VieMed (Nasdaq: VMD) reported growth in its sleep apnea and maternal health businesses, along with encouraging progress for its ventilator business, as the company shared first-quarter earnings results on May 6.
Casey Hoyt, CEO of the Lafayette, Louisiana-based supplier, said the results “demonstrated what consistent execution looks like across our entire platform. Our sleep business continues to scale and differentiate itself. Maternal health is performing ahead of plan. Also, in ventilation, we are starting to see the operational trends that we have been envisioning.”
Strong first-quarter numbers despite seasonal patterns
Hoyt reported first-quarter revenue of $75.4 million, an increase of 28% versus last year’s first quarter — a strong showing for the quarter that chief operating officer (COO) Todd Zehnder noted “typically runs flat to slightly down sequentially.”
Zehnder said Q1 revenue “was essentially flat compared with the $76.2 million we delivered in our fourth quarter of 2025, which is right in line with the seasonal pattern we outlined in our last call.”
“Following what was a record fourth quarter for VieMed, matching that performance low in Q1 is an achievement we are proud of and one that is consistent with exactly what we communicated as planned for the year,” Hoyt said. “Q1 carries a predictable seasonal pattern, and the business executed right in line with our internal plan. As we move into the second quarter and the balance of the year, we feel very good about the current and future quarters.”
Hoyt said VieMed’s sleep apnea segment “continued to be one of the strongest growth drivers in the business. PAP [positive airway pressure] therapy patients grew 57% year over year, and the set-up activity we have driven over the past several quarters is translating into a larger and steadily expanding base of resupply patients. We now have nearly 36,000 PAP patients on the platform. As that base expands, it brings greater visibility into future revenue and a more stable growth profile.”
Resupply patients for the quarter “were down modestly from the fourth quarter, consistent with the seasonal pattern we see every year,” Hoyt added. “Activity typically moderates as deductibles reset coming out of Q4, and we saw that dynamic play out again this quarter. Importantly, the underlying trend remains intact, with resupply patients up 47% year over year.”
Lehan’s integration progressing well
Hoyt also praised the transition of Lehan’s Medical Equipment into the VieMed family. Lehan’s, a supplier with a women’s health focus, was acquired by VieMed in July 2025.
“Lehan continued to perform well,” he said. “The integration has been smooth, and the business has been accretive since day one. A more important development this quarter is what we are seeing outside of Lehan’s original markets.”
Hoyt reported nearly 4,000 new maternal health patients “under VieMed contracts in markets where Lehan previously had no presence. That is a critical early indicator of how the model can scale. This gives us confidence in our ability to continue expanding maternal health into additional VieMed markets as we move through 2026.”
Ventilation impacted by transition to new NCD
Hoyt said new national coverage determination requirements have had a substantial impact on VieMed’s ventilator business.
“We are seeing a couple of important dynamics play out at the same time,” he said. “First is that new patient startup momentum is building faster and stronger than we expected. Referral sources are getting more comfortable with the updated criteria, the documentation process is maturing, and the setup pipeline is responding in a way that is genuinely encouraging. This is the inflection point we have been working towards, and it is arriving ahead of schedule. March was a particularly strong month for ventilator setups with 759 starts compared to 692 a year ago.
“Second is that the patient setup cohorts under the new NCD criteria are now reaching required compliance evaluation points, and the turnover rate for those patients is higher than pre-NCD. That is creating some near-term pressure on the net patient census number, which ended the quarter at 12,089 patients.
“However, I want to be direct. This is not a demand issue. It is not a competitive issue. It is a compliance dynamic that is a requisite of the new system, and it is something we advocated for, anticipated and will become industry best at under these new compliance standards.”
Hoyt said compliance from ventilator patients “has improved by nearly 20% since the NCD went into effect. That is a meaningful development and reflects patients and physicians adapting to the new standards.”
The CEO also talked about “an area where we continue to advocate on behalf of our patients,” namely when patients are determined to have been noncompliant and therefore lose ventilator access.
“When compliance is interrupted, whether due to illness, caregiver changes or clinical challenges, the current rules can result in a loss of access to that therapy,” Hoyt said. “We believe this is an area where the policy can continue to evolve. The clinical need does not change because of the temporary compliance interruption, and the patient should have uninterrupted access to therapy when appropriate.”
Looking forward to the rest of 2026
Outlook wise, Zehnder said VieMed has updated and narrowed its full-year 2026 net revenue guidance and raised the low end of the range to $312 million to $320 million — up from the previously announced range of $310 million to $320 million.
“As we move into the second quarter, we continue to expect sequential revenue growth in the range of 3% to 5% per quarter through the remainder of the year,” the COO said. “The operational signals Casey described, including improving new patient starts, momentum in ventilation and the continued acceleration in maternal health, give us good visibility into that ramp as we move through the year.”
“We are going to continue to double down on all this growth and positive momentum,” Hoyt said.
