Medforce comes out swinging

YARMOUTH, Maine - Increased competition driven by a consolidating HME industry has made it more and more important for Medforce Technologies to clearly communicate its offerings, company officials say.

“Companies are getting bigger and bigger, and if you don't represent yourself correctly, you're going to get lost in the shuffle,” said Esther Apter, founder and CEO of Medforce Technologies. “You need to differentiate yourself in the market.”

That's why Medforce recently revealed a new brand identity complete with logo, tag line (“The Power of Productivity”), product names and website. The new product names—Command Center, RemitCenter, Forms Center, ZipMit—describe how the company's system can be used as a hub to connect disparate business applications through a centralized resource for workflow management and data storage.

One of the biggest obstacles Medforce is up against: The perception that bigger software companies are all-in-one solutions, making a solution like Medforce's unnecessary.

“Yes, all of the products have a portion of what we have built into their system,” Apter said. “But we specialize in all of the things that they have as add-ons. It's like the difference between having a TV with a built-in speaker, and a TV with a surround sound system.”

There have been instances where providers have dropped Medforce, only to come back weeks later, company officials say.

“Providers need to realize, they may have a document management program, but we're not the same thing lopped off as a standalone,” said Ellen Sluder, director of marketing, who joined Medforce a year ago in January to help the company ramp up its marketing. “It's not the same thing as a robust document management solution that has auto-filing and can be customized.”

Once the message gets through, Medforce has a loyal following—it has the numbers to prove it.

“We've experienced roughly 25% growth from year to year,” Apter said.