Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/31504
■ Joel Solkoff offers up a valentine to DMEPOS suppliers. See page 17. ■ Product Focus: Manufacturers submitted their flagship CPAP products and accessories, like this mask from Hans Rudolph. See page 35. HME NEWS POLL ■ What should be the industry’s strategy for dealing with competitive bidding? See results on page 42. VOLUME 17 — NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 2011 $7.00 THE BUSINESS NEWSP APER FOR HOME MEDICAL EQUIPMENT PRO VIDERS NEWS ■ AAHomecare wants to ‘piggyback’ on healthcare reform. PAGE 4 ■ Economist discusses new bid model. PAGE 6 ■ Medical director Oleck retires. PAGE 10 SMART TALK ■ This month, our columnists tackle media alerts, lease and asset matching, first impressions and helping consumers. PAGES 18-19 COMMENTARY ■ Competitive bidding Program turns HME industry into ‘nightmare’ BY LIZ BEAULIEU Editor The competitive bidding chronicles: Beginning this month, we follow a contract supplier and a non-contract supplier as Round 1 unfolds. PAGE 17 DEPARTMENTS PROVIDERS ■ Praxair wants to ditch home care. PAGE 21 ■ Q&A: Greg Spratt. PAGE 21 ■ Provider Bill Griffin for office? PAGE 24 REHAB ■ Doc fix disappoints. PAGE 27 ■ Industry plans revolt at symposium. PAGE 27 ■ Contractor pushes pause on review. PAGE 29 RX & SPECIALTY PROVIDERS ■ Diabetes proposal yanked. PAGE 31 ■ Budesonide reverses decline. PAGE 31 ■ Twitter: ‘Wild West’ of CPAP. PAGE 33 VENDORS ■ TiLite moves into new digs. PAGE 37 ■ Pride speaks in code; phone unlocks secret. PAGE 37 ■ Evo acquires Inspired Technologies. PAGE 40 WASHINGTON – HME providers are feeling a mixture of resigna- tion, anxiety and anger now that competitive bidding is the law of the land. “My emotional state right now is, let’s get on with it,” said Kim Brummett, vice president of con- tracting and reimbursement for Advanced Home Care, a contract supplier in the Charlotte competi- tive bidding area (CBA). “We did it before and it was awful, and most of us don’t anticipate it will go well this time, either, but let’s just get on with it.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 Medical Mart shuts down BY LIZ BEAULIEU Editor ROCK HILL, S.C. – This isn’t how Bob Luftin wanted to leave the HME industry. Luftin, who owned Medical Mart with his wife Betty, closed his doors on Dec. 31 amidst what he calls an “imperfect storm of things,” including competitive bidding for HME and healthcare reform. He was CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 I am Iron Man KRIGE SCHABORT CRUSHED THE COM- PETITION and set a new record on his way to winning the Handcycle and Physically Challenged division of the Fort Ironman Championship in Kona, Hawaii, recently. His time of 9:26:04 beat the old record by more than an hour. Schabort is a member of Top End’s Team Invacare. The Ironman competi- tion includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile hand- cycle segment and 26.2 mile marathon. Schabort competed using Invacare’s Top End Force R Handcycle for the cycling segment and the Invacare Top End Eliminator OSR Racing Chair for the marathon. This was his first Ironman. Will manufacturers go direct to users? First year won’t be Life without purchase option for wheelchairs If they do, majority of providers will pull their business “One of our vendors is selling BY MIKE MORAN Executive Editor YARMOUTH, Maine – The vast majority of HME providers say that under no circumstances would they work with a manufacturer that sells product direct to end users, according to the most recent HME NewsPoll. WWW.HMENEWS.COM directly to the public through Amazon and is able to under- cut the price to the point that sometimes we can’t even buy the product as inexpensively as the vendor is selling it online,” said one poll respondent. “This is not CONTINUED ON PAGE 40 pretty, sources say H BY LIZ BEAULIEU Editor ME providers who supply standard power wheel- chairs are bracing them- selves for a major blow to their cash flow thanks to the elimination of the first-month purchase option. On Jan. 1, Medicare started pay- ing providers for standard power wheelchairs over the course of 13 BY THERESA FLAHERTY Managing Editor RICHMOND, Va. – TheCPAPPeople.com wants CPAP users to know that good therapy is much more than get- ting a good night’s sleep, and the provider is taking to Twitter to spread the word. On Jan. 14, TheCPAPPeople.com planned to hold months instead of in one lump sum in the first month. “Well, we’ve been buying up good used equipment where we can find it and we’re keeping cash aside so we can make it through the first few months,” said Roger Bowman, a partner at Penrod Medical Equipment in Salisbury, N.C. “In those first few months, CONTINUED ON PAGE 29 CPAP questions? Check Twitter for answers its first live Q&A on the social networking site to answer questions about CPAP therapy and products. “That’s the kind of thing we focus on—to educate and inform,” said Jodie Cocke, CEO. “(Twitter) is an easy way for us to get the answers out there and it reaches a broader audience then if someone just CONTINUED ON PAGE 33