2010 HME Industry Salary & Benefits Survey: Ouch!

According to the home medical equipment providers participating in HomeCare's 2010 Salary & Benefits Survey, there simply isn't a Band-Aid big enough to fix the HME industry's current boo-boos.

These are not surface wounds, either, they said, but go straight to the heart of their businesses, with a number of providers questioning the future of the HME industry and their part in it.

Competitive bidding tops the list of life-altering issues that are complicating providers' plans. But compounding its Borg-like implementation is the growing tidal wave of audits, devastating to those who have been placed on 100 percent prepayment review (meaning that all of their claims must be reviewed before they are paid). In that case, Medicare cash flow dries up for as long as 90 days — or much longer.

Financing has virtually dried up as well, with even titan manufacturer Invacare recently warning it will extend credit only to HME companies that have viable strategies to survive. And there's the blow that keeps on giving as providers continue to deal with effects of the 36-month oxygen cap while bracing for an impending elimination of the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs.

Pile on a new set of supplier standards atop a heap of changing policies and regulations, and it's easy to understand why providers said they were having difficulty figuring out exactly how to deal with it all.

"There's just too much being thrown at DME," commented one overwhelmed provider. "It makes it too hard to plan."

Adding to the turmoil is uncertainty about how health care reform plays in. Only 4 percent of the survey respondents believe that, as employers, they'll come out better under health reform, while 56 percent think they'll come out worse. Nearly two out of three providers said they don't understand at all or only "sort of" get how health care reform will affect their company's health benefits program.

Over half (57 percent) are unsure if the new health reform law's available tax credits would inhibit them from adding employees. (Small businesses with fewer than 25 full-time employees making less than $50,000 may be eligible for tax cre its to help cover the cost of insurance starting this year.) More than a quarter (26 percent) said they're not sure whether they're eligible for the tax credits or not.