HME Business Podcast

For this episode of the HME Business podcast, we spoke with Sandra C. Canally, the founder and CEO of The Compliance Team.   During the conversation, we discussed differences between DMEPOS retailers and suppliers, accreditation and certification, and more! Canally additionally shared some of the major highlights from The Compliance Team's 2024 while looking ahead at the organization's future.   Thanks for listening!  

An efficient resupply system can improve the patient experience, support outstanding relationships with patients and referral sources, and provide additional revenue for home medical equipment (HME) suppliers. But finding the optimal resupply partner — one with an efficient resupply model that's also secure — can be challenging. Mike Lorenz of Brightree discusses how a successful resupply system can elevate an HME business, and the importance of simultaneously emphasizing security.

As crucial professionals in the healthcare continuum, home medical equipment (HME) providers must keep evolving and embracing change to better serve their patients. Matt Gruskin, Chief Operating Officer of the Board of Certification and Accreditation (BOC), discusses the value of education for the HME provider, and how better-educated providers can support better outcomes for consumers, referral partners and payers.

Quality improvement is an integral part of achieving Home Medical Equipment accreditation and maintaining it. But how is quality improvement defined for an HME business, and what role should it play in a provider's daily routine? Sandra C. Canally, RN, CEO and founder of The Compliance Team, discusses quality improvement best practices that can benefit providers all year long… and how to get started.

An HME supplier's success depends on building a team of fully trained, highly professional, and dependable staffers that are experts at what they do. But needing to frequently recruit, train, and onboard new staffers is costly in both time and productivity. In this podcast, Todd Usher of Tactical Back Office discusses remote staffing solutions — and the questions suppliers should ask to make sure they're finding the best possible staffing partner.

Many HME providers are opting to outsource their revenue cycle management or parts of their RCM for a lot of different reasons. Most of those reasons are focused on optimizing business performance, but there's one more reason that might not immediately springs to mind: data security. Enida Mimani, director of Healthcare Solutions for Analytix Solutions explains how outsourcing RCM can help secure protected health information for HME businesses and their patients. Sponsored By Analytix Healthcare Solutions

The owners, operators and management of HME providers are currently contending with a tricky problem: There are certain roles within the HME business that require specialized knowledge, professionalism and dedication, yet the current job market means high employee turnover, transition and retraining. How can providers get the best talent for the job—and keep it? Jim Knight, the CEO of medical billing company ACU-Serve, has been solving problems like this in home healthcare for more than 30 years and joins the podcast to share his insights. Sponsored By ACU-Serve

HME businesses are facing staffing challenges that are impacting both their top and bottom lines, but there are outsourcing solutions that can help them. However, the key is to do it right, which means measurement and analytics. What are the metrics they should use to track and manage their performance? Sunil Krishnan, Vice President of Revenue Cycle Management at HME software company Brightree joins the podcast to share his expertise and insights. Sponsored By Brightree

We've all heard of outcomes-based and value-based care and how that trend is impacting provider care and business operations for HME providers, but what about sales? How do providers win over key referral partner and payer relationships in that environment? HME sales expert Ty Bello, RCC, president and founder of industry sales and management coaching firm Team@Work Coaching says that HME providers need to start engaging in outcomes-based selling, and joins the podcast to talk more about what that means how providers can start implementing that sales approach.

Recent CMS audits of Medicare Advantage health plans uncovered roughly $12 million in net overpayments. Moreover, CMS said it was going to extrapolate the payment error rates across all Medicare Advantage plans to recoup an estimated $650 million. As a result, Medicare Advantage plans are now auditing the companies with whom they work—including HME providers. Audit expert Wayne van Halem, president and founder of the audit consulting firm The van Halem Group, discusses what this means for the industry and how providers should respond.

In less than two weeks, the industry will pack its bags to attend Medtrade East, which runs Oct. 24-26 at Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center. This year marks some changes for the event before it moves to Dallas in 2023, and Show Director York Schwab joins the HMEB Podcast to discuss what's new for Medtrade East. From a new hall, more exhibitors, a new schedule lineup, and revised educational offerings, there's a lot to take in at the show.

Medicare accreditation goes much deeper than simply being able to bill Medicare as a DMEPOS supplier. In fact, accreditation has considerable strategic value for HME providers when it comes to differentiating themselves in their marketplace, uncovering new opportunities, and demonstrating their expertise to referral partners. Matt Gruskin, the chief operating officer of The Board of Certification/Accreditation (BOC), returns to the podcast to how providers can make the most of their accreditation and what they should expect from their Accrediting Organization.

Everyone HME provider knows that if you're going to be a DMEPOS supplier, then you need to be accredited to bill Medicare. But what if you're an HME provider that doesn't supply Medicare? More specifically, what if you're a retail provider and need some way to demonstrate your expertise to your customers? Sandy Canally, RN, founder and CEO of accrediting organization The Compliance Team, joins the podcast to discuss a brand new certification program for non-Medicare providers.

Running an HME or CRT business is filled with a dizzying array of complex workflows and unique business, funding and care protocols, practices and procedures. That's why Bill Paul, who, as a one-time CRT provider, built a series of technology tools to help his business. Those tools went on to become the core of his current business, ATLAS Technology, where he serves as CEO. Paul and several of the ATLAS Technology team join the podcast to discuss the technology, telehealth, clinical care, and business services they now offer to HME and CRT provider businesses.

Ask any retail HME provider, and they'll tell you that customer attitudes concerning the economy are impacting their buying habits. That's not surprising, as monthly consumer sentiment data bears that out. Simply put, consumers are worried. So, how do retail HME providers manage those customer concerns during times of uncertainty? Sean Stapleton, CEO of MedGuard Protection Plans, joins the podcast once again to offer some strategies and tools that providers can employ to not only address those concerns but strengthen customer connections. Handled correctly, you just might create a customer for life.

Resupply plays a pivotal role not only in sleep apnea patients' therapy compliance and outcomes, but in the health of an HME provider's business performance as well. That said, sleep resupply requires managing an enormous number of details for each patient. That's why automating the process is so essential. Mike Lorenz, vice president of Resupply at HME software company Brightree, joins the podcast to talk about how far systems for automating resupply have come, the results they've achieved, and how providers can implement these tools into their businesses.

Could Medicare finally fund seat elevation systems for power wheelchairs? For the first time ever, it's looking possible. Medicare is opening its NCD up to review, which would mean a public comment period, and setting the stage for that was a virtual roundtable hosted by the National Council on Disability regarding funding the systems. Seth Johnson, the senior vice president of Government Relations for Pride Mobility/Quantum Rehab, joined the podcast to give us an insider's view of the roundtable meeting.

Up until the Covid-19 public health emergency was declared, telehealth wasn't at the top of the list of HME providers' priorities. Now, telehealth has become the norm in U.S. healthcare. Dr. Scott Martin, the medical director of TeleHealth Clinical Evals, and Maxine Paul, the vice president of operations for TeleHealth Clinical Evals, join the podcast to discuss how referral partners and patients have rapidly adopted telehealth, how HME providers can leverage telehealth to improve care and strengthen referral and patient relationships, and the sorts of telehealth services their company offers to help HME providers save time and generate revenue.

On June 1 an armed assailant entered Tulsa, Okla.'s Saint Francis Hospital and opened fire, killing four people and injuring a number of other victims. How has that event impacted hospital security, and how might that in turn impact HME sales professionals? HME sales expert Ty Bello, president and founder of Team@Work Coaching, and security expert Ralph C. Jensen, editor-in-chief and content director of Security Today, join the podcast to share their insights.

The transition to the homecare setting represents an omnipresent challenge for anyone involved in post-acute care — and particularly for HME providers. Vijay Kedar is the co-founder and CEO of Tomorrow Health, a company that has created a system that helps HME providers, referral partners, payers, patients and their caregivers coordinate more seamlessly. Kedar joins the podcast to talk about the issues surrounding the homecare transition and how HME providers benefit from smoothing that process.

We're familiar with protection plans in our personal life, but there are some strong arguments why HME providers should consider offering them to their retail customers. MedGuard Protection Plans, is now offering these plans to the HME industry, and MedGuard CEO Sean Stapleton joins the HMEB podcast to talk about how offering product protection plans can help increase retail revenue, strengthen patient loyalty, and benefit the continuity of care.

The world of HME is all about patient relationships — putting the patient front and center in the process. Maintaining patient relationships and maximizing patient engagement results in improved compliance and increased referrals. And it turns out the key to making that happen might be a lot more common than we realize. James Yi, the Director of Product Management over Digital Connectivity for industry software maker Brightree LLC, discusses the most effective approach to patient engagement and how to implement it.

VGM's Heartland Conference is making its return as fully in-person event on June 13-15 in VGM's hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, and is offering a lot of new features as well as familiar favorites. Conference Chair Jill Blaser visits the HMEB podcast to offer a taste of what's in store with Heartland's conference, expo and social events. From the hog roast to specialized conference tracks and a remodeled convention facility, there's a lot to learn about. Bonus link: Prospective attendees can visit the 2022 Heartland Conference eProspectus.

Vertical integration is a term that gets tossed around in healthcare, but what does it mean for the home medical equipment industry, and what should providers know about the trend? Laura Williard of the American Association for Homecare explains the trend and how it might impact the industry and outlines strategies for how the industry and providers can operate in such an healthcare marketplace.

Have you been wondering about Round 2024 of competitive bidding? You're not alone. AAHomecare's Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Kim Brummett sat down with HMEB during this week's Medtrade West event to discuss how the next round of competitive bidding might play out, what CMS might do, and where the program might be headed in the future.

HME industry advocates are currently focused on two pivotal legislative fights: advancing H.R. 6641 and working with Senate contacts on approaches to preserve the current 75/25 blended rate for non-rural, non-CBA suppliers beyond the end of the public health emergency (PHE). Jay Witter, the senior vice president for public policy at the American Association for Homecare explains why both efforts are crucial and how providers can help. Then he offers a sneak peek at the upcoming AAHomecare Update slated for Medtrade West on April 5.

With Covid-19 on the wane, Medtrade West is returning to Arizona's Phoenix Convention Center April 4-6, and the show offers some new features and creative tweaks on existing show content. In this episode, Medtrade Show Director York Schwab pulls back the curtain on the upcoming event to offer a sneak peek at what the conference and exposition has to offer this year.

How well do you understand CMS's Covid-19 vaccine mandate for providers and suppliers? Are you sure? It turns out that, while the agency didn't directly include DMEPOS suppliers and DME pharmacies, those businesses might still need to comply with the guidelines if they want to keep doing business with certain referral partners. Sandy Canally, RN, founder and CEO of accrediting organization The Compliance Team, has been studying the issue closely and joins the podcast to share her insights.

Covid-19 has forced a lot of change when it comes to respiratory services. How has the situation evolved for oxygen and respiratory providers and the clinical care team? John Medina, RRT, director of sales at CAIRE Inc., and David Lyman RRT, RRT-SDS, vice president of VGM Respiratory, join the podcast to explore topics such as new variants, telehealth, frequent of RT check-ins, the pandemic's impact on other home oxygen patients and much more. This is a deep dive into an ongoing situation. Sponsored by CAIRE Inc.

HME providers initially got a brief break from Medicare claims audits during the Covid public health emergency, but after resuming audits, the HME industry will face expanded audit challenges in 2022. And Medicare isn't the only source of claims audits, either. Audit expert Wayne van Halem, president and founder of the audit consulting firm The van Halem Group, discusses what providers can expect this year and how an upcoming webinar can help them.

Sleep therapy is all about reinforcing patients' compliance with their care, and the primary way to achieve that lies in ensuring they have the right mask for them. Comfort remains king. But there are several patient factors that mask fitting traditionally hasn't taken into account, but probably should have. Well a new technology, MaskFit AR, is trying to change that. Cox Tan-Ngo, the CEO of AR Medical Technologies, talks about how his company and its technology is trying to change mask fitting around the world.

For the past 18 months, only one trend has impacted the entirety of the HME industry, and of course, that trend has been COVID-19. Joining the podcast to discuss how the pandemic has affected accreditation for HME providers are José Domingos, the president and CEO of the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC), and Tim Safley, the program director for ACHC. Both guests explain how their company responded to the public health emergency, how that influenced CMS, and explore how they—and the industry—continue to learn and apply ongoing lessons learned during the pandemic.

Staffing solutions are becoming an increasingly important part of how HME providers run their business. They let providers more nimbly expand and contract their staff based on referral partner and patient needs while pursuing new market opportunities. One new staffing solution is rtNOW, a company that provides telehealth staffing of RTs. Chuck Stadler Jr, the president and CEO of rtNOW joins the podcast to discuss his service and how it helps sleep and ventilator providers better serve patients while running more cost-effective, responsive businesses.

Equipment management sits at the heart of nearly everything HME providers do, but recent trends such as Covid-19 and the increased emphasis on infection control have made this fundamental business process all the more critical. Founder and CEO of the accreditation organization The Compliance Team Sandra Canally, RN, discusses what goes into effective HME equipment management, why it's crucial from a business and care perspective, and how providers can optimize their equipment management.

What happens when your best employee isn't exactly your employee? HME staffing firm Tactical Back Office was born out of an HME provider seeking a new way to create flexible, scalable teams for HME providers. The goal was to find staff that could be relied on to carry out back-office and front-office functions at top performance levels for the long haul. The result is what Tactical Back Office founder and CEO Todd Usher calls insourcing, and it's something he's developed into a growing staffing solution for his fellow providers.

HME providers and accrediting organizations share a common dilemma: Providers are trying to fill new and unique care segments as well as rapidly take advantage of market opportunities. They also face a constant flood change management challenges. At the same time, those providers still need to get accredited. So how do accreditation standards become similarly flexible to help providers remain strategic? Jackie King and Dan McPhilemy of Community Healthcare Accreditation Partners (CHAP) discuss how their organization has developed a new approach to bridge both worlds. Sponsored by CHAP

Any sleep provider will tell you resupply is a critical component of patient care and therapy outcomes, as well as a fundamental element of their business performance. They'll also tell you it is a costly and complex workflow desperately in need of as much automation as possible. Enter “no-touch resupply.” Michael Lorenz, vice president of resupply software for Brightree, joins the podcast to describe the technology behind no-touch resupply, how it radically refines workflows, and what kinds of business efficiencies and care benefits providers can reap through this innovation.

As the delta variant of COVID-19 makes a greater and greater impact on American healthcare, post-acute care and HME providers are really starting to feel its presence, particularly on the supply side of the industry. Spectrum Medical Supply CEO Steve Ackerman explains how, just as the delta variant is starting to impact post-acute care, HME providers' costs have really started ramping up. What can be done?

While COVID-19 ramped up the need for telehealth and remote connectivity for both HME patients and remote and distributed HME workforces, the need for security HME providers' data predated the pandemic. Jerry Dennany, Chief Technology Officer for Brightree, discusses the factors that have been driving the need for more remote security, the increasing number of healthcare data attacks, and how providers can take steps to secure their data both in terms of technology and business processes.

The year marks the big year for DMEPOS accreditation renewal for HME providers, and a major part of that process is the site survey. And, when it comes to those site surveys, there are some common pitfalls providers need to know to avoid. Matt Gruskin, credentialing director for the Board of Certification and Accreditation, points out regularly occurring site survey issues that can be easily prevented, and also discusses how providers can deal with corrective action plains, as well. If you want to have your accreditation ducks in a row, this episode's a must-listen.

The return of Medtrade West also saw the return of the American Association for Homecare Update, in which HME Business's David Kopf, as well as the audience, queried the association's President and CEO Tom Ryan, along with Vice Presidents Jay Witter, Kim Brummett and Laura Williard, on a broad range of topics. For folks who couldn't make the update, HMEB I circled back with Witter, Brummett and Williard to get the low down on some of the top line items they wanted to make sure providers had on their radar. 

As U.S. healthcare emerges from the COVID-19 PHE, HME providers face five referral sales challenges that they must overcome if they want to succeed in the “new normal.” HME sales expert Ty Bello, CEO of HME sales coaching and consulting firm Team@Work, reviews those challenges and then outlines multiple ways HME providers can tackle each. If you're looking for concrete sales strategies for the here-and-now reality of today's referral sales market for HME, listen to this episode. Sponsored by PlayMaker Health.

Brace yourself! COVID-19’s impact on U.S. healthcare might be fading, but not the patient demand. If anything, you can expect increased patient needs and a broadening set of requirements from your referral partners. Are you ready? Founder and CEO of The Compliance Team Sandra Canally, RN, is seeing some serious pent-up demand in the marketplace. Pair that with new services and capabilities that HME providers started offering to contend with the pandemic, and we could see the rise of what Cannally is calling the value-based HME business. What does that mean for you? Listen and find out.

HME businesses have adapted to a considerable number of changes during COVID-19, but what ones will stick around for the long haul? Tim Safley, the program director for the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) has been in an interesting position when it comes to helping providers integrate new policies and procedures into their operations and workflows. He talks about the major changes the industry has experienced, such as infection control and telehealth, what ones will last, and what things we probably should have been doing all along. Sponsored by Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC)

When the COVID-19 pandemic, one sector of post-acute care that got hit hard was complex rehab, but there was an silver lining: CMS and other payers relaxed the guidelines around telehealth as a means to carrying out patient evaluations. One company that has been at the fore of that technology is TeleHealth Clinical Evals, and its CEO, Bill Paul, joins the podcast to talk about the importance of telehealth for CRT, the technology and tools involved, the problems they solve, and the benefits telehealth brings to patients and providers alike.

Worried about audits? Maybe you should be. After hitting pause on claims audits during the COVID-19 PHE, CMS surprised everyone last fall by announcing it would resume those audits. Well now CMS has started restarting audits and audit expert Wayne van Halem, president of The van Halem Group, joins the podcast to discuss how CMS’s resumption of TPE, RAC and other audits programs is progressing, as well as what expanding resources at OMHA might mean or HME providers.

One segment of HME that has typified the entire industry’s experience with handling the disease has been sleep therapy. Now that we are in the middle of the vaccine rollout, sleep providers — like all HME providers — are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. What happens next? Gary Sheehan, MBA, CEO of Spiro Health, who has shared his insights and perspectives during the pandemic, rejoins the podcast to discuss how sleep providers and the entire HME industry can transition into a post-pandemic reality and what that might look like

If providers learned anything from COVID-19, it’s that they need a more robust and professionally aggressive selling process. Ty Bello, CEO of HME sales coaching and consulting firm Team@Work, explains why the new normal for HME sales will be grounded in market data and customer relationship management. He discusses how HME market data has grown will be the driving force helping HME sales teams to grow existing referral sources and open new ways to gain market share. Then, he delves into the power of CRM holds for sales teams and how they can leverage it for success. Sponsored by PlayMaker Health.

When it comes to inventory management and equipment maintenance, HME providers contend with a unique dilemma: they have a considerable amount of inventory overhead, and much of it is out in the field. Simply put, where’s their stuff? And as COVID-19 has driven treatment into the home setting, that challenge the issue has only gotten larger. Industry supplier McKesson’s Biomedical Solutions business offers some clever technology for tackling that challenge, and Dylan Ross, vice president and general manager of McKesson Biomedical Solutions stops by to discuss them.

Various healthcare and market trends have been pushing the digital patient experience toward the home medical equipment industry for a few years, but COVID-19 set that motion on fast-forward. So what is the digital patient experience, why is it important to HME, and how do providers optimize and manage their patients’ digital experience? Nupura Kolwalkar, Chief Product Officer for HME software company Brightree joins the podcast to dive into the topic.

It’s 2021, and it’s time to think about how sales strategy will change for HME this year. Last year brought COVID-19 and with it considerable upheaval when it comes to HME sales, but providers learned several strategic sales lessons and innovated a number of creative solutions to tackle the PHE’s challenges. What lessons can they apply this year, and what changes can they expect? Joining the podcast to talk about those questions and a whole lot more is Ty Bello, CEO of HME sales coaching and consulting firm Team@Work.