Third Tuesday Employee Profile: Michael Sheehan, Assistant Business Manager

This months "Third Tuesday" profile features Michael Sheehan, our Assistant Business Manager in an engaging conversation about the important role financial management plays in an increasingly volatile reimbursement environment and the hard work he is engaged in to ensure continued profitability and earnings expansion.  Michael has done a wonderful job working with our vendors and team members to achieve substantial savings of both money and time and continues to look for solutions which will create savings, while enhancing the customer and employee experience.

You’re the assistant business manager; tell us about what you’re doing and how the recent changes in reimbursement have affected your role, focus and priorities.

As Assistant Business Manager of Cape Medical Supply I have a lot of different tasks but my priority is to work with all departments in trying to achieve fiscal excellence. To me, fiscal excellence means making sure the company remains profitable, identifying different areas to cut costs, and trying to grow the organization without sacrificing our overall goal of improving the lives of those we serve. In a nutshell, I oversee almost all the finances that run through the company. That being said, it has been a challenging year due to our reimbursement rates being cut 9.5 % by Medicare on 1/1/09. In turn, the cuts allowed me to analyze the company from a different perspective and I began to focus a lot of my efforts at expense reduction. I have been working vigorously with vendors on reworking contracts/reducing current rates, trying to make systems within the company more efficient, educating myself with industry news so I can make well informed decisions and utilizing all my abilities to help steer Cape Medical Supply towards a healthier future. It’s been a tough year but we’ve made great progress; the company continues to grow and looking forward I think we’ll remain strong by sticking to our mission of providing the highest level of service and care possible.

Our parents started this company in 1977…we work here together – what’s that like for you and how much does the success and quality of the company mean to you personally?

The company was started before I was born so Cape Medical Supply has always been an important part of my life. Our parents were able to grow Cape Medical Supply out of a garage into a thriving Cape business servicing thousands of customers from Provincetown to Boston…I am extremely proud of their accomplishments. I am also very proud of my brother Gary for taking control of the company and continuing to grow it far beyond what my parents ever imagined. To be honest, working alongside Gary is motivating, fun, educational, helpful, and although a lot of our personal time is spent talking about the company, it is very rewarding to be working alongside my brother, adding to an idea that was spawned 32 years ago. I believe Cape Medical Supply provides a great benefit to the community and I believe whole heartedly in everything we do. The success and quality of this company is extremely important to me and I will continue to work hard at ensuring it remains a force in the home healthcare industry.

Our government is currently crafting a healthcare reform package; what do you think is important for inclusion in that package? Also, having met with legislators and officials in Washington DC yourself, what are your fears with the reform efforts?

My greatest fears in the efforts being made in Washington right now regarding the healthcare reform package are that our industry will be overlooked, yet again, and reimbursement rates will continue to suffer leaving the end user, the patient, hurt. When rates are cut, eventually service suffers and the people the bill is meant to help will be hurt. Home healthcare is a cost saving mechanism for the government and should be looked at as that. It’s a common myth among many that our industry is overpaid for the services we provide. In the past 6 months I have been down to D.C. twice in order to help keep our elected officials better informed on what our industry does and how different tasks are performed. Although I feel these trips have had an impact, there is still much we must do as an industry and a country to prevent our government from further hurting its patient population. I could go on for hours about this but will conclude by stating I’m not 100% sure of everything to be included in the bill but I would hope they are weighing current and future patients needs more than anything else and looking at how they can make the changes necessary to maintain the quality of our current system, but reign in the exorbitant growth in expenditures – further utilization of homecare and hospice services are obviously at the center of getting that done.