of business challenges, headed, they say, by the prospect of competitive bidding, reimbursement cuts, local competition and consumer-direct selling by manufacturers. It must be noted that information for the survey was gathered before Congress passed Medicare reform legislation in late November that turned some of these threats real.