Archive: March 2011
Mediware expands HME presence
March 31, 2011HME News Staff
LENEXA, Kan. - Mediware plans to acquire the assets of CareCentric's home medical equipment, home health and home infusion software businesses, it announced March 31.
As a result of the deal, Mediware, which has more of a presence in the software market for acute care, will pick up more than 300 new customers and related products, services and contracts.
“With the additional customers, Mediware software will now support more than 700 sites delivering home infusion, home medical equipment,...
Another round of direct-to-consumer conversations
March 31, 2011Liz Beaulieu, Editor
These two links have lit up the NRRTS listerv for the past week:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Comfort-Company-Vector-Cushion-with-Vicair-Technology/15205425?adid=bzv_fb_rev%3E%20shr_001
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Karman-Healthcare-Stand-Up-Power-Wheelchair/132250
The links were distributed on Monday and since then providers have been posting comments about how manufacturers shouldn't be selling complex rehab products to online companies who sell direct to consumers (in this case Walmart...
LMI: 'We're back'
March 30, 2011Theresa Flaherty, Managing Editor
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. - Landauer Metropolitan Inc. (LMI) is back on the acquisition trail. In March, it snapped up Buffalo, N.Y.-based Kaba Healthcare and it has no plans to stop there.
"The owners didn't understand our space and wanted out," said CEO Lou Rocco. "We got a good value."
Kaba Healthcare, a subsidiary of Woodmark Healthcare Enterprises, a network of skilled nursing facilities, has about $2 million in annual revenues.
It's the first buy for LMI since a buying spree in 2009, when the provider...
How do you like them apples?
March 29, 2011Theresa Flaherty, Managing Editor
Proving the old adage that the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree, a Miami (again) mother and her two daughters have been charged with health care fraud, according to an article on miamiherald.com. Isabel Torres, 48, was also charged with identity theft, while her daughters, Samantha Carta, 21 and Natasha Miranda, 24, were each charged with making a false statement to law enforcement.
The three women and other family members submitted more than $12 million in fraudulent Medicare claims,...
Graymark Healthcare's earnings up
March 29, 2011HME News Staff
OKLAHOMA CITY - It looks like Graymark Healthcare's renewed focus on sleep is paying off: Revenues increased 30% in 2010, the provider reported March 28.
Revenues for the year ended Dec. 31, 2010 were $22.8 million up from $17.6 million in 2009. The increase is attributed to, among other things, added revenues from Graymark's acquisitions of Somni sleep centers in 2009.
Revenues from the company's sleep diagnostic business increased 27%, to $17.2 million in 2010, compared to $13.5 million in 2009....
Game’s changing for home oxygen
March 28, 2011Liz Beaulieu, Editor
ORLANDO - Much has been made of the Medicare reimbursement (or the increasing lack thereof) for home oxygen therapy. But what about the benefits of this therapy, when it's done right? Shouldn't physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists be focusing on that? And if they do, won't reimbursement take care of itself?
Bob McCoy thinks so. Here's what McCoy, a respiratory therapist and the managing director of Valley Inspired Products, had to say about this “game-changing” conversation.
HME...
Think managed care is the solution?
March 25, 2011Liz Beaulieu, Editor
Industry consultant Alison Cherney says “everyone wants to get into managed care” these days.
“They're saying, 'I'm in a competitive bidding area and I lost Medicare, what do I do now?'” said Cherney, president of Cherney & Associates in Brentwood, Tenn. “They think managed care looks attractive, but they can't, after all these years of hating it, just turn around and get a contract. It's not easy and it takes awhile.”
Cherney says...
Lobbyist: 'Refute these three things'
March 24, 2011Liz Beaulieu, Editor
WASHINGTON - A Washington, D.C., healthcare lobbyist spelled out what industry stakeholders must do to get a separate benefit for complex rehab during a presentation at CELA in February.
Jennifer Higgins, a principal at Capitol Health Group who counts Invacare as one of her clients, told a crowd of attendees that they must "refute these three things" about the industry: that they're equipment jockeys, that they commit fraud and that they're overpaid.
Higgins had these tips for providers: Help lawmakers...
Provider becomes triple treat with sleep lab venture
March 24, 2011Theresa Flaherty, Managing Editor
RALEIGH, N.C. - They don't do anything small at Active Healthcare, so when the CPAP provider decided recently to get into the diagnostic side of sleep, it opened not one, but three sleep labs.
"We saw that there was opportunity in the three markets so we wanted to take advantage of that and get it up and running quickly," said Lisa Feierstein, company founder and president. "We felt we could stand out (in those markets), and we had an existing referral base."
The IntegraSleep Centers, in Raleigh,...
Five ways you should be using the Internet
March 24, 2011Mike Mallaro
A recent Wall Street Journal column by Daniel Henninger opined on the end of stability. "Stability," Henninger pens, "whose virtues are many, has had a worthy run. It's done." He goes on, "This new, exponentially expanding world of information technologies is now creating permanent instability." Then he poses a compelling question: "Why would anyone think it possible to maintain stability with the same methods they've used for the past 30 years?"
It's a great question to ponder as we consider the...