Archive: May 2005
ALJ to CMS: Pay attention to CMNs
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
LAS VEGAS -- An administrative law judge has ruled recently in two separate cases that the certificate of medical necessity is the only document needed to prove medical necessity. Both cases involved providers of power wheelchairs.
CMS has appealed one case and has until June 1 to appeal the other.
In both instances, Judge Daniel Loughry cited last summer's Maximum Comfort ruling. In that case, Judge Lawrence Karlton of the Eastern District of California ruled that Medicare auditors could not require...
Dennis Doherty emerges as the next home oxygen icon
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
Forty years ago, New York cardiologist Alvan Barach served as the physician patriarch of ambulatory oxygen by promoting home-based respiratory therapy. Later on, his protege, Denver pulmonologist Tom Petty, continued his mission of advancing respiratory therapy, serving as a staunch advocate for home oxygen patients. Now that torch is being passed once more, with Kentucky pulmonologist Dennis Doherty emerging as the successor.
Doherty, professor of medicine and chief of the University of Kentucky's...
Sleeping giants pile up 20% growth
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
RESPIRONICS
MURRYSVILLE, Pa. -- Respironics is poised to become the second publicy traded company in home care to break the billion dollar sales milestone. With the April 21 announcement of its third quarter sales ($236.5 million), the company should eclipse the billion-dollar annual run rate sometime next month, thanks in part to a healthy 20% growth clip.
With the milestone comes a new facility. In March, the company paid $5.5 million for a 138,000-square-foot facility for home care. A new family...
HME Sherlocks deduce likely sites for competitive bidding
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
CHICAGO -- CMS won't start talking about which 10 cities will be first up for competitive bidding until it issues a notice of proposed rulemaking at the end of this summer, but that doesn't mean the speculation hasn't begun.
Last month, the research firm that's helping CMS develop plans for competitive bidding, the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), held focus groups in Chicago and Dallas to learn more about the possible impact on small suppliers.
Nothing in the CMS announcement suggested that...
Trinity Homecare makes providing travel O2 work
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
DALLAS -- Believe it or not, Allan Jackson has built a nice cash niche delivering oxygen to patients who need it to navigate from one airport gate to another. It's the kind of job, that in a perfect world, most providers would like to say no to.
"All of this meet and greet in the airport is rife with opportunity for service failure because someone gets stuck in traffic or a flight gets delayed after the provider has sent a driver and they have to sit around waiting for the patient to get there,"...
Selinger sentenced to 18 months
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
ATLANTA -- Two years after Irwin Selinger resumed his position as CEO of Graham-Field Health Products, a federal judge sentenced the longtime HME industry executive to 18 months in prison.
Last summer, Selinger, 64, was found guilty of charges that as CEO in 1997 he fraudulently inflated Graham-Field's profits in order to improve the company's financial health in a stock-swap deal for Fuqua Enterprises, the parent company of Lumex.
The sentencing shocked Selinger, who is now seeking a stay of...
Dispensing fee denials plague Lincare, others
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
WASHINGTON -- A hiccup in the process of billing for respiratory medications and the newly established dispensing fee has caused more than a few problems for providers -- and a mountain of denials for one industry giant.
"We have more than 10,000 claim denials for these dispensing fees," said Lincare's Chief Operating Officer Paul Gabos during an April CMS open Door Forum.
Gabos said that the DMERCs, most consistently DMERC B, deny claims for the dispensing fee code when the time span between the...
AAH selects MedFORCE for document imaging
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
MONSEY, N.Y. - The HME industry has been crawling towards paperless document management over the past few years, but the principals behind a new agreement between MedFORCE Technologies and AAHomecare hope that it finally touches off a stampede.
The recently inked deal designates MedFORCE as the "document imaging provider of choice" for the national association and offers discounts to 3,000 AAH member locations across the United States.
The MedFORCE Scan system is designed specifically for the...
Billing: merely a piece of the electronic pie
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
With all the integration capabilities of today's automation technology, it seems anachronistic to continue using the term "billing systems" when referring to the electronic options available for modernizing HME office functions. Sure, billing is a key component in the provider's revenue flow, but it isn't an island and shouldn't be segregated when shopping for an IT solution, software vendors say.
"HME providers aren't in the billing business -- they are in the business of delivering products and...
M&A: 'No indication it will slow'
May 31, 2005HME News Staff
YARMOUTH, Maine -- First quarter mergers and acquisition activity continued the same torrid pace the market experienced last year.
"It was a very active quarter, and I see no indication that it will slow down," said Bob Leonard, a broker with the Braff Group in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Most brokers called 2004, if not their best, one of their best years ever. Overall, 90 HME companies changed hands last year, compared to 86 in 2003, according to the Braff Group.
In the first quarter of this year, Steven...