Archive: March 2002

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Spooked by its acquisition of a large respiratory-meds business and a fear that it may be embarking on a new, riskier business strategy, analysts downgraded Lincare's stock from a buy to a hold in mid-February and forced a sizeable sell-off. In all, Lincare's stock nosedived about 10% following downgrades by UBS Warburg and Jefferies & Co. Lincare declined to comment, but industry watchers said that in acquiring Med4Home (a $35-million to $45 million respiratory pharmacy in Kansas...

PITTSBURG, Kan. - Mt. Carmel Medical Equipment went toe to toe with Old Man Winter and JCAHO in January and left the ring victorious. On Jan. 30, one of the worse winter storms in memory coated the community in a veneer of ice that downed power lines and knocked out electricity to some homes for up to five days. If that wasn't enough, the company's JCAHO survey coincided with the storm. "She enjoyed the camaraderie," said Mt. Carmel director Gary Miller of JCAHO surveyor Rhoene Jessup. "I felt...

-� Analyst Bruce Jacobs of Deutsche Banc Alex Brown in Boston on the stock prices of the nation's two CPAP heavyweights, respironics and resmed, declining sharply following reports that innomed technologies had logged $20 million in sales commitments for its new nasal interface. Go to story People William Post has joined Respironics as vice president of sales and marketing. Post previously worked as president and CEO of Opticon Medical, a development-stage medical device company in the...

NEW YORK - A New York Supreme Court judge granted a temporary restraining order against Mel Lev, the former CEO and "principal member" of the Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP), and other members of his family. The order follows allegations, filed in Manhattan, that the Levs have misappropriated more than $120,000 in CHAP funds since he took over at CHAP in February of last year. The most egregious misappropriation, according to court documents, involved the use of $12,200 of CHAP funds...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Healtheheart revamped its disease management (DSM) software with a patient-tracking system this month, and it's now making a strong push for its use by HME providers. Robert Drazen, president of MedicineAvenue, Heatheheart's parent company, said providers could use the RiskIDentifier to screen patients for chronic illnesses such as diabetes. If patients are found to be high-risk, providers could recommend they visit a physician, who, in turn, could recommend a blood glucose...

Ostomy supplies: 'It's just not worth it.' REDDING, Calif. - Owen's Healthcare, a franchise of Option Care, has decided to sell its ostomy business (about 300 patients) to the Valencia, Calif.-based Shield Healthcare. It's not unusual for suppliers to shed the notoriously low-margin medical supplies business to focus on the more profitable respiratory and DME businesses. But CMS just released new ostomy codes earlier this year, and it's slated to release an updated - and providers hope - more profitable...

WASHINGTON - CMS issued a decision memorandum expanding coverage of medical nutrition therapy for Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes and renal disease, allowing a patient to receive this new benefit while also getting diabetes self-management training (DSMT). Under the medical nutrition therapy benefit, a dietician or nutritionist creates individualized meal plans, after assessing patients' health status, what they eat and how much exercise they get. Progress is checked throughout the year to...

WASHINGTON - A non-profit organization that accredits the utilization management programs of managed care companies now has plans to foray into accrediting DSM programs, too. This month, the board of directors of URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission, is slated to approve a set of standards that will be used to accredit the DSM programs of healthcare providers, according to Liza Greenberg, v.p. of research and quality. "Our strategy is to keep pace with how health...

Making sense of marketing WITH JEFFREY S. BAIRD Q. I have received conflicting information about whether I can use an independent contractor for marketing to referral sources and whether I can compensate my marketing employees for their productivity. Who can I use and how can I pay them? A. Any marketing activities directed toward Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries, or for items or services for which Medicare/Medicaid may pay, potentially implicate the Medicare/Medicaid anti-kickback statute (42...

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. - CareCentric (Mestamed) is creating an interface that enables data to be shared seamlessly between its software and Trac Medical's CareCert, a new, secure, Internet-based solution for processing Certificates of Medical Necessity (CMN's) and other medical forms online. The two companies also will work together to aggressively market this integrated solution to CareCentric customers. "The end result will be an entire end-to-end process that runs at Web-speed," said Trac Medical president...