VGM Fulfillment frees up providers

WATERLOO, Iowa – VGM Fulfillment’s new CPAP Direct to Home Fulfillment Program drew interest from more than a dozen provider members in its first week in May.

The program, which ships CPAP devices directly to patients on behalf of providers, is another step by VGM Fulfillment to free up providers to do what they do best: care for patients, says Jeremy Stolz, president.

“We started to get more and more requests to do this during the pandemic, when things that were usually handed off to patients in person needed to be delivered to their doorsteps,” he said. “It was an obvious extension of our resupply program. There’s a lot of excitement around it.”

VGM Fulfillment ships CPAP devices from various major manufacturers, including ResMed, Philips, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and 3B Medical, on a consignment basis, also freeing up cash and other resources for providers.

VGM’s licensed professionals and trained technicians can set the CPAP devices to prescribed specifications, or providers can use cloud services provided by numerous manufacturers, like Care Orchestrator from Philips, or phone or video calls to remotely set up patients, Stolz said.

“We’re providing the logistics service – the providers continue to interface with the patients as they have before,” he said.

Providing logistics has become an increasingly popular service, but Stolz says VGM Fulfillment differentiates itself with its knowledge of the HME industry.

“We care about the provider,” he said. “We understand how billing works. We have integrations with billing systems. We have licenses and accreditation.”

In areas where larger companies tend to thrive, like transit times, VGM Fulfillment is making investments. It has distribution centers in Waterloo, Iowa, Phoenix, and Nashville, Tenn., and plans to open a center in Harrisburg, Pa., in the third quarter of this year, Stolz says.

“We’re building up a network,” he said.