Blogs

As we were putting the finishing touches on this June issue, news broke that Humana has contracted with AdaptHealth and Rotech Healthcare, two national HME providers, to provide HME products and services to its Medicare Advantage HMO members.  This is a big deal for a whole lotta reasons.  We’ve all read the headlines. Insurers are increasingly targeting Medicare Advantage plans as a source of growth. Last year, Humana outlined plans to expand its Medicare HMO offerings, specifically,...

This month, editor Liz and I had a lot of fun with our cartoon, which plays off the news that Medline has partnered with Martha Stewart on a new line of home safety and mobility items. Martha’s instantly recognizable and lauded for, among other things, her good taste, two attributes that I am sure Medline is banking on.  We changed it up a bit, though, by swapping out Martha’s famous, “That’s a good thing,” with one from her pal, Snoop Dogg, “If the ride...

Managing Editor Theresa Flaherty and I conduct quite a few interviews for the stories that appear in HME News. By all accounts, our May issue features quotes from more than 40 different people. I hope that’s not lost on you, dear readers, as this is one of the things that sets HME News apart. We’re on the phone with providers, manufacturers, vendors, consultants and other HME-affiliated professionals every day, discussing industry trends and developments, teasing out challenges...

One of the members of an online diabetes forum I’m in generated much excitement last week when she posted a pic comparing the size of her old FreeStyle Libre sensor with the latest generation, which is about a third of the original’s size.  “Wow!” “Amazing!” That was the general consensus.  Smaller in size means less noticeable (less face it, CGMs, while a thing of beauty in terms of technology and their impact on users’ lives, are not, well,...

As we were working on the April issue, Best Buy Health announced a new partnership with Atrium Health to provide remote patient monitoring, telehealth and patient management technology for the health system’s hospital-at-home program.  It turns out Atrium Health, which reportedly has the largest such program in the country, is just the tip of the iceberg.  Best Buy Health’s care-at-home solution, Current Health, also has partnerships with five of the 10 largest health...

2023 has a different feel to it already. A big change that’s immediately staring us in the face: Medtrade. That’s the Medtrade, as in the only Medtrade and newly in Dallas, not Atlanta or Las Vegas or more recently Phoenix, Medtrade. Per usual, we have special coverage on the show starting on page 21, including a story on the excitement exhibitors have and a Q&A with speakers Ronda Buhrmester and Collin Donaghue on one of the hottest markets in HME right now (CGMs, silly). Oh, and...

The Coloplast Market Access team is continuously working to protect and improve access for people with intimate health care needs. The team identified that ostomates with Wisconsin Medicaid were limited in their ability to access suitable quantities of extended wear ostomy products. Unfortunately, there is a misconception that extended wear products allow all users to achieve longer wear times than standard wear products. And, as a result, health plans may set quantity limits that are unsustainably...

YARMOUTH, Maine – As far as HME Newspolls go, this one was a dud.  There. We said it.  Since we were working on our January issue at the time, we thought it would be interesting to have providers share what they believed to be their biggest business opportunity and biggest challenge, as they headed into 2023.  It’s hard to say whether providers are too busy to think about 2023 just yet (a mistake) or are simply tired of answering surveys and polls (understandable).  However,...

There’s been a lot of talk about the increased appreciation for home care due to the COVID-19  pandemic. And now we’re seeing lawmakers walk the talk. The omnibus bill they passed in December included not one but a handful of provisions that impact the HME industry: An extension of the 75/25 blended Medicare reimbursement rate in non-competitive bidding/non-rural areas through the end of the public health emergency or Dec. 31, 2023, whichever is later. A delay of the...

I’m on information overload this week and it’s only Wednesday. And it’s technology information that I’m being inundated with. It’s exhausting.  Take work. We are switching to new laptops. This is a good thing. But in the lead up to the big switch, I had to start backing up my files differently (In the air! Somewhere!). Now, I’m not a Luddite, by any means, but some concepts are a tad bit harder for me to wrap my mind around. I have a perfectly serviceable...