Communicating HME's value
Clinically sound. Patient-preferred. Cost-effective.
These are adjectives that stakeholders all agree describe the role HME providers play in the continuum of patient care. But too often that message doesn’t get through to those who most need to hear it—CMS, legislators, physicians and referral sources.
“Because we haven’t made our case to show that HME is an essential part of the continuum of care, it’s only been viewed as a commodity,” says Vernon Pertelle, a former Apria exec who’s now president and CEO of consulting firm StratiHealth. “The focus of policy makers is on how much cheaper they can get the commodity.”
As regulatory crises like competitive bidding have run the industry ragged, HME providers have failed to assemble evidence of their clinical and financial efficacy, say Pertelle and other industry experts. Read More