Tennessee Companies Form HME-Only State Association

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The HME Advisory Committee of the Tennessee Association for Home Care announced in a unanimous decision June 7 they will not renew their TAHC membership once the group's year ends on June 30. Instead, the HME members will be moving from TAHC to a new state association for HME.

Called AtHomeServices, which stands for Association for Tennessee Home Oxygen & Medical Equipment Services, the new association will begin operations in early July.

AtHomes will be jointly managed by longtime industry executive Mike Hamilton, who will also continue as executive director for the Alabama Durable Medical Equipment Association (ADMEA), and James Herren, who most recently served as senior outreach and education liaison for Cigna Government Services, the Jurisdiction C DME MAC. Herren will be the organization's executive director, and Hamilton will serve as its senior executive advisor and executive director emeritus.

"Unfortunately," according to a release from the new association, "the government and private insurance payers in today's economy have created such hurtful and damaging financial and regulatory burdens on the HME sector that the HME provider's needs have become greater than the group believes can reasonably be addressed and maintained by the broadly-focused TAHC organization in its finite and limited resources."

"TAHC is one of the only remaining associations in the country that represents all sectors of home care — home health, personal support services, hospice — and each one of those sectors as well as ours have our plates full," said Randy Wolfe, president and CEO of Lambert's Health Care, Knoxville, Tenn., and a past president of TAHC.

"Every single one of these sectors are getting their own lap full of rules and cuts," he continued. "It's become more difficult for us to do all the things we need to do under that one umbrella, and the economies of scale would work better for us if we start an HME-only association like all the other states have today."

Because of its broad-based structure, TAHC dues had also become an issue, Wolfe said, noting that at $750, Tennessee "is the third-highest dues state in the country."

While the HME sector of the group had fluctuated between 45 and 60 members, Wolfe said, "we think there are a couple hundred active providers in the state that are candidates … We believe that with lower dues, which is also a significant part of this, we can probably grow that to about 125 or 150 this year." That, he said, would give the new association more resources to devote solely to HME issues.

"TAHC has done a great job through the years," Wolfe said. "For our guys with all they've been through, it's been a great thing to have this big umbrella to tell the story of home care, and I'm still a big advocate for that, but the kinds of issues we've got to deal with now are so intense we just have to have more focus."

Chief among those issues, Wolfe said, is competitive bidding. In Round 2, he pointed out, "Tennessee has got four metropolitan cities in a state that only has a 6.5 million population. We may have the worst ratio of cities hit for the size of the state."

In addition, he said, the state's TennCare managed care program "is very aggressive and even in the last year has moved into some pretty toxic pricing, making that very difficult." Tennessee's involved licensure laws also require a lot of activity, Wolfe added, and while audits have not really been a major issue yet, he said, "We know they're coming.

"There are so many issues affecting our sector that we just have to get some additional help and spend time focusing on them."

AtHomes' release said the new HME group plans to work alongside TAHC to continue to promote the home care agenda in Tennessee.

"This will be positive," Wolfe said. "It's a changing world and we have to adapt."

AtHomeServices' website (www.athomes.org) is currently under construction. Information about how HME providers in Tennessee can join the new association will be sent during the next few weeks. Until then, interested providers can contact Mike Hamilton at 205/824-6204.