HMEB Podcasts
The HME Business podcast offers an insider’s view into the home medical equipment (HME) industry. Host David Kopf, the executive editor of HME Business magazine and HME-business.com, examines key HME news, trends and developments, and interviews various experts to find out how HME provider owners and operators can run efficient, profitable and growing businesses while providing service and care that cements lasting patient and referral relationships. If you’re an HME industry professional, and you want to stay in the loop about smart business strategy and tactics, this podcast will become a regular listen for you.
Jan 09, 2020
Staffing presents a tricky challenge for HME providers these days: Human resources are expensive, and in a competitive marketplace with winnowing reimbursement, they need to avoid wasting their team members’ talents on billing busywork. Outsourcing is one option, but a new company, Tactical Back Office, offers a unique solution that lets providers tap into lower-cost labor markets. Co-founder Todd Usher swings by the HMEB podcast to tell us more.
Duration: 19 min
Sponsored by Tactical Back Office
Jan 23, 2020
Respiratory care is learning that there is a wide variety of patients that need help with clearing their upper respiratory system so that they can achieve better alveolar ventilation. Enter nasal high-flow therapy, which began in the hospital setting, but is now entering the home setting thanks to new HME innovations. James Gibbons of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare discusses how providers can offer new care solutions and drive increased revenue in the process.
Duration: 25 min
Sponsored by Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Inc.
Feb 14, 2020
Providers have felt the retail imperative for years, and some have even transitioned to – or began as – entirely retail businesses. But it’s not a slam dunk; there are some key things to do and assets to put in place. Faisal “RJ” Poonawala joins the podcast to talk about how his business, Spring Branch Medical Supply in Houston, Texas, made the switch to retail, the lessons he’s learned, and the initiatives he’s undertaking to not only succeed, but expand as well.
Duration: 31 min
Feb 20, 2020
As HME providers in the western states prepare for the March 3-5 Medtrade Spring in Las Vegas, the American Association for Homecare is taking its regular AAHomecare Update, running March 4 from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., in a new direction with a new format and increased audience interaction. AAHomecare President and CEO Tom Ryan explains why AAHomecare decided to change things up and offers a peek at what’s in store.
Duration: 14 min
Mar 27, 2019
Longtime HME Business contributor Sandra Canally, founder and CEO of accreditation organization The Compliance Team, chats with Executive Editor David Kopf about where accreditation has been, where it is going with trends such as the bid gap, the emergence of specialized accreditation, and how these services are helping providers sharpen their edge while improving outcomes for patients and referrals. She even gives us a sneak peek into a soon-to-come service from The Compliance Team.
Duration: 25 min
Sponsored by Compliance Team
Mar 14, 2019
Nikki Jensen, vice president of Essentially Women, joins HME Business Executive Editor David Kopf again, this time to discuss The Breast Cancer Patient Equity Act, why Medicare needs to fund custom breast prostheses, and the #LetHerDecide awareness and advocacy campaign. Then Wayne van Halem, president and founder of audit consulting firm The van Halem Group gives listeners the low-down on six-year lookback audits and what they need to know about them.
Duration: 28 min
Feb 27, 2019
HME providers are constantly hunting for opportunities to diversify and broaden their revenues, and two such openings are managed care contracts and women’s health. HME Business Editor David Kopf sits down with Jeffrey S. Baird, Esq., the chairman of the Health Care Group at law firm Brown & Fortunato P.C., to learn more about managed care contracts — as well as a series of articles he’s written for HMEB on the topic — and he also chats with Nikki Jensen, vice president of Essentially Women, to learn more about her organization and the opportunities in women’s health.
Duration: 27 min
Feb 15, 2019
The 116th Congress has been in session for a few weeks now, so HME Business Editor David Kopf checks in with Tom Ryan of the American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare) and Don Clayback from the National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology (NCART) to find out what they have in the works in terms of their legislative and regulatory agendas for 2019.
Duration: 28 min
Jan 29, 2019
To kick off the HME Business Podcast, host of the podcast and editor of HME Business Magazine David Kopf gives some insight into the mission and future of the podcast. He is joined by HME sales expert Ty Bello, who offers listeners some takeaways as to what providers should be doing for strategic sales planning.
Duration: 13 min
Apr 29, 2019
This special episode examines how providers of more than sleep therapy supplies—for example, incontinence, diabetic supply, and enteral nutrition—can expand and optimize their resupply programs to increase revenues and patient care. Executive Editor David Kopf interviews Morgan Dopplick, the Director of Connect Operations for Brightree, and Margaret Lindskog, the Director of Operations for ReSupply Live Call at Brightree, about how providers can maximize resupply best practices and technology innovations.
Duration: 16 min
Sponsored by Brightree
Apr 10, 2019
Industry legislative expert Cara Bachenheimer of industry law firm Brown & Fortunato and General Counsel to the American Association for Homecare, offers key details on Round 2021; how providers should prepare; and a new educational site to help them. Also, AAHomecare President and CEO Tom Ryan and NCART Executive Director Don Clayback discuss their organizations’ upcoming events.
Duration: 32 min
May 28, 2019
Each spring, the American Association for Homecare hosts its Washington Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. to help providers meet with their lawmakers and staff on behalf of the industry. This year’s event, held on May 22 and 23, slated more than 300 meetings covering a packed agenda of items ranging from rural relief, to protecting respiratory concerns, to CRT. In this episode, a variety of industry advocates talk about their meetings, the industry’s priorities, and how all providers can help in the weeks after the event.
Duration: 19 min
Jun 07, 2019
In this episode, Seth Johnson, senior vice president of government relations for both Quantum Rehab and Pride Mobility Products, talks about Quantum Rehab’s iLevel. Now more than 25,000 consumers use the technology, which lets users of complex rehab power wheelchairs travel at walking speeds while their seats are elevated up to 12 inches. Moreover, various payers are funding it. The big question is when will Medicare join them? After that, Gary Sheehan, president and CEO of Cape Medical Supply Inc., talks about how his sleep business work to improve patient compliance with their sleep therapy.
Duration: 39 min
Jun 21, 2019
John Gallagher, vice president of VGM Government Relations, and Ronda Buhrmester, Director of Reimbursement for VGM, discuss CMS’s decision to change the zip code designations for 381 zip codes. Then, Ty Bello, president and founder of HME sales training and coaching company Team@Work, and Jonathan Walters, vice president of Leadership Development & CRT Coaching, share their insights into new approaches to HME sales strategy, including driving new business by tapping into the CRT market.
Duration: 20 min
Jul 14, 2019
After a long career in business-to-business media and the HME industry, HME Business Publisher Karen Cavallo is retiring. Executive Editor David Kopf — who will move into Karen’s role as publisher — sits down with Karen to talk about her storied career in media and the home medical equipment industry. The two reflect on the major changes that have occurred both in HME and media, and the interesting ways those changes have interplayed with one another over the years.
Duration: 28 min
Jul 31, 2019
In this special edition of the HME Business Podcast, Executive Editor David Kopf interviews with Dr. David White, chief medical officer of Philips Sleep & Respiratory Care to examine a specific sleep therapy condition, positional sleep apnea, which deserves some special attention. Roughly 30 to 40 percent of apnea patients have the condition, and they can have twice as many apneas and hypopneas when they’re on their back. Dr. White discusses a new device that aims to help those patients manage the condition, which could open up new care and business opportunities for providers.
Duration: 20 min
Sponsored by Philips Sleep & Respiratory Care
Aug 23, 2019
Jeffrey Baird, Esq., chairman of the Health Care Group at industry law firm Brown & Fortunato, P.C., discusses Medicare and Medicaid managed care opportunities, and how his Sept. 5 webinar, Managing the Managed Care Opportunity (hme-business.com/webcasts), will help providers negotiate managed care contracts. Then, Jim Worrell, chief commercial officer at Quality Biomedical, discusses the complicated challenge faced by providers when it comes to managing their “fleet” of equipment and how the Q-Connect equipment management platform can help them.
Duration: 25 min
Sep 03, 2019
In this special edition of the HME Business podcast, Executive Editor David Kopf interviews Sunil Krishnan and Fadi Haddad of HME and post-acute software company Brightree to take a deep dive into Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). They discuss what RCM is, how RCM can help HME providers better manage their businesses, how they can shape performance metrics around their RCM, and how they measure and analyze their performance to improve efficiencies and profitability. Sponsored by Brightree, this is one episode that providers with an eye on strategic business management won’t want to miss.
Duration: 36 min
Sponsored by Brightree
Sep 20, 2019
Did you know home oxygen fires kill one home oxygen patient every four days in the United States? Do you know what HME providers can do to help mitigate the issue? In this special edition of the HME Business podcast, Richard Radford, managing director of BPR Medical Gas Control, joins the podcast to discuss a new study his company produced that examines the incidence of home oxygen fires in the United States and how to mitigate the risk of them. The data might surprise you.
Duration: 30 min
Sponsored by BPR Medical Gas Control
Oct 18, 2019
Just in time for the Halloween season, we break some SCARY audit news: The HHS Office of Inspector General has expanded its audit workplan to include PAP supplies — again. Sleep equipment providers might recall that HHS OIG clamped down on claims for replacement PAP supplies in June 2018 after reporting that it had made overpayments of almost $631.3 million at that time. Now HHS is at it again, and sleep providers risk having their claims subjected to six-year lookback audits and expensive recoupments. We talk to audit expert Wayne van Halem to learn what sleep providers need to know and what they should be doing right now.
Duration: 11 min