Separating the Winners from the Losers in the Next HME Era

As reimbursement pressure, documentation requirements and patient financial responsibility all rise, successful providers will stop thinking in terms of individual workflows and instead start modernizing their entire operating system — from intake and fulfillment to resupply and revenue realization.

Automation, backed with intelligence, can create new pathways to revenue that manual processes simply can’t achieve. And HME providers’ business is going to depend on it.

Customers that adopt Brightree’s HME business management solutions see real wins, such as averages of 15% increase in net revenue ratio, 7% lower days sales outstanding and 15 fewer days to confirm and bill orders — while significantly reducing claims denials.

“The single most important differentiator will be operational intelligence, built into the workflow,” says Addison Perrymond, Head of Product for Brightree. “In the next phase of HME, success will not come from having the most people manually pushing work through fragmented systems. It will come from the ability to use automation and intelligence to move faster, with fewer errors, more predictability and better patient outcomes.”

Here are three keys to separating successful HME providers from those that fall behind.

Key #1: Optimize the Full Order-to-Cash Workflow

When margins are tight, every inch of improvement counts.

A full end-to-end approach to automation means connecting intake, eligibility, documentation, delivery, billing and collections to reduce operational friction and accelerate time-to-therapy. For providers, this ultimately means better patient service and a platform for referral growth.

“We don’t sell hospital beds and wheelchairs — we sell people’s time and we sell confidence,” says Tom Flynn, National Director of Field Operations – Post Acute, Hospice, and Respiratory DME, for Aspen Lake Medical Equipment, which serves roughly 2,500 to 3,000 patients per month across three states. For Flynn, the ability to move fast is critical: processing orders quickly, coordinating with referral partners and getting equipment onto a truck and into the patient’s home without hesitation

Aspen Lake Medical Equipment’s adoption of Brightree in 2025 as its business management platform led to an acceleration of its growth. With a previous software solution, it had experienced friction across operations that stifled its ability to increase its customer reach.

The difference between stagnation and growth, Flynn says, is the speed at which the entire workflow takes place, from intake to delivery of a hospital bed.

“It’s getting the order onto a truck and getting that technician to the patient’s home to deliver that hospital bed so that they can discharge tonight,” he says. “Say it’s Friday. If the patient doesn’t discharge today, they’re going to be in the hospital until Monday. Because we use Brightree, we have so much power around our ability to move quickly.”

The Difference Between Winners and Losers in…

Order-to-Cash Workflow

• Winners connect intake, documentation, fulfillment and billing into a single, coordinated workflow. Orders move fast, clean and without rework.
• Losers manage each step in isolation, where delays, missing information and handoffs slow down time-to-therapy and cost them referrals.

Key #2: Build an Intelligent Operations Layer

There was a time when excellence in Microsoft Excel was a skill that could put a person ahead in a company, and a company ahead of its competition. Those days are gone. Today, when someone references manual spreadsheets, they’re either referring to their old processes — or they’re unknowingly stuck in the past.

“With our old partner, we would have to run our own reports in Excel, build our own graphs and charts, and manage everything manually through our own efforts and production,” Flynn says. That approach doesn’t just slow teams down — it limits visibility.

As Flynn puts it more simply: “Before, we couldn’t measure anything.”

Modern operations require more than reporting. They require intelligence embedded directly into the workflow. Not after the fact, but at every step.

“One of the things that’s always challenging is hitting all service and billing dates,” Flynn says. “Brightree just has such a robust and capable platform for managing all of that.”

That capability goes beyond organizing data. It actively improves decision-making and execution. Instead of identifying issues after submission — or worse, after a denial — intelligent systems surface problems before they impact revenue.

“There’s so many warnings and so many ways to not miss something… you’re sending in clean claims so much better,” says Angie Ralston, Billing Manager at Ortho Source Incorporated. “If you make an error, it’s because you didn’t pay attention to the warnings it was giving you.”

This kind of embedded intelligence transforms how work gets done. Data is no longer something teams compile manually, but rather something the system continuously evaluates, validates and acts on.

“A lot of times in this industry, providers find out about a mistake when they don’t get paid,” says Mike Lorenz, Head of Resupply at Brightree. “We catch those things upstream so downstream it’s all automated.”

With an end-to-end workflow and an intelligence layer that connects intake, qualification, billing and delivery, providers gain more than efficiency. They gain control over accuracy and timing, which ultimately gives them control over financial performance.

That control translates directly into measurable impact: fewer denials, faster cash flow and greater value from every order.

“Sustainable growth does have to come from automation,” says Doug Brandberg, Brightree General Manager. “And getting more value out of every order — not just adding staff. That means you will reduce the cost to serve, minimize manual intake and rework, improve claim rates and accelerate your cash flow.”

The Difference Between Winners and Losers in…

Intelligent Operations

• Winners surface problems early and upstream to prevent a domino effect of errors, leveraging modern operating systems to support intelligence.
• Losers still use manual processes and spreadsheets, potentially allowing claims errors or other billing issues to snowball.

Key #3: Strengthen Revenue Realization

By modernizing revenue cycle management and patient collections, providers can better navigate an evolving payment landscape. More than half of Medicare-eligible enrollees are now in Medicare Advantage plans, while patient financial responsibility continues to rise due to high-deductible health plans and increasing premiums.

A modern approach to workflows delivers the confidence that intake and billing errors are minimized and that patient collection is automated. This ensures HME providers can better realize revenue and align with payer requirements.

“With Brightree, we have a system of record that is so locked down in terms of the information flows and the rigor and structure of how we are able to collect and hold documentation,” Flynn says. “It gives us tremendous confidence when we are working with our compliance partners and going through our own self-audits. We also obviously gain more confidence when we have Medicare or other agencies that do their on-site audits with us.”

The revenue benefit is twofold. First, as payer requirements change frequently, systems that automatically manage those updates help providers stay aligned and avoid costly errors.

Second, as patient financial responsibility rises, these systems support collections by prompting patients throughout the process and adapting to their preferred communication and payment methods — whether via app, text or phone.

“As the provider, I can make smarter decisions and more cost-effective decisions when it comes to communicating with my patients,” says Jennifer Leon, Head of Patient Collections for HME business management solution Brightree. “Providers today have to rely on a more intelligent solution as it pertains to the payers and the patients because margins are being compressed and costs are going up. With respect to the overall experience, not only is it the payer but it’s also the patient. You have to have a system that’s going to support both sides and work in collaboration.”

The Difference Between Winners and Losers in…

Revenue Realization

• Winners manage through and adapt to payer changes seamlessly. They also support patients by communicating with them via their preferred channel and supporting them through the payment process.
• Losers chase payer changes as well as patient communications without an intelligent system to manage those processes.

What’s next for today’s winners

By adopting a modernized business management solution with operating intelligence that is geared specifically to HME providers, those providers can separate themselves as winners in terms of patient satisfaction, RCM success and ultimately, by capturing more revenue and margin.

“Providers who do not adopt intelligent automated solutions that help scale their business and provide cost concessions will no longer be here in five years,” Leon says. “These providers already know that they’re operating on razor-thin margins. They are looking to people like us at Brightree to ensure that their software solutions they are utilizing and paying for are taking them to the next level.”

This article is sponsored by Brightree, whose core platform supports the full lifecycle of HME/DME operations, enabling providers to run complex, revenue-critical workflows with greater consistency and confidence. Built on workflows already proven in real-world HME environments, the platform continues to evolve to help teams work smarter as operational demands change.

Brightree enables seamless data sharing across referral sources, manufacturers, patients and health care systems, supporting an interoperability-first approach. From intake through billing and resupply, teams can manage reimbursement, reduce variability and stay compliant through workflow-native automation that minimizes manual effort and reduces errors. The result is more predictable operations, stronger financial performance, and better experiences for both patients and staff. To learn more, visit www.brightree.com.