Durable medical equipment (DME) management is a key part of any hospice or home care agency. It's not just an operational necessity — almost any practice can improve its day-to-day workflow and finances by treating it as a strategic function.
Poor DME management creates a domino effect. Logistical inefficiencies can quickly escalate into unnecessary costs and administrative burdens. And of it can have an enormous impact on patients, caregivers, and families.
Here are some common misconceptions about DME, the impact they have, and how you can fix them.
We get it: At first, DME doesn’t seem to be much more than a logistical necessity. But inefficient management can trickle into several aspects of your operation, causing problems and burdens on different levels.
The financial impact is obvious.
Overspending on equipment, duplicate orders, and billing errors are all common occurrences in hospices with poor DME management. The roots of these issues can vary from lack of tracking to vendor inflexibility — but the problem remains unsolved.
But it’s not just about errors. Sometimes a lack of research in DME strategies can force hospices into higher-cost agreements. By depending on a single vendor for the sake of simplicity, entire operations are subject to limited (and expensive) service options.
Strategic DME management can reduce expenses by up to 25% through better vendor selection and automated invoicing. Your day-to-day operations can suffer collateral damage from poor DME strategies. Manual and tedious ordering processes can significantly slow down care deliveries while also burdening your staff with unnecessary paperwork.
Vendors aren’t safe from blunders either, as unexpected delays in deliveries and pickups are everywhere in the DME business. Your team inevitably wastes valuable time managing orders and resolving supply chain issues — and patient experience suffers as a consequence.
A well-integrated DME system optimizes hospice operations, centralizes ordering, and real-time tracking. These problems ultimately affect the most important people in your hospice: your patients. DME service failures, ranging from late deliveries to malfunctions, can quickly translate into discomfort and pain.
Families and caregivers feel the impact too. Frustration and stress creep in when a piece of equipment doesn’t arrive on time. We aren’t just talking about hospital beds and wheelchairs here — urgent, vital equipment such as oxygen tanks can also take a hit from poor DME practices.
In fact, 19 of the 47 Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) questions are tied to DME responsiveness and efficiency. DME performance can have a direct impact on hospice ratings.
A strategic approach to DME management is an integral part of a value-based care model. But how do you put this into practice?
Most DME management issues have the same source: reliance on a single vendor.
Models that focus on exclusivity instead of flexibility can create cost inefficiencies, service disruptions, and a world of administrative burdens. And that’s not to mention the lack of accountability and competition.
A vendor-flexible approach to DME allows you to choose between different options instead of relying on a single entity. Your hospice gets what it needs based on performance, cost, and responsiveness — from whoever is able to provide it the best.
Using alternative vendors gives you a backup plan for any operation. Vendor flexibility in hospice settings also promotes competition, driving prices down and bettering service agreements.
At Qualis, our approach to strategic DME management gives you full control over your supplier network. We simplify your cost-effective hospice operations through a centralized platform.
There’s another piece to the DME logistics puzzle: data and technology.
Instead of relying on manual order entry and tracking, an automated digital system helps you reduce errors and administrative workload. The same platform processes all the details, giving you real-time reports and analytics to track costs, performance, and reliability.
Regular performance evaluations and feedback from other businesses can help improve your DME management over time. This makes it easier to improve processes and can greatly enhance the patient experience.
With Qualis, hospices can switch to a data-driven hospice equipment strategy so every financial and operational decision has a profound impact on efficiency.
DME is much more than a logistical burden: it’s a key piece of the puzzle when it comes to efficiency, financial sustainability, and patient experience. The industry faces several problems due to deeply rooted DME issues — and we’re here to help.
Through our centralized platform and flexible vendor approach, we are ready to turn DME into a strategic advantage for your practice. Automated workflows, data-driven insights, and a broad DME vendor network are just some of the advantages we bring to the table.
Contact Qualis today for a free DME evaluation and see how better DME management can transform your hospice.