Page 26 - HME Business, October 2017

GO WAY OUTSIDE THE BOX
Ron Resnick, president of Blue Chip Medical Products Inc.
In Resnick’s opinion, many providers need to branch out — way out. If the business of providing DME to Medicare beneficiaries is getting too expensive with increasingly
diminishing returns, they must seek new path. He has some ideas on new markets they can try.
“A big area that they’re not going after, I think, is the Veteran’s Administration,” he says. “The VA Hospital is in the hospital business.”
He adds that the VA and facilities-based settings represent a great opportunity for providers who might not be able to transition into retail. “Take your inventory and start to move it out via long-term care facilities, hospice facilities,” he says. “Rent it out. You may not be happy with the rental price, but at least if you do it right you can make money and start to build a business.”
“I also think that a lot of the providers should go back into the maintenance of equipment,” he says. “For example, equipment that came off of
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a bid, and it’s no longer covered to do service.” Resnick adds that his business often gets end user calls for maintenance, which he then refers to local providers.
If any of this sounds like it is not as lucrative, or a lot harder, or represents a steep learning curve, Resnick says that shouldn’t come as a surprise
to anyone. The industry is changing, and so too must providers.
“If providers are still thinking of the old days” he says, “there are no more old days.”
DIVERSIFICATION
Tom Ryan, president and CEO of the American Association for Homecare Like Resnick, Ryan feels a trend that providers cannot ignore is diversification. From where he sits, providers must work overtime to expand
their revenue sources. As much as competitive bidding might be chipping away at reimburse- ment, the demand is there. Ryan says providers must keep HME’s demographics at the fore of their minds.
“The market is tremendous,” he reminds. “...The growth rate is predicted to five or six percent as we go through the next decade so the need for our services is going to continue to accelerate just by the population that is aging and living longer and needing the products that we provide.”
So if funding is becoming a barrier to providing HME/DME, then it comes down to finding new ways that provider businesses can find their way to the patient. That might be retail, that might
be private payer, or other models. For Ryan, his association is trying to work with members and sometimes other industries to create new care and business models, and particularly ones that prevent the possibility of a “two-tiered” system for DME.
“From a growth standpoint, and the more diversified our members are, and the more financially sound they are, I think we will continue to have a very viable industry,” Ryan says. “Our job at AAHomecare is to continue to make a landscape for all beneficiaries, ones who need to work within the benefits and ones who might be able to pay outside of the benefits, to get good quality healthcare.”
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