Page 23 - HME Business, January/February 2020

The Resupply Opportunity
First and foremost, the primary value of resupply is that a quality resupply program has a direct impact on the provider’s patient.
“Being able to provide a regular, efficient, successful program drives the kind of compli- ance that the patient really needs,” says Morgan Dopplick, the director of Connect operations for HME software company Brightree LLC, which makes resupply solutions for HME providers.
“It helps ensure that the patient is getting the supplies that they need when they need it, on time every time.”
Moreover, getting those supplies also benefits the bottom line. Having that regular, recurring program generates a dependable, low-touch, and profitable revenue stream for the provider, as well.
“So it’s really a win-win,” Dopplick says. “It’s a win for the patient, because they’re having their therapy needs met, and it’s a win for the provider, because they have that dependable revenue stream coming through.”
And it’s a win for more than just sleep providers. While we think of resupply in the context of sleep therapy — all those mask parts, tubes, etc. getting resupplied to patients — there other categories of home medical equipment besides sleep that can benefit from well-executed resupply programs. Now, technology companies such as Brightree are trying to export those gains to other care categories.
“Over the last several years, there has been a distinct focus on resupply in the sleep area, but we’ve taken what we’ve learned in the sleep space — what benefits patients in a regular resupply program in the sleep space — and have been expanding the benefits of an effective resupply program to other therapies: incontinence, diabetic, and enteral nutrition,” Dopplick says.
“In each one of those areas, we know that it’s critical that patients are being resupplied timely; that they’re getting what they need; and they’re getting their full orders.
“So we’re applying what we learned in sleep and carrying that over into other key lines of business that our customers are,” she adds. “This has really proved to be the next phase in terms of resupply.”
Collectively and respectively, incontinence, diabetic and enteral nutrition have a fairly large patient footprint. And those footprints are unique, with their own resupply challenges and needs.
“Also, the demographics of the patient varies as well,” Dopplick says. “So, it all becomes that much more critical to make sure you have an effi- cient program that can handle different patients, different payers, different ages, different needs. All of that really comes together in focusing on what your resupply program can do.
Case in Point: Enteral Nutrition
Similar to PAP therapy, there are various resupply items for enteral nutrition, but most importantly, the entire care category is based on refills: they need their nutrition. That said, in addi- tion to nutrition formula refills, there are other items such as feeding tubes and dressings. The entire service is based on ensuring that patients have all the supplies they need at all times. Also, enteral nutrition services are often paired with infusion services, which also include items like pumps and other items.
“Resupply [for enteral nutrition] is tied to patient safety and improve patient outcomes,” says Kelly Kinnare, clinical nutrition manager for national enteral nutrition and infusion provider Option Care Health. “Providing these ongoing, timely refills ensures that our patients continue
to receive the nutrition and supplies they need
in order to sustain their life. Without resupply, they don’t get their food and they can’t feed themselves without the formula. The syringes, the bags, everything they’d need to be able to feed themselves — it’s a matter of life or death really, to these patients, if you think about it.”
And ensuring that resupply creates a secondary opportunity to ensure patients are healthy and getting what they need, because it creates a point of dialog, both for Option Care Health’s enteral patients and infusion patients, according to Kinnare.
“Resupply also provides us the opportunity to follow up on our patients,” she explains. “The patient contact allows us to make sure that they’re meeting their nutritional goals, tolerating their infusions, being compliant with their therapy, making sure their pump is working properly.
“It’s our chance to kind of troubleshoot anything that’s going on right then and there to avoid them having to call in again,” she adds. “So if a patient’s experiencing any problems during the call, then we’ll immediately trouble- shoot and problem solve with the patient. If the care is a little bit more at that clinical level, that patient would be referred directly to a registered dietician right then and there to get involved with that patient.”
So refill calls let Option Care Health see if the patient experiences weight loss, weight gain,
or any kind of event that would raise a flag and perhaps require a change in nutrition or therapy or some kind of clinical intervention. That kind of proaction results in reduced hospitalizations and reduced healthcare dollars.
“We’ve done a lot of outcomes studies where we’ve pulled data and really looked at it,” Kinnare says. “The earlier you intervene, the more you’re going to prevent a patient from being re-hospital- ized or having to take themselves into the ED.”
That resupply outreach, in turn, improves physi- cian relationships, she adds.
“If we’re doing a good job taking care of that physician’s patient, then that patient is calling into their physician’s office less with questions
or complaints or complications related to their feedings,” Kinnare explains. “The patient has increased knowledge through us because we’ve been able to help them through things. I think they have greater success rates of weaning off their therapies sooner when we’re more involved as their provider. This allows the prescriber to put their trust in us.”
Getting Resupply Right
That said, Option Care Health and enteral nutrition provider does face resupply challenges, according to Kinnare. After diagnosis and getting set up for an enteral nutrition program, patients start getting 30-day supplies that need to be refilled. At that resupply, Option Care Health can start determining if they need more of something, less of something, along with any other needs.
“On those first couple of refills or resupplies, there might be some changes in the quantities or the types of items they receive until we get their 30-day supply down pat,” she says. “Maybe we sent four syringes with the first delivery and they want 10 a month. We have some wiggle room within our supply kits where we can go up or down based on what they need. So that’s when we start to kind of fine-tune that for them.”
Additionally, the patient might be changing items as well.
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“Resupply also provides us the opportunity to follow up on our patients. ... The earlier you intervene, the more you’re going to prevent a patient from being re-hospitalized or having to take themselves into the ED.”
— Kelly Kinnare, Option Care Health