In Los Angeles, New York City, or most other urban centers, Great Plains Health Company— a store that offers items geared to promoting a healthy lifestyle “through mind, body, and spirit”— would not warrant a second thought. In North Dakota, where the state’s entire population (650,000) ranks it 75th among US counties, the concept of selling spiritual tranquility is a bit more novel.

What would be unusual in any city or state, however, is that the group behind this innovative retail launch is an HME provider.

The HME industry is usually too practical to buy into retail items such as health foods, natural beauty products, and healthy-living videos. But this provider, Great Plains Rehabilitation Services (GPRS), is not your typical HME operation.

Founded in 1990 by St Alexius Medical Center, and sponsored by the Sisters of St Benedict at Annunciation Monastery, GPRS operates from a cutting-edge, 35,000-sq-ft store in downtown Bismarck.

“We get visitors from all over the country who say that they have never seen a store like it anywhere,” says Greg Lord, director of both GPRS and Great Plains Health Company. When they see the store for the first time or look at photographs, the first question from many people’s lips, Lord says, is “Why so large?”

Touring the site, you get the answer and then some. Opened in June 1998, the facility features a high-ceilinged 7,000-sq-ft showroom where more than 5,000 health care items for sale and rental can be displayed. In a separate area of the building, there is a pharmacy with drive-up window service for the public and an underground pneumatic tube system that links it with the St Alexius Medical Center.

Then there is another 7,000-sq-ft area where orthotics and prosthetics are manufactured for St Alexius and 17 other smaller area hospitals. And there are two service bays where technicians modify vehicles for handicap accessibility. GPRS also will go out and perform modifications at homes and work sites.

In fact, GPRS does an enormous amount of field service, covering a vast market territory. Good thing, then, that there is also room at the facility for a fleet of a dozen delivery vehicles that travel about 600,000 miles a year, serving an area that spans parts of three states (North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana) within a 200-mile-radius.

ALL THINGS TO EVERYONE
“There is a reason we came up with all this in one place,” Lord explains. “We are dealing with a small population in a wide-open area where you have to be everything to everyone. We go out to the smaller hospitals that cannot provide these services. In other markets, you have specialties in prosthetics and rehabilitation and access equipment. But we had to put it all together in one facility, and that is unique.”

Greg Lord, owner Great Plains Health Company.

It is an expansive business model that requires 56 employees to serve a monthly client base of more than 2,000 patients. Not bad for a company that started only 12 years ago with four employees, including Lord. The breadth of services offered by GPRS should not, however, be confused with a lack of knowledge.

Trained professionals staff each area: The rehabilitation services division includes four registered technicians; the new infusion therapy program, introduced a year ago, has two doctors of pharmacy and a registered nurse; and GPRS can claim the only certified practitioner in both orthotics and prosthetics in Bismarck.

Supervisors lead each specialized area and report to one of three coordinators overseeing the core areas of clinical services, nonclinical services, and general business.

“You need expertise in each field,” says Lord, who is a recent past-president of the Midwest Association for Medical Equipment Services. “When you talk about the differences between intravenous therapy and respiratory medication, [modifying] vans and manufacturing artificial limbs, you are talking about diversity in your workforce.”

NATURAL BY-PRODUCT
Great Plains Health Company opened for business in March of this year and sales in its first 2 months far exceeded expectations, according to Lord, who now projects revenue of about $750,000 in the first year.

But what makes perfect sense today did not to many doubters before the store’s early success. For Lord, it was never a stretch. “The question wasn’t why, but why not?” he says. “It was in keeping with the mission of Saint Alexius: We want people to be happy and have a healthy lifestyle. And the Sisters embraced that thought. We feel it is a beautiful combination of concepts.”

Even with 35,000 square feet at its disposal, GPRS opted not to force an entirely foreign business environment into its downtown location. When the company decided to branch out into healthy lifestyle products, it found a new location about two miles away, within a cluster of other medical services, including physicians, chiropractors, and acupuncturists.

“Our first inclination was to put the natural products into our [HME] store, but we wanted to be where the traffic is,” Lord says. “Nine out of 10 people who walk into our downtown store, walk in with a prescription in their hand. It is hard to convince these folks that they should come here to shop, too. The store at the one-stop medical mall attracts the traffic we want for our premises, which is to provide a healthy lifestyle for the mind, body and spirit—helping those who are well stay well.”

The design of the new store (managed by Mike Betz) is ultramodern, which Lord describes as a blend of Sharper Image and Brookstone, a high-end health-related chain that sells items such as beds, pillows, scales, and golf equipment.

To date, the health store has been most popular with women whose only option before it opened was to shop online for natural-health products. But Lord has also seen the occasional HME customer come into the new location.

If a synergy between customer bases is not obvious, Lord says the synergy of customer service is immediate. “The one-on-one customer service is very similar,” he says. “You have to spend time with each customer. We have the expertise in customer service gained over years of [HME] experience, and we pass that on to customers in a healthy lifestyle setting.”

One similarity Lord is happy does not exist between Great Plains Rehabilitation Services and Great Plains Health Company is the reimbursement headaches most HME dealers can relate to. “We are in an industry right now that is plagued with reimbursement issues, budget cuts, and competitive bidding,” he says. “It is nice to have a product class that is cash based. Our core product store is 90% based on reimbursement; in the health product store, it is all cash.”

Aaron R. Smith is a contributing writer for Dealer/Provider.