Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/45026
42 Vendors Customer comments Louis Feuer wants to know: Are they hiding in a shoebox in a closet? BY LIZ BEAULIEU, Editor SUNRISE, Fla. – HME providers know consultant Louis Feuer best for his energetic appearances at industry events, where he doles out sales, marketing and customer service advice. Now he also has something tangible to offer them. Feuer recently launched MedComment Center, a system that allows HME providers to automate the process of gathering, summariz- ing and analyzing customer feed- back. To meet accreditation require- ments, providers must survey their customers. "Most providers do the surveys, but I don't know if they have the data to make improvements," said Feuer, founder of Dynamic Semi- nars & Consulting. "They don't know what's a trend or not. With WWW.HMENEWS.COM / NOVEMBER 2011 / HME NEWS this system, they do." Here's how the system works: HME providers direct their custom- ers to a personalized website created by MedComment Center and ask them to take the appropriate sur- vey. There are three: retail customer, referral source or patient/caregiver. The system emails the results to the provider. West Lakes Medical in West Des Moines, Iowa, signed up for MedComment Service in Septem- ber. The HME provider looks for- ward to replacing its haphazard system for gathering customer feed- back, and improving the amount and quality of responses. "In the past, we've asked them to fill out surveys right in the store, or we've sent it home with them and asked them to send it back," said Amy Massey, HME business man- ager. "The return was never very good and the response was so spo- radic that it was hard to use it for performance improvement." After the system is in place a few months, the provider plans to review the survey results during its monthly operations team meetings. "Everyone from the financial offi- cer to the medical director attends these meetings," said Pat Reeves, director of HME. HME Maximize Value Across Your Supply Chain Dimensional Insight's, The Diver Solution™ , is designed to provide users with a single resource for all supply chain management initiatives: n Category Analytics n Channel Management n Demand Planning n Inventory Management n Order Fulfillment n Profitability Reporting n Sales Operations n Supplier Collaboration n Dashboard Development 5010 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41 man-hours into rewriting their code and putting it to the test, they say. QS/1 has had two pro- grammers working on updat- ing its system. Brightree has had eight. "It has been a significant investment, but it's an impor- tant change," said Dave Cor- mak, CEO of Brightree. "It will mean cleaner claims and bet- ter denial data coming back, which, in turn, means more cash for providers." Those providers that use web-based systems will have the easiest transition of all, software vendors say. "For clients on our hosted model, it will be totally trans- parent," said Spencer Kay, president of Fastrack Health- care Systems. "We'll just SELF-SERVICE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DASHBOARDS EMBEDDED ANALYTICS update the system at night and they'll be ready to go the next morning. For clients that have their own servers, they'll have to download the update from our website." HME DI is the engine behind the HME DataBank Dimensional Insight powers the HME DataBank with its Business Intelligence (BI) software, The Diver Solution™ . The HME DataBank is a powerful online resource that tracks Medicare spending on durable medical equipment for 117 key product categories. The HME DataBank helps you: n Determine your market share n Track competitors n Strategize for growth Learn more about the HME DataBank at: http://www.hmedatabank.com/ Learn more about DI's Business Intelligence solutions at: http://www.dimins.com/hme SUNRISE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41 Sunrise Medical also plans to freshen up the products in its existing platform, like its S636 and S646 rear-wheel drive power wheel- chairs, with the components on its new products. Those components include a powerful yet quiet motor with a low 1% return rate. "When we were evaluating the power business, we were hearing from providers that they didn't want the bells and whistles for the sake of it," said Michael Proffitt, vice president of marketing and product management. "They didn't want a level of complexity that would only cause the chair to have a higher failure rate and, ultimately, cause them to have to go out there and do repairs. That's where we saw the opportunity and that's where we started innovating." HME