Gilgal Medical ‘frees’ itself from insurance

ORLANDO, Fla. – Gilgal Medical Supplies recently transitioned to a retail sales and wholesale distribution model for medical supplies, a decision made necessary by the increasing burdens associated with billing insurance, says Tom Chacko, vice president. 

“The time and the resources needed to do all (the required paperwork), when you consider the reimbursement, financially, it's not feasible,” he said. 

Chacko spoke with HME News about the company’s decision. 

HME News: What made Gilgal Medical decide to stop accepting insurance? 

Tom Chacko: First of all, the workload. The time that is needed for the extensive documentation and also the resources needed to do all those things. Consider an example like ostomy: We need the doctor's record, hospital records – the documentation is extensive. That requires a lot of coordination, and it just became so cumbersome. It’s not worth it. And then the reimbursement is so low, there’s no way we can manage all that. 

HME: Do you think we’ll see more providers making the decision to stop accepting insurance? 

Chacko: I know there's a lot of local guys that don't take insurance because we had a lot of calls from different parts of Florida (where) they wanted to sell (their business) to us because they don't want to deal with that stress of dealing with insurance. I've seen in Florida there's a lot of people who are desperate because sometimes, providers drop the customers and they come to us. The government needs to intervene to make this model (less cumbersome). 

HME: Do you plan to continue focusing on retail? 

Chacko: There's always a need for retail dealers, so we are actually planning to expand and also plan to expand out of the of state Florida. Dropping insurance was scary, but it was also freeing. 

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