Tag: Change

It's a chilly today, here in Las Vegas, but here's hoping things warm up with the official start of Medtrade Spring '17 this morning. I actually flew into Vegas on Saturday. I figured if I had to spend a whole day crammed onto a plane, anyway, I might as well take an extra today to enjoy some sun and relative warmth—two things that are often in limited supply in our neck of the woods. On Sunday morning, before all the vacationing families could descend on the Shark Reef Aquarium (it's just...

There has been a rash of companies buying other companies, as well as public companies reporting their latest financial results, in the past week, and reacting to change is a recurring theme behind all of their activity. When I was writing up an item on Cape Medical Supply buying New England Medical Homecare, this quote from Cape Medical President and CEO Gary Sheehan jumped out at me: “As we continue to explore our strategic options for succeeding in a changing and crowded healthcare market,...

The goal of this year's HME News Business Summit is to change the way you see the HME industry and, more importantly, your business. To help us do that, we've brought in some important “outsiders.” Dr. Patrick Cawley is the CEO of the Medical University of South Carolina. As the person who oversees all clinical matters for the health system and its affiliates, he knows the value of outcomes. He believes you can help him do his job, and so do we. Brain Holzer, president of a division of...

If you're anything like my family, making a visit to the local cinema to watch the new Star Wars film was a must-do. My three boys were fascinated with the movie and characters, just as the original Star Wars had captured imaginations a generation ago. Based on the enormous box office numbers, it's still a great time to be in the Star Wars business, just as it was when the original movie premiered in 1977. The original Star Wars debut coincided with the beginning of the modern DME business. The Health...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Post-acute care, including HME, is the Wild Wild West of health care, and that's a good thing, several speakers said last week at the 11th annual HME News Business Summit.In response to government pressure, hospitals are flooding their systems with data (think zettabytes) and changing their delivery models (think value vs. fee for service), but where and how they plug in post-acute care, while an increasing priority, is still very much to be determined.“It's a big opportunity,”...

I had a great call this week with the panelists for our “Rise of the Disrupters” panel at the upcoming HME News Business Summit in Nashville. I think this session, alone, will be worth the price of admission. When I asked panelist Dan Afrasiabi whether being a disrupter was something that came naturally to him or something he had to work hard at, he said it was the latter. “To borrow from Andy Grove from Intel, 'Only the paranoid survive,'” he said. “That's how I do...

It's easy to feel, in this small world that is the HME industry, that you're the only ones going through so much change. You might ask yourself, is any other industry part of such a seismic shift in the way goods and services are delivered? Is any other industry, as part of that shift, seeing its revenues cut nearly in half? Of course, the HME industry is not the only industry going through so much change. This hit me in the side of the head yesterday on my commute home. I was listening to a story...

Dear Ms. Tavenner: I write this letter based on my experience as the executive director of the American Sleep Apnea Association from May 2004 to March 2014. The opinions and recommendations expressed here are my own and not those held by the association.During my tenure at the association, significant changes have come about in health care, in general, and for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in particular. The decision to allow for physician payment for prescription of positive airway pressure (PAP)...

It's only the fourth day of summer, but at HME News headquarters, we're already thinking fall. (Which is a shame, really, because summers in Maine are so, so short!) Why? Believe or not, we're gearing up for our pre-show (September) and show (October) issues for Medtrade. Most years, the show issue features a special report. This year's topic: the changing shape of the HME industry. As part of the report, we plan to focus on three major ways in which the industry is changing: Consolidation (During...

The tide may be turning on CMS and its competitive bidding program, industry stakeholders told attendees at The VGM Group's Heartland Conference on Tuesday. A majority of the members of the House of Representatives have signed on to a “Dear Colleague” letter written by Reps. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, that calls for CMS to delay Round 2 of the program. “This will send shockwaves to CMS,” said John Gallagher, vice president of government relations for...