Page 33 - HME Business, November 2017

some version of that, durable medical equipment products are being sold to cash paying customers.”
Retail is a massive lost opportunity to providers, and more important, it is where customers go when providers don’t give them what they want. This is particularly true of the Baby Boom.
“There is a more depending, more critical, more consumer-focused health- care recipient out there, and they won’t settle necessarily for lowest cost options,” Lewarski explains. “It’s a different revenue source, but the margins are exponentially different and the cost to get your money is exponentially different. There is no billing. There are no audits. It’s all credit card transactions or cash.”
Even if some of those patients might not qualify for a portable oxygen system, the massive demand for POCs and similar devices should clearly demonstrate that there is a huge population of under- served patients looking for — and buying — those types of systems. Moreover, even if some of those online buyers are already receiving tanks, that should make providers wonder two things: how much wasted cost is built into the business, and on how much retail or funded revenue did they fail to capitalize?
Obviously, selling on a retail basis can be very difficult for Medicare providers. They need to have new business infra- structure, they must adhere to a number of legal requirements under Medicare, and the guidelines can sometimes be confusing. Moreover, many providers interested in retail will set up entirely separate businesses in order to serve
a retail customer base (and even then there are specific Medicare guidelines regarding referrals between the two businesses, and similar issues).
“It is a little bit more complicated
for the HME provider or other medical professionals to get into the retail busi- ness,” Lewarski says. “But it is not that hard. There are much harder things
that we are doing right now, like survive audits, and things that require significant resources and time.”
How They Can
One of the best ways a provider can get started in providing portable oxygen is to talk to some vendors. The manufacturers
of portable oxygen systems are well aware of some oxygen providers’ hesita- tion to take the leap, and they are devel- oping a variety of programs and services
Management Solutions | Technology | Products
hme-business.com | November 2017 | HMEBusiness 17