If you still don't believe that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the slow economy have negatively impacted home medical equipment businesses, you might want to change your line of thinking after viewing some of the results of HomeCare's annual Purchase Intention and Point-of-View survey.

Granted, the home care industry hasn't taken the hit to the pocketbook that some other industries — such as the airline industry — have taken, but recent events have had an impact nonetheless. And this impact is best illustrated by the kinds and amounts of products HME providers plan on purchasing for the next year.

On page six of this issue, you'll see a listing of the top 35 products providers said they plan on purchasing in 2002. The tale of the tape, if you will, is the percent change from last year to this year, where you'll notice a lot of negative numbers, meaning providers are choosing to purchase less of a particular product category.

For example, lift chairs dropped 6.8 percent off of last year's mark, where more than 63 percent of providers polled planned on purchasing lift chairs during the year. And some product categories have dropped even further, such as pediatric respiratory products, which dropped more than 10 percent from 2001 figures.

But the results are telling — telling about what products providers know will get reimbursed and, conversely, product they know won't. And, perhaps most importantly, telling of HME providers' uncertainty about the future of the industry.