Home Medical Equipment Rental Market

Home Medical Equipment Rental Market: Overview

Home medical equipment comprises of a wide range of devices intended for use in home or other non-clinical facilities. This broad spectrum category includes medical electronic equipment such as digital blood-glucose meters, blood pressure monitoring devices, respiratory assist devices, and home infusion therapy. It also includes products such as artificial limbs, nebulizers, seat lifts, walkers, hospital beds and other prosthetic devices as the delivery of healthcare services shifts from clinical settings to the home devices.

Home Medical Equipment Rental Market: Trends and Drivers

Home medical equipment market is expected to grow tremendously in the coming years, as the delivery of healthcare services will see an evident shift from clinical settings (such as hospitals and private nursing care) to the home. The overall home medical equipment rental market influenced by several market drivers such as more people with private insurance, aging population across the world,  increased life expectancy, consistent rise in geriatric population, escalating national healthcare spending and increased incidence of chronic disorders across the globe.

External factors like diligent insurance reimbursement policies, healthcare providers are consistently focused on lowering costs of healthcare, in part by shifting limited resources to acute cases, and relying on patients and their families to take on a more active role in their own health care. However, it also presents unique challenges and issues like potential safety checklists to both, patients and caregivers, operating environment and skills, supplying equipment, regulatory restrains and industry standards.

Home Medical Equipment Rental Market: Segmentation

The home medical equipment rental market can be analyzed on the basis of different market scenarios such as acceptability and feasibility for non-technical consumer like patient himself as well as acceptance in several geographical region of the world.

By geography, the market can be segmented in North America, Europe, Asia pacific and rest of world (ROW). North America and Asia Pacific promise to be the most  lucrative market for the home medical equipment rental due to the budget constraints faced by the hospital, increasing incidences of large number of chronic disorders and increasing number of aging patients. Europe also promises impressive growth in this market because long-lasting chronic conditions and disabilities.

According to a United Nations report, the rise in the population aged 80 years or above is moving at a faster pace in the less developed regions than in the more developed regions. 23 million persons aged 80 years or over were living in China in 2013. The USA had about 12 million, followed by India and Japan, which had 10 million and 9 million, respectively. Apart from this increase expenditure in healthcare is also responsible for the shifting paradigm.

Home Medical Equipment Rental Market: Opportunities

According to The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Spending growth for freestanding home health care agencies accelerated in 2012, increasing 5.1 percent to $77.8 billion following growth of 4.1 percent in 2011.The CMS also estimates that spending on healthcare services will grow to $3.4 trillion by 2015, nearly 18% of GDP. Over the time frame of 2015-2021, health spending is expected to grow at the rate of 6.2% annually. It reflects the net result of the aging of the population, Affordable Care Act, and generally improving socio-economic conditions.

Home healthcare equipment rental market varies considerably in the past few years. An industry report on the global market for home medical equipment estimates the total expenditure at $40.5 billion in 2009. This is about 1-2% of the total expenditures on healthcare services in the United States. The report also estimated growth rate around 7.4% between now and 2016. Extrapolation of this estimation can be a good indicator of health equipment rental market. 

Home Medical Equipment Rental Market: Key Players

The key players in this market are Agfa Finance Corp., Access Equipment Leasing, De Lage Landen International B.V., Apria Healthcare Group (USA), Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc., GE Healthcare Financial Services, Siemens Financial Services, National Technology Leasing Corp., Prudential Leasing, Inc., Oak Leasing Ltd, Rotech Healthcare Inc., and Stryker Corporation.