Calling all providers of home oxygen therapy

I love getting feedback from HME News readers, especially when they're taking us to task.

I received an email this week from a reader who complained —very nicely, for the most part—that all of the most read stories in our Top 5 Respiratory for October were about CPAP and none were about oxygen. (We consider “respiratory” to cover both product categories.)

The reader wrote: “Could you possibly consider adding at least one non-CPAP story to the fold, as many of your readers provide more than just CPAP. We could use a story or two on O2 delivery models, innovative products and such articles that help us provide better outcomes to our oxygen patients.”

I had also noticed that all of the most read stories for October were about CPAP.

But when we pull the most read stories from Google Analytics, we don't cherry pick. We literally go down the list of most read stories for the month and pick the stories that have to do with CPAP or oxygen.

For October, there were five stories about CPAP before we could get to any stories about oxygen.

I have several thoughts about this:

Does this happen often, or is this just an anomaly? (In the Top 5 Respiratory for September, there were three stories about CPAP and two about oxygen; in June, there were, again, three stories about CPAP and two about oxygen.)

Are there more CPAP stories in the past few months because of a major change to how providers provide supplies? (I bet when the 36-month cap went into effect for oxygen, there were stories about oxygen than CPAP.)

Are more providers talking about CPAP, because more of them are moving into that business or trying to grow the supply side of that business? (At least 75% of the stories we write, we get from talking to people with boots on the ground, not from press releases and the like.)

The reason I love getting feedback like this: Now I have oxygen on the brain. What are providers doing in this area? Like the reader mentioned, how are providers changing their delivery models, how are they improving outcomes? These are questions we'll be asking when we make our cold calls for the January issue. (The December issue, believe it or not, is out the door early next week!)

In the meantime, two oxygen-related items that have been posted to our website in the past few weeks include this interview with Todd Anzalone at Inova Labs on competitive bidding fueling adoption for portable oxygen concentrators (POCs) and this interview with Bob McCoy of Valley Inspired Products on the changing business model for respiratory providers.

While I'm thankful for this reader's feedback, I'm not thankful for how he closed his email:

“I know you pull this from a readership ranking but, darn, it looks like either someone on your editing staff is a former CPAP therapist or your selection is biased to your full page ResMed and Respironics advertisements.”

No, and no.