Viemed fortifies sales force

LAFAYETTE, La. – Viemed kicked off 2024 with a restructured sales force to boost ongoing organic growth, company execs said on a recent call to review fourth quarter and full-year 2023 financial results. 

The company recently transitioned to a training and management infrastructure that takes a more localized approach, creating multiple territory sales manager and national sales directorship promotions, said Casey Hoyt, CEO. 

“This expansion and fortification of our team is driven by the vision of accommodating the growth trajectory of our organization,” he said. “By leveraging the strength of our top-performing sales personnel, we are not only strengthening the leadership of our sales force, but also fostering a culture of excellence and continuous development.” 

Viemed finished the year with 106 sales territories and the ability to add another 30 as needed, said Hoyt. 

While organic growth remains the primary goal for Viemed, its acquisition of Home Medical Professionals in 2023 highlighted the value of a strategic buy, with HMP greatly boosting  Viemed’s sleep business, as well as patient counts. The total number of rental patients is up 85% and resupply patients is up 205%, said Hoyt. 

“We continue to emphasize that for Viemed acquisitions are not a necessity but rather a thoughtful and complementary strategy to accelerate our success,” he said. 

Company execs also addressed regulatory and market changes and their potential impact in 2024, including a 75/25 blended rate for Medicare that expired Dec. 31 and that would need congressional action to go back into effect. 

“I don't have a 2023 number, but what we can tell you is it's roughly about a $3 million impact on an annual basis to our company for 2024,” said Todd Zehnder, CFO. “You can think about it at $750,000 plus or minus for the first quarter that we are not factoring in.” 

Another change in the market: Philips’ recent announcement that it is exiting the home ventilator market, even as it still deals with an ongoing recall of certain vents and CPAP devices. Viemed is still able to service current patients and is making plans for when Philips will no longer be making parts for the devices, says Zehnder. 

“It’s been going on for three years, and we diversified our fleet at this point,” he said. “And there are three other very competent vent manufacturers out there, and we're probably up to roughly 50% of our fleet being non-Philips and only getting larger every month.”