‘Reputation is everything’ at Williams Bros. 

WASHINGTON, Ind. – After “being courted” by several health care groups in underserved areas, Williams Bros. Healthcare Pharmacy picked Evansville, Ind., for its 14th location. 

The new location is focused primarily on respiratory therapy, including CPAP, Bi-PAP, cough assist and non-invasive ventilation, but it has been quick to respond to local needs. 

“We started this mainly as respiratory, then we had an orthopedic clinic ask us to get walkers and wheelchairs and so we’re doing a little of that,” says Chuck Williams, executive vice president of HME. “We will also have oxygen tanks at that location for people who need to swap tanks, but we will (otherwise) serve oxygen patients out of other locations.” 

Williams Bros. began as a pharmacy in 1899 and then three fourth-generation Williams brothers started their own branch of the business in a 4,000-square-foot Walmart shopping center with five employees in 1988. Today, the company has grown to 14 locations with more than 500 employees serving primarily southern Indiana, with some reach into Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio.  

With a nearly 125-year history, it’s hardly surprising that the Williams Bros. name was top of mind when the community came calling for an HME provider to enter their market. 

“Our reputation is everything to us,” he said. “I like to say the brothers have built the business one patient at a time – every patient is a mother, a daughter – we take it very seriously. Our job is to help people get better.” 

While Williams Bros. prides itself on being a family-owned independent company, it faces the same challenges as other providers, particularly operating under fixed fee schedules from payers. The company lost 38% to 40% on some of its core products, when Medicare’s 75-25 blended reimbursement rate certain products in non-bid, non-rural areas expired on Jan. 1. 

“There’s reimbursement pressure, supply chain, labor challenges, increased costs – those are the pressures that everybody’s feeling,” he said. “We have to find the most efficient technology and, not to replace people, but as the business grows, we have turnover, and we have to look at outsourcing and offshoring for some of that labor.” 

Still, Williams remains optimistic about the future of HME, as long as the industry continues to demonstrate its value. He’s involved with both AAHomecare and VGM and works regularly to do that. 

“We are such a small slice of anybody’s pie, it’s easy to overlook us,” he said. “The key to bending the Medicare spending curve is to take care of more patients in a more cost-contained environment and that’s the home.” 

Another reason to be optimistic about the future: “The sixth generation has been born,” says Williams.