HME Business, September 2017

What’s Inside:
Standard Power’s Retail Rebirth . . . 25 News, Trends & Analysis . . . . . . . . . . 8
FightingBackWithNumbers........ 6 AnalyzingHME’sFuture ............14 OrthopedicSoftgoods..............28 ThePowerofPartnership........... 30
The
Distributed Provider
How outsourcing can drive provider revenues & profitability.
Services Help
HMEs Become
More Flexible
and Responsive
Outsourcing has been
a familiar concept for most American industries for at least two decades, but in the world of HME, it’s still relatively new territory. That’s not surprising — we’re talking about healthcare. A provider’s clients are patients, so the notion of outsourcing any aspect of their care can seem contradictory to the process.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Services are now letting providers outsource various aspects of their businesses that are costly to admin- ister themselves. This is critical given that Medicare and private payer insurance is reducing reimbursement, and price-competitive retail providers must source ways to maintain or widen their margins. Moreover, outsourcing lets providers take on new capabili- ties, such as e-commerce and distrib- uted fulfillment, which helps them reach even more patients with even more services.
The result is that providers can use outsourcing to become distributed businesses that are more agile and capable of adapting to funding and healthcare changes, while providing newer and better offerings to their clients. This month’s cover story looks at some of the services available to HME businesses and how providers can start using them.
Outsourcing
Provider Functions . . . Page 16
September 2017 Volume 24, Number 9 hme-business.com