Breathing on the Cutting Edge – Profile

VieMed enables healthier living for those with chronic respiratory conditions. As growth accelerates, effective inventory management is crucial.

Over 35 million Americans spend each day fighting to breathe. According to the CDC, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the sixth most common cause of death in the nation, There’s no cure for chronic respiratory disease (CRD), a classification that includes COPD as well as asthma, chronic respiratory failure, sleep apnea, and airway restrictions caused by neuromuscular disease or injury.

Advances in specialized medicine, care, and technology make it possible to live with these complex and burdensome conditions. As the largest independent specialized provider of non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in the U.S. home respiratory health care industry, VieMed (NASDAQ: VMD) is leveraging a unique and highly effective business model that is increasing company revenue while improving the lives of the people they serve.

VieMed services are designed to integrate smoothly into the process of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and other referral partners, which makes transitioning from onsite to in-home respiratory therapy much smoother for patients.

Their treatment approach blends life-enhancing medical devices with high-touch home care delivered by respiratory therapists (RTs) who are licensed members of the American Association for Respiratory Care. Their in-home services include equipment setup, training, and on-call services with state-of-the-art clinical protocols. VieMed’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. William Frazier, oversees clinical protocols and is a board-certified pulmonary disease specialist.

In addition to at-home physical care, VieMed’s clinical services include telehealth, as well as emotional and behavioral support provided by licensed clinical social workers. Headquartered in Lafayette, La., VieMed currently serves over 127,000 patients.

As government and commercial payors prioritize home care solutions over treatment in acute settings, the home medical equipment market segment of the durable medical equipment industry continues to grow. (Treating COPD alone costs our healthcare systems $50 billion annually.)

The respiratory equipment segment’s expansion is driven by the increasing care needs of the aging population, an upward trend in the incidence of CRD and obstructive sleep apnea, and an emerging, underserved population of people with COPD who may be candidates for home NIV.

VieMed is growing apace, reaching a new company record of $55 million for the second quarter of 2024, a 27% increase over the revenue reported for Q2 2023. In April of this year, they finalized a strategic partnership with East Alabama HomeMed, LLC, a provider of best-in-class home medical services.

According to CEO Casey Hoyt, “This marks a significant milestone in our ongoing growth strategy, which includes hospital joint ventures and institutional partnerships. We view this transaction as a blueprint that can be replicated nationwide, enhancing care quality while simultaneously creating value for healthcare systems.”

From Hot Sauce to Inventory Boss

Cecil Hymel, VieMed’s Vice President of Inventory and Purchasing, knows a little something about the consequences of growth. Prior to joining the company, he spent over 30 years in C-suite leadership for the McIlhenny Company, makers of Tabasco® brand products. His roles included stints in HR and administration, as well as in sales and marketing. He created and ran the brand sales division, where he was responsible for branding everything Tabasco, including the company’s stores, the Tabasco 1868 restaurant, promotional items, and handling their product licensing and trademark efforts.

We recently asked him about what drew him to VieMed. “I worked for six Tabasco presidents, and the leadership of that company was extremely important to me; working for leaders that I believed in, that were good people, and had a good soul,” he answered. When Hoyt and company president Mike Moore approached him about joining, Hymel knew he’d have an opportunity to have a similar environment at VieMed. “Casey and Mike believe in what they are doing, and having a quality company that’s growing and doing good things for people.”

Sourcing, procurement, and inventory management were key to the success of growing Tabasco’s soft goods line. “I had a warehouse and people buying. I had to have merchandising, marketing, everything,” he said. “It was a business within a business, and I got to touch routinely on everything, including buying strategy and inventory management.” Everything except the actual sauces, that is.

A proponent of Stern Value Management’s economic value added (EVA) strategy for steering change management from the C-suite to the loading dock, Hymel is bringing those principles to his role. “I use a lot of the EVA concepts … driving value, driving share price through increasing profitability and minimizing capital usage,” he said.

Optimizing the true cost of asset ownership for a business largely dependent on equipment rentals is one of several focus areas that Hymel is introducing as VP. “A lot of things go into play for the cost of ownership. It’s not just the unit price, it’s the length of the warranty, the return merchandise authorization cycle, it’s the great customer service, and reducing the overall units you need as the business grows,” he explained.

VieMed’s inventory is divided into serialized and non-serialized goods. Non-serialized goods are disposables. Ventilators, CPAP machines, portable and stationary oxygen, nebulizers, and other items that can be used repeatedly are serialized. “We’re trying to move more towards that being done by third-party drop-ship and not taking ownership of it here,” he explained.

Changing their distribution methods for these goods has another essential purpose: taking inventory management out of the hands of the RTs and clinical case specialists. “Our business spins on the clinical team,” he stressed. “You don’t want them so encumbered by asset management that they can’t do what they really do well which is take care of patients.”

In the past, inventory has been decentralized, with each clinician managing their own cache, but Hymel is advocating to set up distributed warehouses where assets can be easily accessed by the RTs and accurately tracked.

It hasn’t been a stretch for Hymel to move from bringing an iconic brand to a wider audience to bringing his expertise to a company about to become an icon. As he put it, “I went from saving the world from bland food to helping the world to breathe.”

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VieMed is a provider of in-home medical equipment and post-acute respiratory healthcare services in the United States. VieMed’s service offerings are focused on effective in-home treatment with clinical practitioners providing therapy and counseling to patients in their homes using cutting edge technology. Visit our website at www.VieMed.com.

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Corporate Office

625 E Kaliste Saloom Rd.,

Lafayette, LA 70508

Phone Number: 866.852.8343

Homepage Link: https://www.VieMed.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/VieMedLLC/

LinkedIn:    https://www.linkedin.com/company/VieMed-healthcare/

YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5x9tMa0QCvwC2ciRDH545A

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