In the aviation business there is an old saying that there are only two types of pilots: old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots. Each year in the U.S. there are an average of 250 fatalities in small aviation aircraft crashes.

While usually not having the same deadly consequences via accidents, oxygen delivery today can be said to often fall into two wildly diverging models: “smart delivery models” that save time and money — or “standard delivery models” that often drain profits, especially with today’s low CMS reimbursement rates for oxygen.

A “Smart Delivery” strategy means reducing the number of deliveries to patients while improving or maintaining high patient satisfaction levels.

Oxygen delivery drivers/techs are a big cost of being in the oxygen business and competition for drivers is keen. Search Google with the term “Delivery driver.” You will find even unskilled drivers cost a lot per hour.

In just Ashburn, VA, alone, for example, a suburb of Washington, D.C., there were 1,096 delivery jobs advertised on the internet when I checked just after the Thanksgiving holiday. The most common recruitment opening was: “Hiring immediately. Need entry level and experienced drivers…”

So if you can reduce the number of oxygen deliveries needed to serve your patients, you can save not only the typical $50-$75 cost of a delivery, but possibly on the need to hire additional drivers as your business expands.

Here’s how to develop and implement a “Smart Delivery” strategy…

1. First, get some graph paper. Then create a simple “scatter plot” or chart of where the patients you deliver to live.

This delivery map will show you how far from your store each patient resides and how far your delivery tech must drive to serve the patient. If you wish you can color code the patient to indicate information such as oxygen only, oxygen & rehab, or other data as needed.

On your scatter plot draw a radius of the distance that offers the optimum use of the delivery tech’s time and vehicle expense. Let’s say it’s 25 miles in a congested area or 50 miles in a rural environment or some other number in a very high traffic intense area or high density area where you are servicing patients in high rise buildings.

2.  Next, calculate your delivery expense using $50 to $75 per delivery as your average cost.

For example, if the delivery to a patient 60 miles away has a cost of $50 and you had to do it once per month, your delivery cost to that patient is at least $600 per year.

The smart delivery POC model can reduce your delivery expense to one delivery per year. This reduces your delivery expense by nearly 92%. For every $50 delivery customer, you can anticipate about $550 in savings per year. This cost savings goes right to the bottom line. Ten patients like this would save you at least $5,500 per year, 100 patients would save you $55,000 per year… etc.

Your next question might be, “Okay, Dave, but what if I don’t have the capital to buy ten, twenty, or a hundred OxyGo® POCs?” The answer is that OxyGo right now offers 12, 24 and 36-month financing at very low rates. Basically, the OxyGo POC pays for itself.

3.  Detailing the savings is easy. See for yourself.

OxyGo offers convenient Excel spreadsheet templates at www.oxygo.life — CLICK HERE!

Today, we are offering two great POCs, our standard five setting OxyGo and our latest addition—the three setting, 2.8 lb., ultra light OxyGo FIT™. Every intelligent pulse setting on both of the OxyGo POCs delivers 210 ml/min, which means you can usually titrate 90% of your patients with either OxyGo or OxyGo FIT.

Please contact our OxyGo Manager of Clinical Resources, Bob McQuown, who has years of experience as a RRT: bmcqowon@applied-inc.com.

For more information on what you can expect to save with OxyGo, based directly on a DME’s experience, see this article: Surviving Lower Oxygen Reimbursement Costs: One DME’s Strategy.

We have had so many requests for this article, which ran in an earlier issue of Home HealthCare TODAY, we are repeating it in this issue for those who missed it. Based on the experience of an Ohio-based five store DME business, it breaks down the oxygen delivery savings you can expect to see in your business, if you adopt the smart delivery with OxyGo model.

And you should never feel alone when developing or implementing your “Smart Delivery” strategy. Help is just an e-mail or toll free call away to your OxyGo field sales team. Or shoot me an e-mail directly and I will personally assign an expert to help you.

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