HMe

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Apria Healthcare announced on Feb. 18 that its net revenues dropped $8.4 million or 1.6% for the fourth quarter.

Charm Medical Supply has expanded its service area to include Rhode Island, the provider announced April 27. The 10-year-old provider will spread the word of its expanded presence by exhibiting at the Prime Time Senior Expo this summer and at various health fairs across the state. It also plans to make presentations at senior centers.

AAHomecare's HME/RT Council has created a CPAP task force to look at ways to improve Medicare policy. On the agenda: policy requirements for coverage beyond the first three months of therapy; documentation and compliance requirements; and the use of advance beneficiary notices.

Most people in the HME industry know how Mal Mixon, at age 39 and with only $10,000 to his name, led a leverage buyout of Invacare in 1979 and proceeded to grow the company's annual sales from $19 million to $1.8 billion over the next 30 years.

Maine -Majors Mobility closed the doors on its second location this spring, just shy of celebrating its four-yearanniversary.
"It was so close to breaking even," said President Tyrrell Hunter. "It's too bad, because this year, I think it would have crossed the line."

Hospital readmission rates for certain disease states cost Medicare up to $20 billion annually, and a provision in the recently passed healthcare reform bill aims to reduce those numbers. Industry consultant Patrick Dunne, president of Fullerton, Calif.-based Healthcare Productions, spoke with HME News recently about how respiratory providers have an opportunity to market themselves as value-added partners that will help hospitals reduce those rates.

The Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce named Thad Connally, president and owner of First Choice Home Medical, as its "Small Business Person of the Year" in March.

As one of East Texas' fastest-growing businesses--and a healthcare business to boot--Senior Respiratory Solutions was selected for a site visit by Lt. Governor David Dewhurst in April. David McDonald, president/owner of the Texarkana-based neb-med provider, spent two hours talking with Dewhurst about healthcare reform and the importance of creating good jobs.

"We're trying to convince them to create an advisory council," said Terry Flatt, Iowa state chairman for the Midwest Association for Medical Equipment Services (MAMES) and executive vice president of Hammer Medical Supply in Des Moines. "They were lukewarm initially, but they are getting (used) to the idea."