Speaker Q&A: Stand out using clinical outcomes, customized care 

ATLANTA - Asking referral sources to “order from me because I give good service,” isn’t going to cut it, says Karen Lerner, clinical vice president at Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare. Here’s what Lerner, who is co-hosting a Medtrade session on the importance of using clinical outcomes to drive referrals, had to say about what to track and how to get attention. 

HME News: How can providers use outcomes to drive referrals? 

Karen Lerner: It can be a simple thing like keeping track of patient falls, hospital readmission rates, COPD exacerbation, emergency room visits. If the patients who come to me have a reduction in all those things, I'm gonna show value (versus Amazon). 

HME: Which clinical outcomes most resonate with referrals? 

Learner: The big ones are hospital readmissions and emergency room visits, because those two things are tracked by every regulatory (body) and payer. 

HME: How can providers stand out? 

Lerner: They should regularly invite customers, clinicians and prescribers to their store or warehouse and show them how they measure someone for a walker or the variety of beds, wheelchairs and mobility assistance equipment (they offer), so they don't think that everybody gets exactly the same (care). It's customized; it's individualized. That's how you affect clinical outcomes. 

HME: What’s one thing providers can do to positively affect clinical outcomes? 

Lerner: Since competitive bidding reared its ugly head over a decade ago, most providers give preference to the least costly product that fits a billable HCPCS code and it's like we're sticking everybody in a K1, 18 x 16, standard wheelchair, whether they're 5-foot tall, 6-foot tall, weigh 100 pounds or 300 pounds. That's bad from a clinical perspective; it's bad from a fall perspective; it’s bad from a PR perspective. So instead of racing to the bottom, you have to match the product to the patient. That's how you positively affect clinical outcomes.