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HME NEWS / APRIL 2012 / WWW.HMENEWS.COM Providers A Premier donation: Provider gives $17,000 to charities Premier Homecare recently donated $17,000 to two local charities: the Children's Hospital Foundation benefiting Kosair Children's Hospital and the Norton Healthcare Foundation. Both foundations help with the needs of individuals with complex health issues. Premier employees held bake sales and dress-down Fridays to raise money. The Lexington, Ky.-based provider also made direct donations and raised funds through its annual golf outing. From left: John Cason, Premier vice president of marketing; Eric Seto, director of major gifts, Children's Hospital Foundation benefiting Kosair Children's Hospital; Tina Ballard, director, patient care services, Kosair Children's Hospital; Wayne Knewasser, Premier vice president, public relations/government affairs; and Jeff Knight, Premier CEO. ADVACARE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 FOCUS ON YOUR BOTTOM LINE "You can never recoup that 32% cut that we took," said Zelenko. "It didn't matter if you won the con- tract or didn't win the contract, you still took a reduction. That, to me, was the biggest challenge." It didn't help that other payers followed suit and lowered reimbursement. Zelen- ko has been vigilant about where money and resources go. KEEP YOUR HAND IN AdvaCare may have lost the con- tract for oxygen in the Pittsburgh CBA, but a subcontracting agree- ment with an out-of-state company that did win has kept AdvaCare in the Medicare game. CUT LOSSES Zelenko made the "really tough" decision to terminate contracts with some commercial payers. "You can't accept contracts that you're going to break even or lose money on," said Zelenko. "You want to say, 'Yeah, we take all of the payers,' but keeping contracts where they don't want to pay us for what we do is not why I'm in business." DIVERSIFY Zelenko looked to a new product line to add to her bottom line: CPM machines. One perk has been that, unlike oxygen rentals, CPM rent- als return to AdvaCare after use, allowing them to be put back out again. HME DEALS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 Still, these short-term deals can be hard to market to a broad range of customers, said provider Meir Tsinman, who has offered daily deals in the past but is currently reexamin- ing his strategies. "In medical supplies and equipment, everyone has a really specific need," said Tsin- man, president of Medicalsup- plydepot.com. "If we have a daily deal on incontinence supplies, people that don't need them are not going to be tickled by the offer." Tsinman plans to revive the Daily Deals program,he said. "We've seen some positive results from it, but we'd like to explore that even further to see how we can deliver a better daily deal," said Tsinman. HME Sleep Apnea Therapy SYSTEM Transcend® is the cash sales > FOR DEALERS booth # 21 Home Care HME News 8-38 X 11-1/4 446 What's with the ball? Stop by Medtrade Las Vegas Booth # 446 and find out! CPAP and baseball shown proportionate. Transcend® is changing the way CPAP therapy is delivered™ Visit us online at: www.MyTranscend.comMEDTRADE BOOTH 446 Visit us online at: www.MyTranscend.com and sold!