Page 6 - HME Business, September/October 2021

Annual Roundtable
WHAT’S ON YOUR RADAR?
COVID-19 continues to dominate the headlines as it wreaks healthcare havoc, but there are 8 strategic trends poised to impact your business in the coming weeks and months. Are you monitoring them? Are you prepared? HMEB’s editorial advisory board shares their insights.
By David Kopf
Photo © Makhnach/depositphotos.com
Each year, HMEB surveys several members of its edito- For Ryan, this represents a crucial opportunity to accelerate
rial advisory board to learn about the top-priority trends,
strategic considerations, and healthcare issues facing providers. Obviously, the overriding trend continues to be the COVID-19 public health emergency, with the Delta variant ensuring that U.S. healthcare will be dealing with the coronavirus for months.
However, providers must know about eight other trends they must integrate into their business planning and management. So, while the PHE might continue to dominate healthcare head- lines, let’s examine these eight critical HME trends:
1. E-PRESCRIPTION FOR HME
In September, a collection of HME industry entities formed DMEscripts LLC, a healthcare technology e-prescribing company that provides a platform for prescribers to electronically transmit HME/ DME orders to any participating provider. The DMEscripts alli- ance includes the American Association for Homecare, VGM & Associates, AdaptHealth
LLC, Apria Healthcare Group LLC, Lincare Inc. and Rotech Healthcare Inc.
DMEscripts will utilize proprietary e-prescription software to operate an open network so any HME provider can enroll in the network at no cost to prescribers or patients. The fee for the services will be on a transaction fee basis (that is considerably lower than the cost to process orders manually, AAHomecare’s Ryan notes).
6 HMEBusiness | September/October 2021 | hme-business.com
Management Solutions | Technology | Products
Tom Ryan, President and CEO, The American Association for Homecare
the widespread adoption of an electronic ordering application
for DME and improve care, access and business performance as
a result. The current, time- and money-consuming fax ordering process will be a thing of the past if DMEscripts achieves its vision.
“I am bullish on the DME Industry and am very excited
about the opportunity we have to drive large-scale adoption of e-prescribe in the industry,” he says. “The goal is to drastically improve the current order to delivery process. The industry now has a solution and an opportunity to accelerate widespread adoption of an electronic ordering application for DME.”
On the patient and referral partner side of the scenario, e-prescribing will improve the patient and referral experience, reducing the time required to refer a patient and allow DME suppliers to reduce administrative costs, Ryan adds.
“Widespread adoption of digital communications is trans- forming the healthcare industry — and the DME community needs to make sure we’re taking
full advantage of these tech-
nologies,” Ryan notes.
2. DME FINAL PAYMENT RULE
The industry is currently oper- ating under higher reimburse- ment from the CARES Act, which will last as long as the COVID-19 public health emergency, which could last into 2022. However, Bachenheimer warns there is one reimbursement-related ball in the air that providers must continue to keep their eyes on
Cara Bachenheimer,
Lobbyist/Government Affairs for Brown & Fortunato, P.C.