The Brightree Story

Brightree was founded by Steve Elrod, a highly successful independent HME owner. Steve's company, OXY+PLUS, grew from a small two person family operation to a sizeable multi-city business. In 2001 Steve sold OXY+PLUS to Apria.

During 13 years of growing OXY+PLUS, Steve purchased and implemented four different computer-based HME management systems. In every case, these systems failed to “live up” to his expectations. It seemed that the software companies couldn’t grasp the nature of what was key to the success of an HME business. They didn’t allow the system to be run like the people in his organization worked, to follow the typical HME workflow. The technology always seemed outdated, requiring constant workarounds and frustrations, even though the systems Steve chose were the best available at that time. To further aggravate Steve, he had to make a significant investment in staff, as well as hardware and networking equipment, to try to keep it all running.

Steve found himself constantly irritated and disillusioned that no one seemed to “get it.” Instead of making his life easier, each new computer system required him to spend an inordinate amount of time, resources and money managing the I.T. aspects, implementing new business processes and overseeing the billing and collections group. Yet despite all of the effort and expense, Steve still couldn’t get a real handle on the key operating metrics of his business. He continued to operate mostly on “gut feel” all the while knowing he was not gaining efficiency and was surely leaving a lot of his cash flow on the table.

Finally, Steve and his leadership team decided that, in order to get what they needed, they would have to build it themselves.

Thus, the idea for Brightree was born. Steve and his team set out on a mission to create a company that would provide a complete application solution to address the specific needs of independent HME owners. They wanted to create not only better software but a better way of doing business, providing a level of customer care unrivaled in the industry.

From the onset, the goals of Brightree were the same as they are today:

• Build a system that works like HME’s work, following their natural workflow intuitively, offering robust functionality with an easy-to-use interface

• Provide smart solutions which continually enhance the speed of reimbursements to HME’s, improving cash flow, and decreasing DSO

• Deliver inventory management functionality integrated with the billing workflow to seamlessly manage the purchasing, intake, delivery, and accounting elements of the typical HME business

• Provide accurate, on-demand business intelligence to run the business

• Minimize I.T. burdens by centralizing all of the technical tasks, such as product upgrades, pricing updates, and disaster recovery

• Build a solution that is 100% Internet-centric, to allow for:
  • Pain-free networking and worldwide data access by multiple users, simultaneously, from any Internet-connected PC, without the need to download any software
  • Ease of use via the universally understood Internet Explorer browser
  • Minimal hardware costs

 

• Build a strong business partnership with all Brightree customers by providing unparalleled support and daily value at an affordable price without requiring large up-front investment for software and hardware

Steve felt that he owed his success in his HME business to a customer support philosophy instilled in his employees to "Treat every patient like you would treat my Grandma." Today, Brightree continues to drive on, treating our customers based on the same credo. That’s what makes Brightree "A New Way. . . A Better Way."