ORLANDO, Fla.--The doors to Medtrade 2007--and, attendees hope, to some answers on doing business in HME's uncertain future--open tomorrow at the Orange County Convention Center.

Some 14,000 industry stakeholders are expected to attend the annual trade expo, which runs Tuesday through Thursday, according to Kevin Bird, group show director-healthcare, for Medtrade producers Nielsen Business Media.

"We will end up with around 750 exhibiting companies for the year," he added.

Attendees will also have access to 160 seminars in more than a dozen tracks, including competitive bidding, accreditation, current legislative issues and sleep-disordered breathing.

To kick off the event, keynote speakers via video will be Reps. John Tanner, D-Tenn., and David Hobson, R-Ohio, authors of H.R. 1845--the Tanner-Hobson bill--which would alter the competitive bidding program to ensure beneficiary access and allow all qualified providers to participate in Medicare at the bid rate. The address will be shown at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday in Room W110 A/B.

This year's Medtrade comes at a critical juncture for the HME industry. The bid window for CMS' initial round of competitive bidding closed just last week, leaving providers in the initial 10 MSAs stuck in a wait-and-see mode. While proposed legislative cuts to oxygen and power wheelchair benefits appear to have been averted in Congress' fray over funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, at least temporarily, the fate of H.R. 1845 and other bills introduced to protect patient access to HME--and the industry itself--still hangs in the balance.

"Clearly there is a buzz that is affecting management across the HME industry," Michael Farrell, senior vice president of Poway, Calif.-based ResMed's sleep strategy business unit, told HomeCare. "Many are watching to see if legislation may slow down or stop implementation of competitive bidding beyond the initial 10 MSAs; they are waiting to see how the bidding process unfolds before making minor investments or significant costly changes to their operations."

Medtrade's Bird said the focus for attendees would depend on whether they were part of the first round of bidding or not.

"For those that were involved, it will be more focused on operation efficiencies and new opportunities in the event that they do not win the bid," he said. "For the industry as a whole, there will be a strong focus on legislative and regulatory issues, as well as reimbursement, sales and marketing and creative ways of improving their business."

Bird said he anticipated that providers attending Medtrade would also "seek new alliances and solutions to all the challenges that they face in the industry today."

Carol Laumer, executive director of Wilmar, Minn.-based Rice Home Medical, said she is looking forward to networking "and just taking a breath and getting revitalized again.

"I know they talk doom and gloom, but I get among my peers and I get revved up again. It's a little mental health for me," Laumer said, adding that she will also be looking for information on wound care products.

For the first time this year, the show will feature both a New Product Pavilion and an Industry Trend Pavilion where providers can check out the latest products and get a sense of where the industry is going from a product standpoint.

And with experts predicting that mandatory accreditation is just around the bend (although CMS has not yet announced a deadline for all providers to be accredited), attendees can get help at Accreditation Central. Many of CMS' approved accrediting organizations will be on hand to offer seminars and answer individual questions. Sponsored by HomeCare, Accreditation Central will be open all three days of the show.

For more information about the event, go to www.medtrade.com.