All pep, no whine

I'll admit that it kind of irked me when one of our readers posted a comment to our website that called HME News "Medicare Whine Central." The reason for that lovely moniker: The plethora of stories we write on competitive bidding.

The reader's right, of course.

While I'm not going to defend our coverage of competitive bidding , as I feel like I've done that many, many times before, I do think it's worth repeating that HME News is often a mere reflection of the prevalent mood of HME providers at any given time. With Round 1 of competitive bidding making its debut last year and with Round 2, a significant expansion of the program, slated to debut in 2013, providers have been doing a lot of whining. And who can blame them?

(On a side note: I'd like to point out that four of the five most read stories on our website for the month of March  have nothing to do with competitive bidding. They have to do with an FBI raid, FDA warning letters, Apria's internal shakeup and Scooter Store setbacks. The one story that does have to do with competitive bidding is sort of a feel good story: One provider's efforts to get as many people as possible to sign an online petition to stop the program. But I said I wouldn't get into it...)

What all of this whining means is that a good number of providers out there could use a pep talk.

And we have just that: "Time for change: Restructuring your business for success," our April 3 webcast with Michael Sperduti of Emerge Sales.

It's all pep, no whine.

Sperduti gave me a sneak peak of the webcast this week, and it's chock full of "put it in perspective" messages (You're not alone: During the next five years, 83% of all companies will face a crisis that will threaten their existence or negatively impact profitability by 20% to 30%, according to research by Oxford-Metrica) and "get it done" business ideas (Stop doing stupid things like selling products/services below your cost).

This webcast will put you back in a frame of mind to control what you can (the success of your company) and stop obsessing about what you can't (the single payment amounts for competitive bidding).

What else is there to do?

Liz Beaulieu