HME News Business Summit 2010 Educational Program

Monday September 13th

How Do You Measure Up?
The 4th Annual HME News/SRA Financial Benchmark Study
This is the most credible report of its kind, and every year, with more historical data to consider, it gets better. Whether it’s revenue per full-time employee, average DSO, operating expenses as a percentage of net revenue, monthly oxygen setups per sales rep or average days from a rehab evaluation to delivery (there’s lots more too), we provide solid averages based on input from hundreds of providers. The HME News/SRA Financial Benchmark Study helps eliminate the guesswork and presents reliable information that HME providers can use to evaluate and improve their company’s performance.

Presenter: Tim Pontius, Steven Richards & Associates

Ladies and gentlemen, buckle your seat belts
Professor Van Horn and the future of Medicare
Medicare and Medicaid represent a combined $54 trillion in unfunded federal liabilities. Medicare Part A is predicted to be insolvent by 2017, and some pundits expect S&P and Moody’s, in response to these ticking time bombs, to downgrade U.S. Treasury bonds by 2012. There’s nothing more important in the United States than figuring out how to make our unsustainable healthcare system sustainable. In this session, Vanderbilt University’s Professor Lawrence Van Horn tackles this mind-boggling topic head on. What can be done rationally to get us out of this mess? What are the likely impacts on HME, and if you’re an HME provider with a good chunk of your business in Medicare, what do you do? Please buckle your seats belts for this high-octane presentation.

Presenter: Lawrence Van Horn, Associate Professor of Management, Faculty Director, Health Care Programs, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University

Street Talk Workshop
Part 1: Generating Revenue
Our annual Street Talk sessions provide some of the best networking opportunities in the HME industry. Attendees divide into three groups and discuss their business highs and lows: What worked and what didn’t work? How have you addressed the rising cost of health care? Are you kicking around an idea and wondering if it’s going to fly? This is the place to get feedback. Street Talk is simple: It’s provider helping provider, and in the opinion of past Summit attendees, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Moderators:
Don Clayback, executive director, NCART
Mike Moran, HME News Executive Editor
Rick Rector, HME News Publisher

Master class
Top HME performers share their successes and failures
You can expect plenty of energy and ideas to improve your business from this panel of topnotch HME providers. Scott Lloyd’s company, Extrakare, appeared on Inc Magazine’s 2009 list of America’s fastest growing private companies. Lou Rocco heads up the largest privately held HME company in the United States, Landauer Metropolitan. And Doug Westerdahl has integrated technology into his company, Monroe Wheelchair, as well as anyone. What have these top performers done over the past year to increase revenue and decrease costs? What worked, and just as importantly, what did not? This session delivers the answers.

Moderator: Don Clayback, executive director, NCART
Panelists:
Scott Lloyd, president Extrakare 
Lou Rocco, CEO, Landauer Metroplitan
Doug Westerdahl, President, Monroe Wheelchair

What’s your adaptive capacity?
Unpredictable times require unprecedented leadership
Of all the skills company leaders need to maneuver through change, adaptive capacity is the most crucial, yet least discussed. That won’t be the case in this session by Carol Muratore. The healthcare industry is on the verge of tremendous change, and there will be no “going back to normal.” Success depends on your ability to adapt and think differently. This session examines the four components of adaptive capacity—fast, flexible, vision and inventive thinking—and how you can develop this learned skill. Once you do, you’ll enhance your ability to see new business opportunities and risks and capitalize on change.

Presenter: Carol Muratore, healthcare executive, adjunct faculty, University Of Richmond School Of Continuing Studies on Leadership

Street Talk Workshop
Part 2: Cutting costs

Moderators:
Don Clayback, Vice President - Government Relations, The MED Group
Mike Moran, HME News Executive Editor
Rick Rector, HME News Publisher

Your path to continuous improvement and profits
Leverage people, process, and technology
For the past 28 years, Janice Ahlstrom has worked hand-in-hand with healthcare companies, helping them eliminate waste and boost profits. In this session, she’ll demonstrate how Home Care Medical (HCM), a $42-million HME, has used Lean techniques to prepare for competitive bidding. The results have been astounding. Since 2007, HCM’s gross revenue has grown 18%, but by eliminating waste throughout the order-to-cash process, the company has eliminated two FTEs, boosted its fill-rate to 98.8% and improved its inventory-to-revenue ration by 15%. Janice and HCM CEO John Teeven will discuss HCM’s improvement approach, performance results and lessons learned. You’ll also learn what organizational infrastructure is required to support and sustain continuous improvement.

Presenters:
Janice Ahlstrom, CPHIMS, RN, BSN - Partner Healthcare, Wipfli LLP
John Teevan, President and CEO of Home Care Medical (HCM)

Tuesday September 14th

Who says HMEs make too much money?
CMS, for one. It’s time to find out the truth
So you think you’ve got it bad. Or do you feel like a huge success these days? Or maybe you don’t know how to feel. That’s where CPA Don Davis comes in. By analyzing a variety of financial documents, he’ll compare the performance of HME providers to companies in different, yet related, industries. How do HME providers stack up to delivery companies like FedEx? To nursing homes? To hospitals? To billing and rental companies? What can HME providers learn from these different industries? That’s what this session is all about, giving you a better understanding of what your company does well, and where it might improve. You’ll also learn how HME profits compare to those in other industries.

Presenter: Don Davis, president Duckridge Advisors

The cutting edge
Guerrilla marketing for HMEs
You don’t have to spend a bundle to make Internet marketing pay off. In this session, e-commerce and online marketing veteran Lisa Wells explains how to leverage simple, inexpensive (and sometimes free) Web-based tools and strategies to drive new business to your brick-and-mortar location. Learn how to promote referral sources online so that they promote you. Use video on your Web site to inspire confidence in potential new customers. Discover what your vendor partners can do to help with your online marketing push (a lot, Lisa says). Lisa knows HME providers often have limited time and resources, and she’ll demonstrate how to prioritize and make the most of them.

Presenter: Lisa Wells, veteran online marketing and e-commerce consultant

Don’t settle for second class
Expand the role of HME in the healthcare continuum
Competitive bidding and other reimbursement cuts threaten to disrupt patient care and transform HME providers into distributors of low-cost products. To prevent that, the industry must “come out of the warehouse” and become a fixture in the healthcare community, creating a hybrid retail/clinical role that provides products, services and chronic care support to the patient throughout his disease state. Steve Serra, the vice president of Henry Ford Health Products—the $40-million HME arm of the gigantic Henry Ford Health System—embarked on a project this year to figure out how to do that. At his disposal: doctors, insurers and other healthcare professionals affiliated with the health system. He’ll reveal his findings at the Business Summit.

Presenter: Steve Serra, vice president of Henry Ford Health Products

Listen to the referral source
Get smart and win more sleep business
In this groundbreaking presentation from HME News and Emerge Sales, Mike Sperduti explains how HME providers can beat out the competition and kick butt in the industry’s fastest growing market segment: Sleep. Take advantage of market intelligence that comes right from the source. We used a research company to interview directors, nurses and other key referral sources at sleep labs around the United States. We discovered why labs give some providers a ton of business, and give others the brush off. This session is loaded with critical information—obtained directly from referral sources. Bonus: You’ll also go home with similar market reports on hospital discharge planners and pulmonologists.

Presenters:
Mike Sperduti, president, Emerge Sales
Mike Moran, Executive Editor, HME News