Great Life Healthcare bets on niche products, cash sales

ARCADIA, Calif. - Great Life Healthcare may be making its Medtrade Spring debut as an exhibitor next week, but the company will have a long-time HME veteran representing them at the show.

Tom Tucker, who previously worked for Attentus Medical Sales, which was bought by Medical Specialties in 2017, and Medline (not once, but twice), is the sales director for Great Life Healthcare.

“Our goal is to bring some new and innovative products to the U.S. homecare market,” he said.

Great Life Healthcare is working with a group of manufacturers in Taiwan, but it is a U.S. company that's incorporated in Arcadia, Calif., with a warehouse in San Antonio and a sales office in Paige, Texas.

The company's four initial products—a rotational bed, a bathing system, a mattress called the “Universal Therapy System” and a leg massager—will be made in Taiwan and China.

“Everything but UTS will be marketed as over-the-counter, cash/retail items,” Tucker said.

Its portfolio may be largely cash/retail products, but Great Life Healthcare plans to focus on selling to distributors, regional wholesalers, HME providers and home nursing companies—not consumers.

“We're all B2B,” Tucker said. “We want to be close to the patient, but we don't want to sell to them.”

Great Life Healthcare thinks its products will resonate at Medtrade Spring and beyond.

“This past year, we logged more than 10,200 miles showing the products to dealers and distributors in the U.S. to get feedback before we finalized our designs,” Tucker said.

Great Life Healthcare knows it will be among a large group of exhibitors at Medtrade Spring, but it believes it's bringing unique products to the market.

“A company like Drive Medical or Medline—they're great companies, but they're larger companies and they have to go after much larger chunks of the market,” he said. “We can pursue the more niche-like products.”

For Tucker, who has spent 35 years in the HME industry, attending Medtrade Spring is like going home.

“I went to it when it was the FutureShow,” he said. “There have been a lot of changes. Companies have had to do a lot to evolve and to move forward. That's challenging, but it's exciting, too. We hope we can bring something to the market to help that process.”