Company founders Genie Cordes, Nancy Archdeacon, and Tim Ford emphasize planning, hard work, and a positive attitude.

PRO₂ is only 2 years old, but this Ohio company’s success has impressed even jaded bank loan officers. “Our success was so rapid that after the first year, the bank said, ‘How can we help you grow?’ Usually, that does not happen after just 1 year,” says Nancy Archdeacon, RRT, co-founder of PRO₂ , a home health care firm in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash. Her 13-person firm serves Cincinnati, its suburbs, and 50 miles beyond into northern Kentucky and Indiana.

The company founders—Archdeacon, Genie Cordes, and Tim Ford—acquired approximately 2,000 clients once they opened PRO₂. With so much business, they hope to double their facility space by moving from their present 2,400-sq-ft location to a 7,000-sq-ft site. “We’ve taken this area by storm,” Archdeacon says.

Their secret to success is planning, hard work, and a positive attitude toward problems, such as Ohio Medicaid not paying for both ventilator equipment and respiratory therapist service. “I can train a home health care nurse how to run a life-saving ventilator and then remain on call in case there are complications, yet the state of Ohio will not allow it as a reimbursable expense,” says Archdeacon, who worked as a hospital respiratory care educator and clinician for 15 years before spending a year as a clinical sales specialist for a respiratory therapy/HME company.

Because the state approves reimbursement only for respiratory equipment, but not respiratory therapy services, a company that provides both must cope with the problem of how to get full and fair payment for all the work it does. “The challenge is to educate our lawmakers,” Archdeacon says.

She and her partners are also working on changing the Health Care Financing Administration’s proposed increase in oxygen testing requirements for Group I oxygen patients. “I talked with a Medicare ombudsman who said Medicare wasn’t aware how hard it would be,” Archdeacon says. “It would be a conflict of interest if we tested for need, then provided care, so an independent agent would have to do the paperwork.”

Finding an independent agent to do the testing is difficult because Medicare has limited the funding for the testing. “The reimbursement is low, yet the equipment is expensive,” she says. “And then there’s the time factor—delivering equipment to shut-ins and getting the paperwork done. It’s a huge problem for the provider.”

Respiratory supervisor Sue Witschger attaches a   regulator to an “M” cylinder.

Secret to Success
Despite the challenges, Archdeacon sees a bright future for PRO₂’s noninvasive ventilation business and other respiratory services, including oxygen therapy, aerosol/nebulizer therapy, mechanical ventilation, sleep disorders therapy, tracheostomy/airway management, and respiratory medication programs. “Our niches, that’s what makes us unique,” she says.

To differentiate the company from the more than 20 competitors in the Cincinnati market, PRO₂ emphasizes its expertise and customer service. “We like to get a high degree of respiratory therapist input into the care we provide,” Archdeacon says. “We always hire respiratory therapists with a minimum of 2 years’ hospital experience.”

Having an experienced staff means PRO₂ can provide individualized clinical management for respiratory patients. “There is no such thing as a ‘typical patient,’” Archdeacon says.

PRO₂’s customer service policies also help set it apart. For example, customers who call get to talk to a live person 24 hours a day. Calls after business hours are routed to a PRO₂ manager or staffer. “The busier we get, the more we might think it would be easier to get an answering machine. But we don’t, and that’s an advantage of ours,” Archdeacon says.

Continuing Growth
To continue adding customers, PRO₂’s marketing efforts concentrate on the personal touch rather than traditional advertising. The company focuses on building client relationships and word-of-mouth referrals through participating in community service and local health/trade shows. For instance, at local meetings of Easy Breathers, the American Lung Association’s education/support group for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, PRO₂ provides oxygen and handheld nebulizers. It also sponsored a hole at a golf tournament and set up a booth at a cardio-pulmonary rehab conference. Finally, Archdeacon often speaks to patient groups, such as congestive heart failure support groups.

PRO₂ pays special attention to hospital discharge planners. “We tell them, ‘We know what you need and how we can help you,’” Archdeacon says. “And we are eager. We will be at the hospital an hour after receiving a call for help. If the discharge planners need to reach a company like ours, they will go with the one that is there when it is needed.”

But as excited as Archdeacon and her partners are over their early success, they say they want to grow at a manageable rate. “We want to do it right, acquiring good employees at the same rate we acquire clients,” she says. “We’ve been really, really fortunate with our early success, and want to continue to maintain the quality. I would love to be the biggest and best, but not if being big means we don’t have the best customer service.”

Linda G. Green is a contributing writer for Dealer/Provider.