2026 Conference Sessions

Presented by: Why Success Happens, LLC

A strong marketing strategy and a focused sales plan are essential for sustainable business growth. This interactive three-hour workshop provides business owners, entrepreneurs, and organizational leaders with a practical framework for developing an integrated marketing and sales plan that aligns business goals with customer needs.

Participants will learn how to analyze their market, identify ideal customers, define clear marketing and sales objectives, and create compelling messaging that differentiates their organization from competitors. The workshop also explores effective marketing channels, content planning, budgeting, and performance measurement while connecting these efforts to a structured sales strategy that drives lead generation, customer acquisition, and long-term retention.

Through guided exercises and planning templates, attendees will begin building a customized marketing and sales plan they can immediately apply within your organization.

Presented by: BOC

This three-hour, hands-on workshop puts DMEPOS suppliers, therapists, nurses, orthotic and prosthetic professionals, and retail fitters directly at the fitting table: measuring, selecting, and fitting real compression garments under instructor guidance, rather than watching from a seat. Participants will complete pertinent prework and once on site will rotate through practical stations covering patient assessment, measuring technique, garment donning and adjustment, and documentation, then apply what they've practiced to real-world case scenarios in small groups. Attendees who wish to validate their skills immediately can apply and register to take the Board of Certification/Accreditation’s Certified Lymphedema Compression Fitter (CLCF) exam. The CLCF credential is endorsed by the U.S. Medical Compression Alliance (USMCA). Attendance in the workshop does not require participants to take the exam.

Presented by: ACU-Serve

Advance Billing and Payer Workshop

This session offers a comprehensive examination of critical challenges within billing, collections, compliance, audit processes and how to work with payers to resolve the issues. Attendees will gain insights into common operational pain points and receive actionable guidance for effectively addressing these issues. The presentation will feature interactive discussions and real-world case studies to enhance engagement and practical understanding.

Key Topics of Discussion

Billing and Collections

Emphasis will be placed on the creation of clean claims that align with payer-specific billing guidelines, including the correct use of modifiers, narratives, span dates, and other critical elements. The variability among payers will be addressed. 

Payer Contract Negotiations

A review of critical contract provisions that will impact future billing and collections activities.  Learn how to negotiate favorable terms and identify potential challenges based on language in your payer agreements. 

Key Data Elements

Using dashboards with key data elements in tracking the payer’s performance include volume, accounts receivable and denial information, trended over time.  Learn the standard data elements that your organization should be prepared to provide when working with payers on A/R or audit issues. 

Payer Relations and Billing

How to build relationships with payers and when to ask for assistance with claim issues. 
The session will explore best practices for achieving and maintaining an effective line of communication with payer partners. 

Compliance and Audit

A review of Medicare and payer’s third-party auditing companies that frequently audit DME services will be conducted, highlighting the most frequent violations and offering practical approaches to mitigate risk.
 

Subject matter experts will present essential performance metrics across each operational area, equipping suppliers with the tools to monitor organizational health and drive continuous improvement. Participants will leave the session informed, confident, and empowered to implement best practices within their respective organizations.

Presented by: Valere Health

Do you know what it really costs your business to serve a patient — not on average, but across every line of your P&L? Most HME operators don’t, and that blind spot quietly decides which business is worth taking and which erodes your margin. In this hands-on, three-hour workshop, three industry leaders walk you through building your true cost to serve, then put you to work doing it with your own numbers. You’ll leave knowing where your margin actually lives, where technology can protect it, and how that single number shapes everything from payer negotiations to the value of your business. Bring your numbers. Leave with answers.

By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:

1. Build a true, fully-loaded cost-to-serve picture for your business using a simple working model.
2. Pinpoint where margin is won or lost across revenue, cost of goods, operations, and overhead.
3. Turn the number into action — pricing, payer, and contract decisions, and readiness to grow or sell.

This presentation will provide retail sales training tips and strategies that DME companies can bring back home to immediatley increase thier retail sales. DME companies are the experts that consumers need to solve thier problems and answer the customers questions. We will teach the DME providers to use suggestive soft selling skills to close more sales, sell higher priced products, and increase add on sales.  

Barcode scanning solved many manual data-entry problems, but today's business complexity requires much more. Explore how RFID, automation, AI, and connected workflows are changing inventory operations from reactive to intelligent and predictive.

This session will provide an overview of the current federal fraud, waste, and abuse landscape and explain how initiatives from CMS influence day-to-day supplier operations. Attendees will gain a better understanding of recent enforcement trends, emerging compliance expectations, and practical steps to help reduce risk while maintaining compliance in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.

The Trump II Administration is active in terms of regulating…and placing restrictions on…DME suppliers. Prime examples of these are OIG advisory opinions, fraud alerts, advisory bulletins and other written guidance. This program will discuss the most recent OIG guidance on issues vitally important to DME suppliers, including (i) subscribing to online referral programs, (ii) working with telehealth companies, (iii) joint ventures and other contracts with hospitals, long-term care facilities, and other referral sources, (iv) implementation of marketing programs, and (v) strategic relationships with physicians. Importantly, in light of OIG guidance, this program will discuss how arrangements and programs can be properly structured…and those that lead to a risk of an OIG enforcement action.

This session will explore how technologies such as digital delivery, Text-to-Pay, AutoPAY, and intelligent payment reminders help organizations increase operational efficiency while meeting the expectations of today's healthcare consumer. Attendees will also learn how patient payment insights can be used to better understand payment behaviors and preferences, enabling more personalized financial engagement that drives higher payment rates and faster collections. Beyond achieving immediate operational gains, this session will discuss why a digital-first patient pay strategy is a critical investment for the future. Organizations that leverage automation and data-driven insights are better positioned to adapt to evolving patient expectations, optimize financial performance, and build a sustainable, technology-enabled revenue cycle that supports long-term growth.

DME owners are seeing more interest than ever from private equity, strategic buyers, and investors, but a full sale is not the only option. This session breaks down how and why owners sell a portion of their business, whether to fund growth, take some risk off the table personally, bring on a partner, or set up a future full exit. We will walk through the common deal structures (minority and majority recapitalizations, earn-outs, and rollover equity), what actually drives valuation in DME (payer mix, product lines, recurring revenue, and compliance posture), how to get your books and operations ready for due diligence, and the real trade-offs of giving up partial control. Attendees will leave understanding the full landscape of partial-sale options and a practical way to evaluate whether one fits their goals.

HME providers are evolving beyond their traditonal role as product distributors to become critical care-coordination partners. The "last mile"-the final step in delivering medical supplies and equipment into the home-has become a strategic imperative for HME providers. Success within the last-mile is the key differentiator in patient experience, referral satisifcation, and healthcare outcomes.

HME providers are strengthening their last-mile strategies through improved visibility, digital workflows, proactive patient communication, automated resupply programs, and enhanced delivery coordination. The successful HME providers are leveraging relationships with logistics partners and technology vendors to extend their capabilities without increasing operational complexities.

This panel discussion will include the vantage point from a logistics provider, technology vendor, and a HME provider on the historical challenges faced within the last-mile. The objective will be to walk away with solution strategies to turn each challenge into an opportunity moving towards last-mile excellence.

Legislative, regulatory and market changes are reshaping payer mix across the HME industry, creating new reimbursement challenges and financial pressure for providers. As coverage patterns shift, many organizations are seeing greater involvement from third-party administrators, more movement between commercial, ACA, Medicaid and self-pay categories and added uncertainty tied to recent federal budget changes. This session will explore how payer mix disruption is affecting HME revenue cycle performance and provide practical strategies for identifying financial risk, adapting operations and protecting cash flow in a more fragmented reimbursement environment. Attendees will leave with a framework for proactively responding to payer mix changes before they negatively impact business performance.