Need your help! Home Tele-Health and Remote Home Patient Monitoring

Are DME/HME providers and dealers ready to enter a new opportunity, the potentially lucrative “Home Tele-health” segment of health care?

I want to hear from you.  I need your help! Please send me your thoughts via e-mail (shelly.prial@att.net). This information will allow me to make an important decision.

This following appeared in an earlier blog this year: “A very brief description is that the patient can sit down at their Home tele-health station and send their vital signs instantly to their physician. The patient is able use the BP Cuff, spirometer, scale, and blood glucose monitor, oximeter, EKG and other equipment currently available. By themselves or with the aid of family caregivers, they can affix the equipment and in seconds the reports are forwarded STAT and monitored.” Russ Willcutt, Editor of HomeCare Magazine gave this a great introduction in their July Issue.

As the local source your company, will be working with the patient’s physician, nurse, therapist and/or family caregiver. You are the provider! If you have any interest, thoughts, hesitations, ideas or questions please send them. Share them with me and I will bring them to the folks that run Medtrade.

Our industry has an opportunity now to get into a very interesting new industry as an integral part of their normal operation. No, it is not easy, but neither is it difficult. There are very few new items available to the average DME/HME dealer with so much opportunity.

I would like to hear from you ASAP. I plan to make a formal proposal August 15 to Medtrade to include Home Tele-health and I need your opinions. PLEASE send them to me!!!!!

Odds & Ends

So many things are happening, and so quickly that I think today I will just ruminate.

There was a most interesting article in the WSJ a few days ago, about senior citizens. It appears that today Americans are living much longer. We are approaching the age of 82, not 65, as it was when the SS regs were published.

This being the case, may I suggest that every DME/HME provider try to reach to them more promptly. Belonging to clubs like Rotary or Kiwanis is very important. I visit many clubs and see that in my mid 80s I am not unique. Arrange to speak at a churchmen’s or ladies club meeting, visit the schools and other places where seniors gather.  Do not go as a salesman; go offering ideas and ways to maintain one’s life style. Today the seniors have more discretionary dollars in their pockets than previously, so cater to them!

I receive the e-mails from a large number of state DME associations, the ones they send to their members. They do a superb job of addressing all the legislation and other problems. It is so important to follow their leads and ideas. If you are not a member of your state and national associations, you should be. The information they send will help you remain solvent and continue to grow.

I see that so many state associations are holding their annual meetings in the next few months. Be sure you are there. The speakers and vendors who support them need to speak with you. So much is accomplished at these and you find true peers to work with there.

I am already making preparations to attend the Fall Medtrade Exhibition in Atlanta. This is the culmination of the efforts made on your behalf by an entire industry! No DME/HME provider should miss Medtrade this year. It is going to be the most important Medtrade ever! You will find many new ideas with which to build sales, increase profits, and to open new doors like home tele-health. I will be there, will you?

Make Your Cash Register Sing

I was chatting with a neighbor at the supermarket this morning. He pointed to the checkout stations and said, “Listen to the music”. The lines were long and the ringing up of the sales really played a beautiful melody. I recognized the tune, I am an old retailer.

One of the driving forces when I prepare these blogs is to help our readers build more cash sales. Yes, make your cash registers sing.

How? When you shop or visit any of the major marketers there are signs identifying every area. First-aid, incontinence, diabetics, wheel chairs, scooters and as many titles as products they offer. These departmentalizing signs do not have to be very large. I visited a local Walgreen Pharmacy and found every section clearly identified. You can do the same!

I was in a rather interesting location in Rochester, NY. This dealer went one step further. Every section had a sign mounted. However, he also developed two “rooms” displayed along one wall: a bathroom and a bedroom. These were brightly lit and every item on display had an attached price tag. He made the rooms look so realistic because he framed in each what appeared to be window with a view.

After preparing these displays he went a few steps further. He changed the items displayed on a rotating basis. Then, he arranged to have a sales person from one of the manufacturers whose items were featured every Saturday from 9:00 AM until noon.  Their job was to demonstrate, answer questions and provide literature. The entrepreneur was very pleased when he saw how many new sales were made.

To promote these demos, every Thursday an announcement was sent to the local radio stations and newspapers. He proudly posted this announcement in his showroom window.

You can develop similar music in your showroom by promoting these programs. At Medtrade you can discover a myriad of items suitable for this type of promotion. Become the bandleader and make music and new profits.

You can make a difference!

I saw a quote from Elbert Hubbard, an American author born in 1859. It is so appropriate today that I felt you also must see it: “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”

Interesting that in 1859 citizens faced similar difficulties to what we do today. Things happen so quickly that by the time a dealer has adjusted to one, another appears. In the past 62 years many opportunities and difficulties have risen to the surface and I have watched how dealers get things done. The entrepreneurs adjust while the others are thinking, “what should I do.”

Via these blogs I have been showing original marketing ideas that DME/HME dealers have shared with me. One of the reasons I stroll the show room floor at Medtrade is to greet and chat with attendees. What has always fascinated me is how so many have coped with change. I report these in my blogs and will continue to do so. Please feel free to e-mail (shelly.prial@att.net) some of your accomplishments so that other DME/HME dealers will see them. In this fashion you will make a difference.

When I speak to dealers I always ask if they belong to their state and national associations. Invariably the answer is “yes, we do!” Yet it appears far too many DME/HME dealers do not. There are two national associations, AAHomecare and NAIMES, as well as the state DME associations. A dealer may think, “well it’s OK because they work for me whether I belong or not.” I have heard that comment often. It is wrong! You can make a BIG difference when you belong to your state and national associations. Your dollars will make them much more effective and maintain you in business!

When I discuss this with accountants or attorneys, they all agree that membership is a normal cost in operating a business. They indicate very specifically without the support and work these associations do on your behalf, you might find yourself forced to close. Make a difference¡ If you are not currently a member, please become one and then solicit the other providers and dealers you know to get on board. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Doing What Comes Naturally

I have had the pleasure of meeting so many DME/HME providers in my 60 odd year career.  When we speak, I usually ask about the way they approach the market in their hometown. The answers I receive are all basically they same.  They are doing what comes naturally.

There are no secrets to becoming a good marketer! Although you may not think that you are a good marketer, the truth is that you really are good.

All markets must be approached as if they are unique. In a small town or village, the competition usually is not a major department store or supermarket. There, you are an integral part of the community. You belong to the local business club, church and went to the local school. You are doing what comes naturally, speaking, promoting and participating. All of this reflects as your business grows.

As the size of a market expands, the competition becomes more apparent, then one has to approach things differently. Everything you do is to keep you company name recognized. A DME/HME dealer in Maryland sponsored a baseball team and that was good enough to be invited to participate in a major Little League competition upstate N.Y. One entrepreneur belongs to a Rotary Club and his location became the source of tickets to their various fund-raising activities. Another organized a bowling tournament which has been active for almost 20 years.

A dealer in southern Illinois hires a big horse-drawn wagon to carry neighbors “apple knocking” every fall. These trips have sent loads of people picking apples and he said the cost is minimal for his company.  In California, way up in the mountains, that local DME/HME provider gives a “good health” chat on a local radio station and it has been expanded to local TV. 

By doing these things, they each have developed a large following and a nice ROI. All of the efforts I mentioned are providers “doing what comes naturally.” You, too, can do it!

Customer Service

This morning I received a call from an old friend, a DME provider in Vermont. One of his customers rented a hospital bed for their mother. He reviewed all the instructions with her, but he got the impression that she was not at ease. 

The next afternoon he picked up the phone just to see if every thing was satisfactory. They were on the phone for more than twenty minutes!

In the morning her husband stopped by the showroom to express his appreciation for that phone call. He said his wife was concerned she would not be capable of giving her mother the attention and care she needed. However, after that conversation with the owner, his wife relaxed and lost the trepidation she had. His “thank you” was worth a million dollars. This is customer service.

So what is customer service? It is something that you and all your employees have to comprehend. It is a smile, a cheerful hello and listening. Always allow your customer to take the lead when they come to shop. They will tell you what they came for so you can satisfy their need. The customer must ask and you must listen. In a previous blog I wrote about an aggressive salesperson and how a sale was lost. A soft approach is always effective.

I know several DME proprietors who ask at  their staff meetings ask one of their sales people to speak about an experience with a customer. His team learns from one another and his business continues to grow. Word of mouth from satisfied customers is the best advertising you can earn! This is what happens when your company staff understands customer service.

Congratulations Mal!

A. Malachi Mixon III, known to all of us as MAL has once again been recognized for all the excellent work he has done on behalf of healthcare and the industry.

The Ohio Hospital Association presented Mal with their Health Care Leadership Award.  On behalf of all the DME/HME providers, I want to say “thank you” to the Ohio Hospital Association.  

It is a privilege to add my comments to acknowledge how much he is recognized and appreciated by all. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe Mal and a few associates purchased a small wheelchair division from a Cleveland based company in late 1978.  What he has accomplished now is the dream of every entrepreneur. He was able to build a small company and grow it close to an annual $2 billion company.   

But, that is just a bit of what Mal Mixon has accomplished. Without Mal leading the industry battle vs. negative legislation, supporting the state associations, working closely with all the dealers, teaching them how to sell merchandize, DME would be nothing like it is today. So Mal, my congratulations!

I know you have retired, but I look forward to seeing you at many more Medtrade Exhibitions in Atlanta and Las Vegas. An entire industry joins with me is saying “thank you”.