Investment in Tomorrow Health demonstrates value of HME

NEW YORK – With a new $60 million investment under its belt, Tomorrow Health plans to “double down” on its partnership with the HME industry, says CEO Vijay Kedar. 

“This funding is a demonstration of how valuable the HME industry is and will be toward transforming health care overall and that’s what investors are motivated by,” he said. “Our focus and our intention is to be the best possible partner to HME suppliers big and small and to enable them to fulfill their strategic goals as a business.”  

Tomorrow Health launched in 2020 to work with Medicare and private insurers to provide respiratory, mobility, wound care, urological and nutritional products.  

The company has also sought to build out a network of HME suppliers to fill orders and has worked to elevate its status in the industry by, among other things, becoming a Diamond Corporate Partner with AAHomecare and bringing in its own advisers when appropriate to contribute to strategic and advocacy efforts, says Kedar. 

“I think early on we could have done a better job of explaining who we were and who we were not, and the role we wanted to play,” he said. “Initially, suppliers questioned that. Was it a partnership and if so, how can we work together? We’ve aimed to be more clear about that over the last year.” 

From his perch at a company that ties together payers and suppliers, Kedar would like to see a shift away from what he says has often been an “antagonistic relationship” with payers, putting a heavy emphasis lowering costs, oftentimes by lowering reimbursement or narrowing provider networks. 

“Where we’ve seen success is in our engagement with payers is working at the executive level to help them understand the impact HME can have on reducing total costs of care,” he said. “It’s not, ‘How we can have less HME?’ but, ‘How can we have more HME and recognize that effective HME in the home is still a lower cost than paying for an in-patient stay?’ We’ve been able to capture that data through our platform and demonstrate it to payers.”