On the Editor's Desk

In the time we reported on the November issue (roughly three weeks), not one but two major hurricanes hit the Southeast. Both made landfall in Florida, but one, Hurricane Helene also had an impact as far north as Tennessee and western North Carolina. After Hurricane Helene, provider Brian Wilson told us his delivery techs described the Asheville, N.C., area like this: “It’s like an atomic bomb went off.” When storms like these strike, HME providers are particularly impacted. The...

Just as we were putting the final touches on the October issue, Apple announced that its new smartwatch would include a sleep apnea feature.  We were expecting this. Earlier this year, Samsung Electronics announced that the sleep apnea feature on the Samsung Health Monitor app had received de novo authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and everyone expected that Apple and Google were not far behind.  Following Samsung’s announcement, a consistent topic of...

HME stakeholders have been fighting Medicare Advantage for some time, particularly when it comes to these plans not following Medicare policy and coverage for complex rehab technology and non-invasive ventilators, two product categories for patients with the greatest needs.  At the Heartland Conference in June, there was even a panel discussion titled “Dealing with Medicare DISadvantage Plans - Are You Ready, Martha?” Stakeholders continue to take it up a notch.  AAHomecare...

I had a conversation recently with someone who has been in the HME industry for quite some time – as a vendor and as a provider – and he said something to the effect of: The industry needs to give up on reimbursement getting better and lean into technology to make what little reimbursement there is more profitable.  That’s not a hard line I would draw – and, of course, neither would AAHomecare and other industry stakeholders.  In fact, stakeholders headed to Capitol...

When Change Healthcare acknowledged that it had been hacked by a “threat actor” named “BlackCat” and subsequently had to disconnect its systems, we were fairly certain it would be the subject of the cartoon and HME Newspoll for the April issue.  There were other ideas, of course – Theresa and I are nothing but a font of content, are we not? – including a poll on the impact on the HME industry of Dexcom’s plans to offer a continuous glucose monitoring...

During the final stages of getting the March issue out the door, Managing Editor Theresa Flaherty and I also had on our to-do list coming up with a guest for the February episode of the HME News in 10 podcast.  Given the recent decision by Philips to exit the home oxygen concentrator and ventilator markets in the United States, we thought it would be important to invite someone who could speak to the continued tumultuousness of the larger respiratory product category in the past few years.  This...

It’s that time of year to look at the year that was – in HME News stories.  As we were putting together the finishing touches on this January issue, I pulled the 10 most read stories for 2023.  I was pleased as punch to see a story we published about Miller’s opening its fifth location in Ohio was the No. 1 most read story of the year by a long shot. In a year when the CPAP recall, supply chain challenges and increased costs weighed heavily on the industry, I’m...

YARMOUTH, Maine – One of the most interesting takeaways from the HME News Business Summit in Charlotte, N.C., Oct. 22-24, was just how much commercial insurers care about patient satisfaction.   Brad Heath, an executive vice president with AdaptHealth, was part of a panel at the Summit on disruptive partnerships with payers. AdaptHealth, along with Rotech Healthcare, as we all know, has a contract with Humana to provide certain home medical equipment services to its Medicare Advantage...

AAHomecare and VGM will host another virtual lobbying day next week, on Nov. 13, to help push reimbursement relief bills in the House of Representatives and Senate across the finish line before Congress wraps up its work for the year.  The event will build on AAHomecare’s annual Washington Legislative Conference, which took place less than two months prior, on Sept. 20.  Managing Editor Theresa Flaherty and I can’t swear by it, but we haven’t seen...

YARMOUTH, Maine – It was big news when UnitedHealthcare announced it would reduce the number of product codes requiring prior authorizations. Cigna soon followed suit and then Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and others. While it was big news, it wasn’t surprising.  The American Medical Association (AMA) has been on a fierce campaign to reduce prior authorizations. On its website, the AMA characterizes it this way: “Prior authorization is a health plan cost-control process...