Looking for Answers

As home medical equipment providers make their way to Orlando for Medtrade 2004, the venerable trade show's 25th annual conference and expo, visiting Disney World (though it's a fun extra) is not their top priority. Instead, owners, managers, equipment buyers and other HME professionals say they will be looking for the products and information that can help them shore up business for 2005, which many predict could be a rough year.

They tick off concerns including reimbursement cuts on oxygen, beds and other products, drastically slashed payment for inhalation drugs, uncertainties about power wheelchair coverage and pricing, impending guidance on supplier standards from the NSC and, looking further out, the implementation of competitive bidding. But toughened over the years by numerous legislative and regulatory twists and turns, providers in general say they are optimistic about dealing with these issues — and any others that might come their way.

Wendi Phillips, director of accounts and marketing at Wichita, Kan.-based Hart Pharmacy & Home Medical Equipment, is looking forward to the show and says her company's focus will be on a broad range of products. “We deal with everything from oxygen and POVs to CPAPs, and we do pharmacy and compounding,” says Phillips, who explains that an emphasis on quality will dominate her product search at the show.

But Phillips is also apprehensive about the coming year, and says the sessions that deal with accreditation will be of special interest. “It is scary to know that in our business we have to rely on insurance,” she says. “The other thing that is scary is that we know [mandatory] accreditation is coming down the pike. We want to make sure that we know what we are doing [to get ready for] accreditation.”

“We always like seeing new products at Medtrade,” says Derick Fontanez, operations manager of JRS Medical Supply and Oxygen, which is based in Orlando, “but this year we will probably be looking at the conferences.” Fontanez says reimbursement cuts are the main problem he sees for 2005, and he is hoping to gain some insight about the cuts that are now set to take effect in January — and exactly how deep a dent they will put in his business.

Then again, he notes, reimbursement “is always a problem.”