Trace Medical: 'We can help you get business'

WHITMORE LAKE, Mich. - Trace Medical's provider customers now have access to SunMED Medical Solutions' contracts with hundreds of managed care and other payers for non-invasive and invasive ventilators.

Per an agreement, SunMED Medical subcontracts with Trace Medical, and Trace Medical, in turn, subcontracts with their provider customers, says Elliot Campbell senior vice president at Trace Medical.

“The process is simple,” he said. “If you're one of our provider customers and you find yourself out of network with a payer, you submit an intake form to us and we work on the approval with SunMED for that payer. If the payer approves, we issue our provider customer a purchase order. We're a rental company that can help you get business.”

Trace Medical and Marlton, N.J.-based SunMED announced the agreement in April of 2019, but they're officially rolling it out in the first quarter of 2020.

Campbell calls the agreement a win-win-win. Ideally, Trace Medical rents more vents (and collects a nominal processing fee), SunMED gains scale (and collects a nominal processing fee) and provider customers diversify their payer mix.

“Sure, the margins are lower for providers, but they're accretive,” he said. “The best thing is, there's no risk for them; Trace holds all the risk. It's upside only.”

Campbell believes the agreement is a strong play for its provider customers to make a dent in Lincare's and Apria Healthcare's dominating presence in the vent market.

“We know there are 100,000 vents in the market today and if we can get a fraction of those, 5% to 6%, that's enough to turn the wheel,” he said.

The timing of the agreement—before CMS announces the new payment amounts for Round 2021, which includes non-invasive vents for the first time—is important, Campbell says.

“I mean, look, we owe it to ourselves,” he said. “In the unlikely event that they decide not to include it in this round—everything we've seen, even though it has been lobbied against, makes it look like they're going to move forward with it—either way we're diversifying ourselves. Everyone at the table is diversifying themselves.”