Archive - February 2020

Are you using the industry-leading B2B ordering portal from medi? Orders placed through the portal and shipped to your location receive FREE shipping. Register here! How do you take advantage of medi free shipping?  Consolidate your vendors and orders to medi. Most know medi through their comprehensive offering of compression products including mediven®, circaid®, duomed and now Rejuva®. But medi is also a leading supplier in the orthopedic market delivering functional knee

By: Ryan Ball This article was first featured in Essential Advantage Fourth Quarter 2019.  Strategic planning season is upon us, are you ready? Often times strategic planning feels like you’re pulling numbers out of thin air. You have a goal in mind, but it is difficult to quantify how, exactly, to get there. In today’s world of providing specialty medical equipment, with increasing competition, women’s health boutiques must leverage business from more physicians if you

A study led by doctors from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) could make way for a medical breakthrough for patients with reoccuring breast cancer and who want to save their breast. Until now, the standard treatment when breast cancer comes back has been a mastectomy.  Doctors found that if the patient has a second lumpectomy and then treated a small portion of the breast with external beams of radiation they could target the tumor and avoid exposing surrounding tissue and

Medicare and commercial insurers are pushing providers and suppliers away from the traditional fee-for-service (“FFS”) reimbursement model and towards a coordination of care reimbursement model. Under the coordination of care model, reimbursement is tied to patient outcome, which is dependent upon providers and suppliers working together. CMS and the OIG have correctly determined that the federal anti-kickback statute (“AKS”), the beneficiary inducement statute, and the

9 Steps to Improving the Working Environment Customer service representatives (CSRs) have a very important role to play in your company. Anyone that interacts with customers or patients should have strong customer service skills that reflect your company and brand and also positively impact the customer experience.  While you may not have CSRs who work in a call center environment, these nine areas are worth reviewing for anyone who interacts with your clients, ie- anyone in your

Payer requirements and policies change frequently. It's hard for companies to keep up with all of the changes. There are some responsibilities that you can put into place to hopefully catch changes before you find out the hard way and before your cash flow suffers.  Dawn Chapman from Chapman DME Billing discussed with HME News five tasks to consider, including reviewing contracts, assigning payer groups to a team member, signing up for email communications, get access to provider portals,

Focus Conference ended on Monday, and wow, did we have a great show! Thank you to those who attended. For those who didn’t, here’s a little of what you missed: Great opening keynote session on Sunday by Dr. Regina Hampton, a breast surgeon and co-founder of Cherry Blossom Intimates, a fellow EW member. Dr. Hampton discussed how breast surgery has progressed through the years and how surgical scars, port placement, and surgical techniques continue to be improved. Networking lunch

Essentially Women is excited to announce Medline as a vendor partner. Medline’s mission is to provide quality medical products with superior value to healthcare providers and end users, improving patient care and the quality of people’s lives. Medline distributes a variety of medical supplies including: Post-mastectomy Compression Mother/Baby DME Advanced Wound Care Patient Care Orthopedic Soft Goods View Pricing If you have questions about Medline, contact

In a recent article from Medtrade, Jeffrey Baird explains how suppliers can bill for Part B for patients that reside in a skilled nursing facility ("SNF").  The typical process for patients that are admitted to SNF include staying in the SNF for a limited number of days. While in the SNF, the patient will receive rehab services designed to strengthen the patient so that he can return home. Medicare does not pay for custodial care. Conversely, Medicare does pay for skilled nursing

VGM & Associates' podcast, "Industry Matters-Powered by VGM" is back with two new episodes this week.  Episode 45: 2020 HME Outlook and Leadership Chat with Miriam Lieber is the first episode of a new leadership series featured on Industry Matters. VGM's Lindy Tentinger is joined by Miriam Lieber, President of Lieber Consulting LLC, for an informal chat about the 2020 outlook for the HME industry, leadership, and employee engagement thoughts. Listen below or click