The three most-read HME Business stories of Q1 2024 featured some of the biggest names in the home medical equipment (HME) industry, and hinted at what the future could hold for those companies and the industry at large.
Why Cardinal Health ‘Wants to Be a Major’ Enabler of At-Home Care, written by Joyce Famakinwa, featured an interview with Cardinal Health at-Home Solutions President Rob Schlissberg, who explained how an organizational revamp is enabling Cardinal Health’s at-Home Solutions business to expand beyond Cardinal’s medical-surgical unit.
“On the provider side, Edgepark, strategically we’re going to be heavily focused in the diabetes space,” Schlissberg said in detailing strategic plans for this year. “When you think about some of the changes that the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made recently (expanding coverage of CGM [continuous glucose monitoring] Type 2, basal insulin users), that market is growing. Our ability, as one of the larger diabetic providers in the country, is we provide a service that is needed, so we’ll continue to focus there both with our commercial populations, but really heavily focused on our government populations.”
In AdaptHealth Gaining Ground with Humana, Making Progress on CEO Search, written by Robert Holly, Richard Barasch, AdaptHealth’s chairman and interim CEO, noted the company’s “terrific fourth quarter” that resulted in AdaptHealth finishing 2023 “with a great deal of positive momentum throughout our business” during a Feb. 27 earnings call.
“We finished the year with a very favorable quarter driven by continued strength in our sleep and respiratory product lines and the expected improvement in our Humana contract,” Barasch said. Since that story was published on March 5, AdaptHealth announced its new CEO, Suzanne Foster, a health-care industry veteran who will take over on May 20, according to an April 17 news announcement.
And in Philips Respironics Announces Major US Portfolio Reductions, by Laurie Watanabe, the HME industry learned that the future respiratory landscape won’t include one of its historically largest manufacturers.
“In the U.S. and U.S. territories, Philips Respironics will focus on the sale of consumables and accessories, including masks, and will not return to the sale of hospital ventilation products, certain home ventilation products, portable and stationary oxygen concentrators and sleep diagnostic products,” Philips’ Jan. 25 announcement stated.
Then on Jan. 29, Philips announced it had agreed to the terms of a consent decree related to Philips Respironics’ American business operations.
For more information on the consent decree, read Philips Agrees to FDA Consent Decree on Sleep, Respiratory Care Devices.
If you liked the future-looking stories on Cardinal Health at-Home or AdaptHealth, check out VITAS HME Leader: ‘There Is an Urgent Need and Expectation for HME Providers to Evolve’ and 6 Key Quotes from HME Executives That Capture Market Trends.
And stay tuned for our top Q2 stories, coming this summer.
Image: istockphoto.com/ikonacolor
