5 tips for launching a new product category

When HME providers want to grow their business, many think beyond just serving more patients. They find additional lines of therapy that can help them not only add patients, but also offer existing patients more treatment options.

Successfully adding a new product category takes research and planning. We'll outline five phases of the process that will help set you up for a successful HME business expansion.

New product and market discovery

The first step when adding a new product category is to evaluate your current operating model. If you add a new product, how will it fit into your existing business? It's also important to be clear about your goals for expansion. Are you looking to bring in new revenue? Increase patient satisfaction? And finally, you need to understand the market you're entering and make sure you have the resources and knowledge in place to adequately meet patient and regulatory needs.

Establishing a foundation for operational excellence

The building blocks for operational excellence include your products, your people, the processes you follow and the technology you use to support the work. Each of these elements needs to be in place to successfully add a new therapy line.

When expanding your lines of therapy, just adding more people isn't enough. You need to bring on people who are knowledgeable about the new category and its details, who have the experience to guide your existing team members as your business grows to support new therapies and new patients.

An evaluation of your existing business allows you to establish a baseline for comparison after you add a therapy line. Key areas to examine and track include the number of orders you book every month, as well as the length of time it takes to:

• Verify patient insurance
• Gather physician documentation or follow-up on denials
• Onboard a new hire
• Train a new hire to process orders correctly

Defining workflows

Establishing a workflow for your new therapy line is key to its success. The first step is identifying which of your patients could benefit from the new line. After that, understand all of the qualifying documents and required physician signatures you'll need. Develop a process to gather these documents and onboard your patients-especially for sleep therapy lines, since there is a 90-day compliance period that requires monitoring the patient and making sure they're using and benefiting from the therapy.

Once a patient begins a new therapy, have a process for checking in on them and gathering the data you need to help them manage ongoing needs, especially around resupply. It's important for your business to have a process to keep up with the standard schedules for replenishing key supplies like sleep masks, filters and tubing. This not only helps improve the patient experience and health outcomes, but it's revenue for your agency. Using a technology tool to set up these workflows on the front end helps reduce manual labor and means that these recurring orders can be a steady source of revenue.

Partnerships

There's a lot to manage in terms of the properly timed patient outreach so your HME can process and deliver supplies and equipment on the correct schedule. Developing a comprehensive process is much easier when you use automated workflows and support, which is why it's important to engage with partners who can help you be successful.

The right partnerships can make it easier for you to grow your business. Work with partners who can educate your patients about the importance of resupply for better therapy outcomes. Find a vendor who can help you digitize and automate every stakeholder touchpoint, from physician notes and prescriptions to patient appointments and taking orders. When you use technology to support these processes, you're not only adding convenience, but you're also storing your agency's "tribal knowledge" into a system, which will make it easier and faster to train and onboard new hires.

Defining success

Launching a new therapy line is a journey, from research to implementation and execution. How can you tell if the new line is a success? What should you measure? Every agency is different, but a framework to begin with might include three things: the amount of activity generated, which can be measured by the number of new set-ups; the quality of the work, measured by patient compliance and satisfaction; and the financial results, based on revenue or profits.

Some additional points to consider measuring are claim denials, which give you insight into how well you're qualifying an order before you bill, and knowing each payor's required documentation for prior authorization. Each of these tasks can be supported with technology so you can build rules into the system rather than relying on staff knowledge.

Focus on the basics

Maintaining a focus on people, process and technology as you expand your offerings is the best way to help make sure your patients have the tools they need to stay on therapy, that interactions between patients and employees are supportive and productive, and that your employees feel they are engaged in meaningful work. This winning combination can create value for your company, and lead to higher revenue.

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