Hub's expands amid pandemic

SELINSGROVE, Pa. - It's one thing to open a new store under normal circumstances, it's another to open one during a global pandemic. But that's exactly what Hub's Home Oxygen & Medical Supplies did when it opened its seventh location in August.

Located in a former Sears building, the 4,200-square-foot location will allow the company to serve its growing customer base.

“We've been planning this location for about a year-and-a-half, so we had this well planned long before COVID-19,” said Eric McNulty, vice president of business and finance. “We had to make the commitment to say we're going to continue with it. We were planning on opening in July of 2020 and we ended up opening the doors August 3. With the pandemic, we were extremely happy with our timeline.”

Founded in 1955 as a wholesale distribution company selling medical supplies to doctors, hospitals and nursing homes, Hub's turned to DME in the late 1970s and now offers oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, CPAP and BiPAP devices and supplies, wheelchairs and more.

One bright spot for Hub's was how quickly it received its Medicare number and Joint Commission inspection for the new location. Plus, federal funding from the Paycheck Protection Program helped keep their employees employed, which “was a major goal of ours,” said McNulty.

Otherwise, it's been business as usual—as usual as the new normal allows. The company saw an increase in some product lines, like hospital beds, because people wanted to get loved ones home and out of hospitals and care facilities. Oxygen also saw a slight uptick, but CPAP took a hit since many sleep labs were closed.

“We saw an increase in business from 2019 through 2020,” said McNulty. “We're fortunate. We're the only independently owned HME that has brick-and-mortars in some of our areas—there's counties where we're the only ones.”