Page 25 - HME Business, March/April 2021

HMEB: How would you describe entry- level wound care?
Trumm: Entry-level would be choosing
a category in wound care and starting there. When we talk about wound care and HME, we generally are addressing the following categories: dressings, negative pressure, support surfaces, pneumatic pumps, compression, and nutrition.
For the HME provider, it could be in one or more categories of wound care. To start out, if you have never engaged in one of the previous categories, I would start with one and go from there.
VGM has a robust wound care program that is turn-key for anyone wanting to enter into wound care or interested in stepping up their wound care business. Our wound care portal also houses two very useful resources that are part of the program: Our wound care guide and
the wound care manual. VGM members can go to the portal and download both resources at www.vgm.com/woundcare.
HMEB: What are the main revenue sources for entry-level wound care? Trumm: Wound care can be profitable in every category. For example, with nega- tive pressure wound therapy, the pump is the main revenue source (it’s a rental product).
One pump generally costs around $2,000. The Medicare fee schedule de- pending on state, rural, non-rural, and the point of service, can vary anywhere from $800 and $1,400 per month per patient. The average length of stay for one patient on negative pressure is 45 days (with a two month billing cycle). Depending on your state and if you are rural versus non, you could have one pump paid for after one patient. The disposables that are billed with the pump (A6550 for kits and A7000 for canisters) are generally reimbursed at what they cost.
If you are interested in the ROI of NPWT, VGM has a proprietary download- able profitability calculator on our wound care portal available to members. www. vgm.com/woundcare.
With Dressings, there are many different types and thousands of SKUs. To be profit- able and at the same time providing your patients with the best dressing for their needs, I recommend building a formulary with a couple of brands.
VGM Wound Care also has a download- able proprietary dressing calculator on
the wound care portal to ensure you are making a profit.
HMEB: What are the main patient groups for entry-level wound care? Trumm: This is a loaded question be- cause patient groups could be anyone with health issues such as respiratory, cardiovascular, and neuropathic. That represents most of the population that an HME provider serves.
I could go into a ton of detail on this, but the bottom line is everything affects wound healing. There are extrinsic and intrinsic factors: oxygen, high blood sugar, smoking, medication, age, nutrition, mental status, contractures, incontinence — the list goes on and on but the patients with health conditions will be dealing with a wound at some point in their lifetime.
HMEB: What are the main referral sources for entry-level wound care? Trumm: I would start with the current referral sources you are working with. Ask them who currently provides dressings
to their patient? Who currently provides negative pressure? Then I would ask what they like or dislike about them? If they don’t like the service, etc.
Also, wound care centers, home health agencies, long-term care facilities, surgical or ambulatory centers, vascular centers to name the most popular.
I would ask for the business and call me! We have a full line wound care program that will walk you through the process and how to be successful at it.
HMEB: Is there special training or knowledge needed?
Trumm: Not necessarily, but the more educated and knowledgeable you are, the more successful you will be in the wound care business as an HME provider.
At VGM, we offer an abundance of tools, education, and resources to help the HME provider become
knowledgeable and educated. Ronda Buhrmester, our reimbursement special- ist, and I have four pre-recorded course that are available through VGM university that anyone can purchase at shop.vgmu. com/catalogsearch/result/?q=HL19. These courses review dressings, NPWT and sup- port surfaces and explain the coverage criteria in each category.
We are also partnered with Healiant, which has best-in-class educational pro- grams designed to empower clinicians
and commercial associates. The Advanced Wound Product Specialist (AWPS) program and certification (awps.healiant.com) is a virtual, on-demand education program designed to train the non-clinician in the same material that your certified wound care clinician referral sources are trained in.
They also offer COVID-safe training and certification to commercial teams (healiant.com/covid/) to ensure they are prepared to re-enter the healthcare con- tinuum safely in 2021.
HMEB: How can providers get more wound care information and expertise? Trumm: VGM Wound Care offers a very robust wound care program for HMEs who are looking to just get started, or if they already are in wound care and looking to take their wound care business to the next level. We have something for every level.
We just launched a wound care guide, which helps decide if your business is ready for wound care. The guide also includes in- formation that maybe you haven’t thought of to elevate your game in the wound care world, such as remote patient monitoring, lead generation, and customer engage- ment software. If you go to the VGM portal www.vgm.com/woundcare, VGM members can download it for free.
All these products help you strengthen your relationship with the patient and referral source, which helps promote posi- tive outcomes and decrease healthcare costs. It’s a win-win all around.
“I feel like providers can always
offer more, but they need to ask their patients questions: Who is currently providing you with dressings? Lotion? Compression? Diabetic supplies?”
— Heather Trumm BSN, RN, CWON, VGM & Associates
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