Donald Chrysler, Jr

With a combined gross annual profit of approximately $10,000,000 and a staff of around 100, National Home Health Care Inc (NHHC) and its spin-off company, ProMed Pharmacy, are big players now, but its tale is no overnight success story. Instead, the company’s leaders credit its present size and profitability to moving slowly and steadily while keeping an eye on the future.

Deeply rooted in family and community, NHHC has served the Amarillo, Tex, area for almost half a century, and a family member—first entrepreneurial pharmacist Donald R. Chrysler, Sr, and then his son, Donald Chrysler, Jr—has always been at the helm.

“Don Chrysler, Jr, has an electrical engineering and technical background, and he tends to be very conservative,” says longtime friend Jeffrey Baird, JD, of Brown & Fortunato PC, Amarillo. “He thinks things through before making decisions, and he does not make mistakes. His companies have continued to grow impressively because of that caution, and NHHC is consequently one of the best independent HME companies in the country. While his father was the entrepreneur who jump-started the company and built it up initially, when his son took over, it was his even hand that has propelled NHHC and ProMed to a whole new level.”

“Wise” Beginning
NHHC had its roots in Buy Wise Pharmacy, which Chrysler, Sr, opened in 1954 to serve the population of its rapidly expanding Texas Panhandle home town. From the start, Chrysler, Sr, was “an entrepreneur, a swashbuckler, and a visionary,” Baird says.

In the 1970s, Buy Wise was one of the first pharmacies in the country to convert to computers, and Chrysler, Sr’s talent for identifying and responding to important industry trends continued to keep him ahead of the competition.

By the early 1980s, Chrysler, Sr, saw a need for a professional medical device and oxygen provider in Amarillo, and so he added home respiratory and HME lines to his pharmacy operation and sold oxygen equipment separately under the name Med Air.

Soon the HME portion of the business had grown so large that Chrysler, Sr, sold his last remaining Buy Wise pharmacy and consolidated the HME business. He moved the company to a new location in Amarillo, changing the name to NHHC to reflect the business’s new focus.

However, Chrysler, Sr, did not stay out of the pharmacy business for long. As NHHC continued to grow, its nebulizer-patient base also expanded to the point where he realized that those patients needed a source for their respiratory medications. In 1988 he got back into the pharmacy business, purchasing an already existing entity from a local hospital, which he opened as ProMed Pharmacy.

After a few years spent perfecting the ProMed operation by catering solely to NHHC’s patients, it was ready to expand nationwide. Today ProMed continues to operate as a traditional over-the-counter pharmacy while also dispensing respiratory medications to patients throughout the country.

Enter The Next Generation
Chrysler, Jr, who joined the company in 1977, bought it out 15 years later, and both NHHC and ProMed have continued to grow steadily under his direction. In 2000, he expanded NHHC when he acquired two locations from American Home Patient—one 50 miles away in Tampa, Tex, and the other located in Amarillo. The latter was merged with the already existing Amarillo location.

All the traditional HME product lines are offered at each location, including respiratory equipment, home oxygen, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices, and apnea monitors. The business also focuses on custom wheelchairs and seating systems, and customers have access to nebulizer medications through ProMed.

ProMed’s clients come through other HME companies as well as from NHHC itself, and the storefront draws its customers from numerous sources. There is a large referral base, but a substantial amount of business comes from walk-in retail customers.

“The walk-in customers tend to be shopping for chairs, scooters, that type of thing,” Chrysler, Jr, says. “Our store has probably about 3,000 square feet of showroom space for all our supplies, and we are definitely the largest HME supplier in our area. We want to get customers in the door to shop. And because of the retail product lines and our showroom, we get clients to come in, look at a wide selection of products, and try them out. No one else in our area has that variety to offer.”

NHHC advertises its large retail selection on television and in other media to draw clients, a practice that works out well for the company. “A lot of our customers request us from referral sources,” Chrysler says. “In fact, when they have an opportunity to express a preference, they often ask for us, and that word-of-mouth is part of our advertising as well. We have a lot of repeat business.”

NHHC keeps those customers coming back thanks to its high level of service. Chrysler says he focuses extensively on training for the employees. “Part of our quality improvement program is to ensure that our employees are properly trained and know their jobs well before we turn them loose on the public,” Chrysler says. “I think our success is due to our emphasis on the service that we provide to our customers.”

NHHC also has a couple of strong competitors in town, which keeps the company’s service staff on its toes.

“Our employees make the difference,” Chrysler says. “Our employee retention is very good, in fact a lot of people have been with us for 15-plus years. Likewise, when the company acquired the Tampa location, it also retained the majority of the staff. Our staff is therefore very dedicated to what they do and committed to their work.”

Good service also applies to the way customers are treated and the services available after purchases are made. NHHC does repairs on all the equipment it sells, with a separate department for van modifications, installation of wheelchair lifts, and structural modifications to accommodate special equipment.

Caution Pays Off
Slow, steady expansion is the hallmark of NHHC, which Chrysler says is continuing to grow its market share in Amarillo in terms of both doing acquisitions and stressing advertising. The greatest difficulty business-wise is the present aggressive auditing environment.

“Regulation and reimbursement are constantly challenging us,” says Chrysler, who employs a billing department staff of about 20. “We have an internal corporate compliance plan, so we audit our own files frequently and we have additional employees involved in obtaining documentation for filing the claims.”

The emphasis on internal auditing pays off. In terms of compliance with federal laws and regulations, Baird says. “While NHHC’s competitors might jump into a hot area to make a lot of money quick, it is a fact that often what the government giveth, it also taketh away,” he says. “Those competitors end up paying the money back and then some.”

By avoiding risky get-rich-quick endeavors, NHHC comes out ahead in the end. “It’s the tortoise and the hare concept,” Baird says. “And Chrysler runs a steady race.”

Elizabeth Finch is a contributing writer for Dealer/ Provider.