Is it time to rethink HME?

CLEVELAND – There’s plenty of opportunity for the HME industry to come together to do better for their businesses and their patients – that was a key takeaway from this year’s HME News Business Summit. 

Rethinking demand: Adding a retail mindset 

The industry, as a whole, is terrible at building demand for their products and services, said Joe Megibow, CEO of cpap.com, an online retail provider. But with huge barriers to access, and lacking reimbursement, there’s a massive gap in care. Rather than waiting for patients to come to them, providers should consider viewing that demand through a retail lens. 

“There are a ton of options and a ton of demand – there’s more than enough (demand) to go around for all of us,” he said during a panel session moderated by Lindy Tentinger, president of VGM & Associates. “It goes to getting good at direct-to-consumer strategy. How are you equipped to handle that?”  

Meeting patients where they are—with tech 

Large or small, DME providers will have to make increasing use of technology, not just to boost operational efficiencies, but to meet patients where they are, said Mandira Singh, president of Synapse Health, during the same panel. 

“Don’t underestimate patients,” she said. “I see them texting; I see them setting up their health care portals. They are engaged (with technology), or their loved ones are.” 

Used right, technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), can help both providers and patients drill down to the most important reasons for the patient’s “visit” to a health care provider, said Craig Hittle, chief commercial officer of HealthTap, a virtual primary care practice, during the same panel. 

“You can use AI in a way to engage patients, to extract health information about basic physical facts,” he said. “That empowers patients to say, this is what is important to me.” 

Enormous change: Be part of the solution 

It’s not just the HME industry that is faced with challenges. The larger health care continuum is undergoing enormous change under a new administration that is focused on breaking with old ways of thinking and pushing for cost-cutting and innovative solutions, said Kathryn A. Teng, MD, MBA, FACP, chief medical officer for Progressive Insurance Corp., during the opening session moderated by Josh Marx, CEO of Medical Service Company. 

“It’s changing daily,” she said. “There’s lots of new regulations. There’s going to be lots of changes going forward.”  

But HME still remains positioned to be a viable partner for the long-term, said Susheel P. Patil, MD, PhD, system director and section chief for sleep medicine, University Hospitals of Cleveland. 

“HME is important for what to do in terms of (delivering) supplies,” he said. “The key with any partnership is regular communication. But everything is headed in the right direction.”