LAS VEGAS – More than 80 exhibitors at this year’s Medtrade Spring will either be new faces or those returning from absence. A company such as LiveOps (Booth #666) is one of the newbies that see opportunity in the sometimes beleaguered HME industry. They are bringing that enthusiasm to Las Vegas during the March 10-12 Medtrade Spring at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas.
Kent Stormberg (pictured), senior director of Sales, Health and Human Services Division, LiveOps, believes the company’s outsource customer care business is a natural addition to the HME industry. With experience in the financial services industry and the retail realm, Stormberg says they are well positioned to help HME operations reduce operation costs in a tough reimbursement climate.
“More companies are having to be more competitive,” says Stormberg. “Customer service can be a differentiator…Calls are increasing in volume, but also in complexity with longer call times. A lot of the companies can’t do it in-house anymore, and they are looking for more flexibility and scalability. We are a home-based agent model, so we can easily scale up and down compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar customer service outsourcer.”
Particularly for companies who can’t afford to bring on additional full-time employees (with their accompanying costs), the home-based agent model may be attractive. “Capital expenditure is a tremendous cost factor that leads people to the home-based agent model, rather than brick and mortar,” adds Stormberg. “The average age for one of our customer service agents is 36 years old, and it’s a higher educated agent as well. Agents must understand complex rules and access information.”