Before, during and after Irene - HME providers go to extraordinary lengths to keep the oxygen flowing
Published on Tuesday, September 06, 2011
The following press-release is from the New England Medical Equipment Dealers (NEMED) Association and features content from Cape Medical Supply regarding the situation around Hurricane Irene. We remain intensely proud of our preparedness and the energy with which our team responded to the challenges of our patients and our community, which contributed to great safety and outcomes for our patients and reduced burdens on first responders and other emergency personnel, ultimately reducing the costs borne by taxpayers and municipalities to respond to what proved to be a very disruptive weather event for the region.
New Bedford, MA – September 2, 2011 - As Hurricane Irene was making her way up the East Coast last week, home medical equipment (HME) providers who supply home oxygen equipment were busy contacting their patients to assess their needs. Thousands of home oxygen users were contacted throughout New England by their HME provider in the days leading up to the storm. Many providers delivered oxygen tanks to their patients before the storm reached our area. You see, the problem for home oxygen therapy patients is that they use oxygen concentrators to deliver the prescribed dose of oxygen. These machines require electricity. When the power goes out, they need back up oxygen tanks to hold them over until power is restored. As this story goes to press, there are still thousands of people without power in New England.
The efforts of these companies throughout New England helped to keep loss of life to a minimum and prevented emergency hospital admissions. According to Karyn Estrella, executive director of the New England Medical Equipment Dealers Association (NEMED), “Our members did an excellent job (and are still doing an excellent job) keeping people in their homes. Only in situations where they were unable to get to the patient in a timely manner did the patient need to go to a hospital. The efforts of these providers saved insurance companies, like Medicare and Medicaid, millions of dollars in emergency hospital admissions.”
Irene took an unusual course and affected areas of New England that are not usually affected by hurricanes. While HME providers of home oxygen were impacted throughout New England, some were disproportionately affected, especially in Connecticut.
The State of Connecticut experienced a state-wide massive power outage of over 800,000 customers, the largest in the state’s history. Health Complex Medical had over 110 oxygen patients in 53 different towns that lost power. In addition 2 of their offices also lost power. Service technicians were dispatched on Sunday to the high risk patients during the height of the storm. Some patients moved to hotels, shelters and family member homes where the power had been restored. In those cases service technicians set up duplicate equipment at the alternate locations. To date over 500 oxygen cylinders have been delivered by Health Complex alone and after the power has been restored, all of that equipment then has to be coordinated for pick up. As of today there are still 155,000 statewide customers without power. Health Complex Medical continues daily to be in contact with every oxygen patient experiencing power loss and will do so until all the power in the state has been restored. Jack Hogan of Health Complex Medical said, “This storm has spoken volumes to the level of care provided by the HME community. Many of our patients have phoned in to express their deep gratitude for the level of response and care they received.”
Liberty Rehab and Patient Aid Center of Stamford, CT instituted their company disaster plan on Thursday, August 25th. They started contacting their high risk patients first, followed by notifying all skilled nursing facilities that they would increase the amount of back up equipment in each facility. By mid-day Thursday, more than 40 calls were received from home-bound patients requesting additional oxygen for back up in the event of a power outage. Due to the publicity of the storm, Liberty received more than 100 additional calls by Friday morning for additional oxygen. All nursing facilities also requested additional liquid oxygen vessels to be placed in their facilities to be ready in case of power/generator failure. The increased demand for service depleted a large portion of their reserve before the storm started.
On Monday, 3 of their 4 locations did not have power and could not be opened. They were able to operate from the one location that did have power and additional staff was able to meet at a local Chamber of Commerce office where they used their personal cell phones to contact all of their oxygen patients from lists that were printed prior to the storm.
As Liberty began to realize the severity of the damage throughout the state, they learned that the bulk provider they use for oxygen was out of power and unable to meet their needs for liquid oxygen and compressed gas cylinders while they were simultaneously taking calls from patients who were relocating and needed their help. “On Monday afternoon, I contacted my trade association, the New England Medical Equipment Dealers Association (NEMED) of which we are a member,” said Marc Connolly of Liberty Rehab, “to ask for assistance in locating additional providers of oxygen supplies in case our state supplier was unable to meet the demand. Fortunately we ended did not needing the help but we heard from providers as far away as Maine who were willing to help if we needed it.”
As of Friday, September 2nd, all of Liberty’s patients were fully serviced by their staff who worked an excess of 100 man hours since last Friday. And since there are several areas predicted to be without power for an additional 5-7 days, they will need to continue to increase staffing and supplies outside of normal business hours.
In Massachusetts, Bouvier’s Pharmacy in Marlborough called all of their oxygen patients prior to the storm. During and after the storm, they responded to 33 emergency calls over a 2-day period. “Because we had power”, said David Bouvier, “we were able to set up 9 Homefill oxygen units and we filled tanks for our patients who use Homefill units at home but didn’t have electricity. We did this for 2 days.” Bouvier’s also rented 3 pallets of oxygen tanks in addition to their normal stock to ensure that they could keep their oxygen patients in their homes.
On Cape Cod, Cape Medical Supply accepted multiple “new” oxygen discharges on Monday and Tuesday for patients who had no power – and the discharge planners and case managers knew they had no power. One of the patients said, “I told them at the hospital that I have no power here. I don’t know why they sent me home.” “Amazing,” said Gary Sheehan of Cape Medical Supply, “but that’s what we do.”
Providers in rural areas had different challenges. Home Care Services in So. Portland, ME called their home oxygen patients prior to the storm and set them up with back up tanks. After the storm, they had 5 patients in areas that were out of power for several days so they have to make a delivery to their home every other day to replenish their oxygen tanks. “These particular patients are about 100 miles from our office,” said Sherry Berryman of Home Care Services, “so it is very time consuming and we cannot bill for it.” Home Care Services has an on-call service 24/7 that notifies them if their patients need anything. Berryman said, “When we have a storm like this, all technicians are on call until everything is cleared.”
“It is important to acknowledge,” Estrella added, “that these companies are not compensated for this additional work and expenses. All of the costs of delivery, picking up equipment once power is restored, overtime for delivery technicians, customer service staff, etc. is unreimbursed by insurance companies and is absorbed by the company. Our members can’t even apply to FEMA to help pay for these costs.”
