ProCare Blogs

Last month we explained how transparency plays an important part in your DME partnership. This month we are going to cover a topic that is near and dear to me, cleanliness of equipment. The idea that a DME company provides clean equipment is so fundamentally basic that most professional care organizations take it for granted. Sadly, industry standards have slipped with reimbursement rates, and you may not be getting the services you think you are. In the 2014 HME Business article “Keeping Things Clean” author David Kopf cites durable medical equipment, specifically support surfaces, as a potential risk to patients for cross contamination. He details the need for the DME industry to pick-up cleaning standards. With ever diminishing reimbursements, and pressure to keep DME costs down, cleaning is one of the first corners cut.

DME plays a vital role in quality patient care. It is also a potential hotbed for cross contamination. The current industry standard for cleaning DME is a quick “spray and wipe” technique. All DME companies should at a minimum use a quaternary or phenolic disinfectant to kill germs. However, spraying the equipment and giving it a cursory wipe is a long way from truly disinfecting the equipment. At ProCare we take pride in our Patient Ready Certified (PRC) Program. We are so proud we branded it. All our rental equipment goes through a thorough cleaning that takes a substantial amount of time. We use toothbrushes and Q-Tips to clean those hard-to-reach places. Our air surfaces are disassembled and hand sanitized. The PRC standard is as close to factory new as we can possibly get it. This is probably our most inefficient process, but it’s critical for the safety of our customers.

This article is not intended to bash the industry or our competitors. There are a lot of good DME companies with strong cleaning procedures. Make sure that your DME partner falls into this category. Ask the driver how they process equipment. He or she is very likely to give you an accurate detail that the sales rep will not or cannot. If they clean the equipment in the van between pick-up and delivery for another patient… run. That is not cleaning for patient ready status. As bad as that sounds, it does happen. Sadly, many companies view this as an opportunity to cut expense from the process to stay competitively priced. Your patients are the unwitting potential recipients of this practice. Make sure that your expectations and your DME partner’s practices are aligned. If not, it may be time to shop.

Now the commercial… Despite the inefficiencies caused by a “deep clean” process, ProCare commits to maintaining the cleanest DME rental equipment in the industry. Our PRC Program is our promise that every piece of equipment we rent is disinfected, and as clean as humanly possible as the day we received it new. ProCare also offers equipment repair and maintenance programs for organizations that prefer to own DME instead of renting it. Our technicians deep clean and deodorize your equipment between patient uses to dramatically reduce the risk of cross contamination. We can also fix most of the stuff you have lying in a closet (or shed or back hallway). Support surfaces, concentrators, wheelchairs, and bed frames. Own it or rent it, we make sure it’s clean and working to provide the therapy your patients need. For more information about our PRC services please don’t hesitate to call us at 208-322-5055. If you have a minute check out our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/ProCareInc and follow us to stay up to date on upcoming inservices and events.

Have a great spring!

Chris Hunt

President, ProCare Medical Equipment

We continue with part two of our five part series. Last month we discussed the value of service as a primary component of what to expect from your DME provider. This month we will cover the importance of transparency. If your current DME vendor’s definition of transparency means they are virtually invisible until they need something, then it may be time to have a conversation with them.

Expenses

The healthcare industry is a continuously evolving landscape shaped by state and federal regulations, accreditation requirements, the economy, political environments—the list goes on. As a result, we need real-time information to ensure that we stay ahead of the curve and make decisions based on accurate information. Your DME budget is a significant portion of your monthly expenses, and with the right information you can bring it in line with your revenue goals. This is where your DME value partnership kicks in. A good DME partner should help you understand your expenses, learn about your specific operational goals (as relating to DME), and help you choose the best products based on patient needs and not rental rates.  

Reporting

You should have, at a minimum, regular access to what equipment is currently in your facility, what equipment is assigned to which patient, how long the equipment has been in your facility, the daily/monthly rental price and how much you have spent to date. This will allow you to make decisions about your DME program including when to purchase long-term rentals and how to manage the therapeutic needs of your patients, as well as maintain a vigilant eye for unnecessary items that may have been lost in the shuffle or billed past their pick-up dates. Over the past 10 years, I‘ve seen the average DME expense decrease by more than 50%, because facilities have reviewed this type of information on a regular basis.

Invoicing

Another important area of transparency involves invoicing. During my time with AP/AR professionals in hospice, skilled nursing, LTACH and in-patient rehab facilities, I’ve seen invoices ranging from immaculate to atrocious. Know that each customer (facility/organization) is different, and that each has specific preferences. It would be nearly impossible for a DME company to establish a perfect invoicing system that every customer would universally embrace. However, it shouldn’t take an interpreter with a degree in forensics to decipher your monthly invoice. You should be able to see at a glance what is/was in your facility and where during the invoicing period. In fact, if you have weekly rental reports, it should be easy for you to assess your invoices and move it through the system faster.

Does your DME partner provide a transparent system that helps you meet your DME goals? If not, have a discussion with them. It may be as simple as alerting them that you expect more. At ProCare we have an automated reporting system providing weekly reports to our customers regarding their current DME. We have the ability to customize reports, frequency of reports, and the distribution list of recipients. Again, not all DME companies have this ability. At the very least they should have some type of system that allows them to maintain accurate records of their inventory (that’s an accreditation standard). Ask for it. If they aren’t willing to establish something for you, it might be time to go vendor shopping.

I hope you all had an incredible 2016 and that your New Year’s went off without a hitch. We are looking forward to 2017 and the opportunities that it brings for both us and our client partners. Stay tuned next month for the third installment where we will cover the need for cleanliness. I know that seems like a no-brainer, but you might be shocked at what industry standards allow into your facility and for your patients. After that we will discuss “A Partnership Mindset” and “Experience.” Thanks again! See you next month.

Cheers,

Chris Hunt, CEO at ProCare