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For more
past HME Excellence Awards winners, click
here
2002
Best Home Respiratory Provider
Apria bubbles
to top of O2 market
Apria is reclaiming its status as a national powerhouse
for respiratory.
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It's official now. Apria Healthcare
has gone from the brink to the top of the heap.
Being declared the winner in the respiratory category of the HME Excellence
Awards marks a significant milestone for the formerly beleaguered company as
it reclaims its status as a national powerhouse. Despite Apria’s colossal
size, though, it’s what the company is doing at a micro level that intrigued
the judges.
“Clearly they have the resources to invest, but even when you factor in
size and resources, they have contributed beyond what you’d anticipate,” one
judge said.
They have established a corporate
culture of involvement at the national, state and
community level. Combine that with outstanding
financial performance, and you can see why they
won.”
Lisa Getson, v.p. of business development and clinical services, resisted an “I
told you so” response but did express disdain for those who consider huge
national chains to be sinister entities.
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“Whenever someone uses the
national label against us, I reply by saying that
we’re 400 small companies working in a standardized
fashion,” she said. “Are we large? Yes.
Do we operate in large metropolitan areas? Yes,
but we’re also in the Alaskan bush, the wilds
of Maine and the fields of Kansas.”
Because Apria is a $1 billion company, it’s easy to lose sight of the
fact that more than 100 of the company’s branches are staffed by three
people or less, Getson said. Therefore, it is in the company’s best interest
to become part of the community fabric.
“At the end of the day, it’s the local branches that are serving patients,” she
said. “We are driven by the field rather than the corporate office.”
Effective synchronization seems to be at the heart of Apria’s resurgence,
which Getson credits to two people in particular: former CEO Phil Carter, and
Lawrence Higby, the company's pilot for the past four years.
“Phil Carter brought a lot of discipline and focus to the organization at
a time when it was desperately needed,” Getson said. “Larry Higby helped
create functional areas of expertise, established best practices and made sure
people followed them.”
Higby came on board in November 1997, a time when Apria teetered on the precipice
of financial collapse. Post-merger entanglements, such as consolidating branches
and assimilating different computer systems, nearly strangled the company before
it had a chance to catch its breath. But once Higby started implanting his
ideas, the turnaround was underway, Getson said.
“He started by putting people in charge of four primary areas: sales, clinical
services, logistics and revenue management,” she said.
“He got the legal department to drive the industry’s compliance program
and the contracts department to eye performance and keep a tight rein on that.”
Other improvements initiated by Higby including returning the company to its
core competencies of respiratory and home infusion services and home medical
equipment, and gaining control of “variable” operating costs, such
as travel expenses.
The lessons Apria management learned throughout the restructuring experience
shouldn’t be lost on smaller HME providers, either, Getson said, explaining
that there are common strategies that can benefit all companies in the industry.
“Spend time evaluating the market and assessing the overall strength of
the organization,” she advised. “Create a simple strategy, set five
to seven goals per year and communicate them clearly to everyone in the company.”
Apria
Headquarters:
Lake Forest, Calif.
Locations: 480
Age: 7-year-old company
Employees: 9,700
Accreditation: JCAHO
Memberships: State associations
Business mix: 30% Medicare, 10% Medicaid, 60% private pay
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