Page 11 - HME Business, November/December 2020

Contents
4 Accreditation: Achieving Trust Why Medicare accreditation plays an essential role in providing DME, how to get accredited, and how COVID-19 has impacted the process.
10 Your Pain Management Lineup What options should a DME pharmacy make available to pain sufferers who are looking for non-prescription and non-drug options?
14 DME Marketplace
We look at some of the latest products on the market.
Editor’s NotE
A Chain Confirms an Important Point about DME Pharmacies
December 2020
December 2020
Helping pharmacy owners and operators expand their DME businesses.
A SPECIAL PUBLICATION FROM
ACHIEVING TRUST Why accreditation plays a pivotal role in DME. Page 4
ALSO INSIDE
• Pain Management. Page 10 • Marketplace. Page 14
Executive Editor
Publication Design Production Coordinator
Director of Online Product Development
Publisher
Group Sales Manager
David Kopf
(949) 265-1561
Laurie Layman Teresa Antonio
Marlin Mowatt David Kopf
(949) 265-1561 Rick Neigher (818) 597-9029
By now, you likely heard CVS’s plans to transform many of its locations into what it has dubbed HealthHUBs, when it first announced the plan in July 2019. Essentially, the locations are sort of a mix of a pharmacy, a clinic, and a DME provider.
A customer can get treatment for common illnesses, meet with nurse practitioners, physician assistants, licensed practical nurses and pharma- cists, and pick up DME items.
Yep, in addition to the sorts of retail DME items you can typically find at a chain pharmacy, the HealthHUBs are also supporting patients with obstructive sleep apnea and diabetes, as well as other chronic conditions. Obviously, those first two items are market sweet spots when it comes to providing DME.
The chain pharmacy’s goal is to create 1,500 locations by the end of 2021. The company rolled out 50 HealthHUBs in 2019, and its plan was to cut the ribbon on 600 HealthHUBs this year.
The initiative was launched after CVS and Aetna announced their plans for a merger at the end of 2017. Fast forward to this August, and Aetna announced a plan that would let its members access appointments at its parent company’s HealthHUB locations with no copay and get discounts on items at those CVS locations.
Now, for a community pharmacy that supplies DME, that can sound threatening. Here we have a large retail giant with locations all over the country that has recently acquired a major insur- ance provider. And these HealthHUBs are offering supplies for two heavily used DME categories that
are funded both through private payer insur- ance as well as Medicare and other public payer sources. I think most people would get a little shiver down the spine from that.
And those concerns seem to be justified – at least when it comes to the Aetna part of the HealthHUB equation. We’ve all heard tales about patient steering, and according to a September survey from the National Community Pharmacists Association, 79 percent of community pharma- cists complained that patients’ prescriptions were transferred to another pharmacy in the last six months without their patients’ knowledge or consent. That’s upsetting stuff.
However, I don’t think it should define the HealthHUBs. What I mean by that is, if anything, the move to establish those locations is a confir- mation of the local DME pharmacy and commu- nity pharmacy’s role in their local marketplace.
These pharmacies are the hub for their communities’ health. They are the source for not only scripts but so much more, and the local community and healthcare partners should be aware of it. A key way to do that is by providing a broad range of products and meeting the marketplace and payers’ policy and procedure expectations. Check out our feature on accredi- tation (page 4) and pain management (page 12) to get ideas on both of those subjects.
The competition might feel stiff to local and community pharmacies, but it’s also telling them they have the best market position.
David Kopf
Publisher & Executive Editor HME Business & DME Pharmacy
Steve Ackerman
President Spectrum Medical
Jeffrey S. Baird, Esq.
Chairman of the Health Care Group of Brown & Fortunato, P.C.
Cara Bachenheimer
Lobbyist/Government Affairs for Brown & Fortunato, P.C.
Rob Baumhover
Director of Retail Services for VGM Retail Services
Ty Bello, RCC
President and Founder Team@Work
Rob Boeye
Executive Vice President of HME Brightree LLC
Sandra Canally
President
The Compliance Team Inc.
John Letizia
President of Laurel Medical Supplies Inc.
Joe Lewarski
Vice President of Global Respiratory and Sleep Drive Devilbiss
Faisal “RJ” Poonawala
President Spring Branch Medical Supply
Ron Resnick
President Blue Chip Medical Products Inc.
Tom Ryan
President and CEO AAHomecare
Gary Sheehan, MBA
President and CEO Cape Medical Supply
Wayne van Halem
President and Founder The van Halem Group LLC
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS GROUP
President & Group Publisher
Group Circulation Director Group Marketing Director
Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Technology Officer
Executive Vice President
REACHING THE STAFF
Kevin O’Grady
Irene Fincher Susan May
Rajeev Kapur Sanjay Tanwani Erik A. Lindgren
Michael J. Valenti
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