Health & Fitness
Health and Fitness
Health and Fitness
Thu, February 24, 2011
PATIENT HOME MONITORING (PHM) ANNOUNCES EXECUTION OF COUMADIN POINT-OF-CARE CLINIC FACILITIES AGREEMENT AT A MAJOR REGIONAL HOS
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Feb. 24 /CNW/ - Patient Home Monitoring (PHM) (TSXV:PHM), a company focused on in-home cardiology healthcare services, today announced it has signed an agreement to provide facilities that will support the operations of a Coumadin point-of-care (POC) clinic for patients currently served by a major hospital system in Southern California.
The POC clinic, with the support of PHM, will replace the operations of an existing tele-management hospital-based Coumadin clinic facility. Patients will receive expanded options for treatment of cardiac conditions, including the opportunity to participate in patient self-testing (PST), POC testing and the option of walk-in face-to-face evaluations. Patients may also receive PST training at the facility, located on the hospital campus. The upgraded facility, supported by PHM, will be available to serve over 1500 area physicians who prescribe Coumadin to patients and seek a high quality and efficient solution for testing and managing patients, whether through testing at home, at the clinic or some combination of both.
"I believe that PHM has created a model and demonstrated its ability to operate its high-margin annuity-based PST business and handle steady growth. I am excited about exploring other ways to extend our service offerings and continue to expand our revenue growth," said Ed Berenblum, Chief Executive Officer of PHM. "Since last summer, we have put extraordinary focus on executing our PST business model of systematic enrollment of patients served by large cardiology groups. This model increases revenue opportunities for the referring physicians, reduces the labor for their practice and results in markedly higher account penetration than that achieved by the competition. This model is the mainstay of our business, as it creates strong margins from repeat monthly customers with steady and predictable growth. Fortunately, we are now positioned to take advantage of our reputation and experience and create additional related avenues to serve the cardiac patient market and enroll patients into PHM's self-testing services.
"By stepping into the point-of-care facilities business at first in a support role," continued Mr. Berenblum, "PHM has found a limited risk way to broaden the reach to its customer base, namely physicians with patients on Coumadin therapy. The support of Coumadin clinic facilities in select, high income, high patient density markets, positions PHM to capitalize efficiently on referrals from large cardiology and electrophysiology groups as well as from small cardiology and primary care practices in the area. Some of the Coumadin clinic support operations can be performed from our San Francisco call center, further reducing the operating cost of these facilities.
"I believe this model has the potential of increasing revenue while establishing a significant barrier to entry around a large local market," concluded Mr. Berenblum. "Our focus continues to be on executing our business model. By offering POC facilities services, PHM can both increase PST enrollment and realize additional revenue from related services with little additional investment or expense."
About PHM
PHM is a healthcare services company focused on providing in-home and point of care testing for patients on blood thinner medications such as Coumadin or warfarin. Medicare recently expanded reimbursement for in-home patient self testing (PST) of blood coagulation levels. PHM has a unique value proposition to cardiology groups that manage patients on blood thinners, focusing on systemization to enroll patients in PST. This unique, systemized approach creates an opportunity for physician groups to operate more efficiently, increasing revenue to their clinic while providing a higher standard of care for patients.
Information in this news release that is not current or historical factual information may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Implicit in this information, particularly in respect of the future outlook of PHM and anticipated events or results, are assumptions based on beliefs of PHM's senior management as well as information currently available to it. While these assumptions were considered reasonable by PHM at the time of preparation, they may prove to be incorrect. Readers are cautioned that actual results are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including the availability of funds and resources to pursue operations, decline of reimbursement rates, dependence on few payors, possible new drug discoveries, a novel business model, dependence on key suppliers, granting of permits and licenses in a highly regulated business, competition, low profit market segments as well as general economic, market and business conditions, and could differ materially from what is currently expected.
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this statement.
