Power Play

You can't keep a good market down.

Take the power wheelchair market, for example. It has endured a DMERC policy clarification that stalled thousands of payments for power wheelchairs to home medical equipment providers; it has long grappled with an inadequate Medicare coding system; and it has had to compete with an influx of offshore manufacturers, many of whom undercut both prices and quality. But it's still one of the best HME markets out there, manufacturers say, and there is nowhere to go but up.

“The market has steadily grown because the population continues to [get] older,” says Cy Corrigan, national sales manager for Pride Mobility Products, Exeter, Pa. “Individuals have had their freedom, they've seen a lot more than our fathers' fathers saw in their day and that has left them wanting to retain their independence.”

Calvin Cole, national director of sales and corporate development for Sarasota, Fla.-based Hoveround, agrees. “Why would we expect the demand to go down?” he asks. “We should only expect it to go up.”

The Numbers Are There

The demographics support such optimism. It's been estimated that another baby boomer — defined as those Americans born from 1946 to 1964 — turns 50 every seven or so seconds. That will eventually translate into a huge population of Medicare recipients; in the next several years, it is projected that 1.6 million Americans will join the 65-and-older population annually. And many of them eventually will need power wheelchairs.

In addition, bariatric wheelchairs are more and more in demand, and the rehab market also is growing.

But right now, says Tim Spatharos, president of San Antonio, Texas-based Teftec, “this market is getting extremely tight with the Medicare issues and new legislation. It's a lot more difficult to get a wheelchair funded.”

“Everybody is down a little and some people are down a lot,” says DuWayne Kramer, president of Kansas City, Kan.-based Leisure-Lift.

Mark Greig, product manager for power wheelchairs for Sunrise Medical, Longmont, Colo., attributes the situation to actions of the durable medical equipment regional carriers. “The DMERCs' recent attempts to reign in growth have slowed the market, specifically with the policy clarification they provided regarding ambulation,” Greig says. “However, the recent restatement of the policy should have a positive impact on the market.”