Ready for a Breakthrough in Home Medical Equipment? Learn about Boom Home Medical

Hello and welcome to the Living to 100 Club podcast and another premium episode. Thanks to all of our dedicated listeners for tuning in. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Casciani, and here's today's episode. Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our program. You're listening to one of our premium podcasts on the Living to 100 Club, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. Each week, our conversations educate and inspire. Helping you get the best out of all the years we are given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. Premium subscribers have access to all episodes, including 2 exclusive episodes per month. Thank you for being a subscriber. Your support allows us to continue this mission without sponsors. We hope you're receiving value from every conversation with our experts, presumably much greater value than the price of a subscription. Are you ready for a breakthrough in home medical equipment? This Living to 100 Club podcast introduces us to Boom Home Medical and its founders, Dr. Valerie Ullin and Bertie Lifson Pompin. Boom Home Medical is all about reinventing the inconvenient and unattractive home medical equipment like bedside urinals. The founders, Valerie and Bertie, are focused on bringing products that bring dignity to self-care and to design products that fit into a contemporary home and lifestyle. First, a little background. Dr. Valerie Yulin is a specialist in general preventive medicine and public health with a passion for advocating and empowering people to seek the quality medical care they deserve. In 2013, she co-founded Clear Health Advisors alongside Bertie to help individuals with serious medical conditions navigate the complexities surrounding diagnosis and treatment. Prior to that, Dr. Yulin authored a monthly health column for the Los Angeles Times that ran for over a decade and served as an editor of the educational patient page in the peer-reviewed journal preventive medicine, and has co-authored several consumer books on health. Dr. Euline attended Princeton University and received her medical degree from Columbia University. She also earned a master's degree at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and completed her residency training at New York Hospital. Bertie Lipson-Pompom has had a long career in client service and advocacy For 20 years, she was an agent and partner at Creative Artists Agency, the world's leading entertainment and sports agency. Through a deeply personal journey, she grew passionate about the issues surrounding patients' needs and healthcare quality, and in 2013, she co-founded Clear Health Advisors, as I mentioned, alongside the Dr. Yulene to improve the healthcare experience and outcomes for clients with complex medical conditions. A native of Los Angeles, Bertie received her BA in sociology from the University of Columbia. I'm gonna repeat that. A native of Los Angeles, Bertie received her BA in sociology from the University of California at Los Angeles. She has a master's in healthcare leadership from Brown University, from May 2016. And Bertie stays active by running and hiking with her husband and enjoys quality time with her two sons. Well, thank you both for being a guest on our podcast. I look forward to our conversation.

As do we.

Great. Well, I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today. And since there's two of you, Maybe you could share and kind of complement each other's comments on what brought you to Boom Home Medical.

Terrific. I'm gonna let Birdie— this is Val— but I'm gonna let Birdie launch into that, and I'll chime in along the way.

Great.

She's too embarrassed to say that it was entirely her idea, but through our work at Clear Health Advisors, we saw firsthand the products that were available to our clients as they were both aging into the category of the population who need home medical equipment, as well as our clients that were undergoing surgery or recovering from injury, things like that. And we, we saw that this was a consumer product category that had experienced virtually no innovation. The products look the same as when our Well, I say my parents, Val's parents are still alive and super active, but when my parents needed to use these products and certainly our grandparents, the products really haven't changed much at all. And we know that there are going to be 75 million baby boomers aging into this category and they're active individuals. They're still biking and hiking and mountain bike riding, and they are not going to want these outdated, outmoded, as you said, unattractive products in their home. And so I will let Val talk about our why our first product is our first product, but that's sort of the conceit of the company, if you will.

Sure. So just seeing, Birdie, just seeing what was already available when you were doing your work with Therese. Advisors. And as we all know, you're right, there has been very little innovation in this product line for decades, maybe, maybe a century. Yeah, for sure. Valerie?

So our first product is called the Luna. It is a bedside urinal designed specifically for the female anatomy. And I tell you that because that's sort of the I had the aha moment around the idea of a bedside journal. It was actually very personal. I am 58 now, and in the past decade, I would say, I find myself waking up more and more frequently at night with the urge to urinate. And I know there are some people— I've talked to a lot of people about this issue, and there are those that jump right out of bed and run to the bathroom and return to bed. Have a pretty easy, many of them have a pretty easy time falling back asleep. And then there is a whole cohort of us who lie there thinking we're gonna beat this urge and that we're gonna fall back to sleep without getting out of bed. And typically I find people lie there for about 20 minutes before they realize that they're beat and they wake up, they head to the bathroom and they return to bed. And it's next to impossible to fall back to sleep because you've been up for 20, 25 minutes at that point in time. So one night I had this experience. I— Birdie likes to say I'm a real nerd.

I am.

I'm very research-oriented. And so I woke up and I started reading about this issue. There's a fancy medical term called nocturia. And really that just means that you wake up 2 or more times each night because you have to urinate. It happens to both men and women. And it happens with increasing frequency as we age. And I read a lot of the expert opinions about what to do, and there's very little to do. There are not medications that are terribly effective. There aren't behavioral strategies that really work very well. The bottom of all of the urologic guidelines, it said sort of in fine print, tell your patients to get a bedside urinal because It's effective. It's an effective way to void in the middle of the night. And it prevents, can be very helpful in preventing the trips and falls that frequently come in the middle of the night when people get out of bed to do something.

So it's really, as you described your personal use, it's not just for bed-bound patients. It's for anyone who just hesitates and may or may not want to pee.

Anyone who pees.

Yeah, anyone who pees. Okay. At least on females.

Yeah, no, absolutely not. Not. There are so many groups of people or use cases for a bedside urinal. I mean, I think we even surprised ourselves. It's certainly older adults or younger adults if they're experiencing nocturia. It's people who suffer from different types of incontinence. It can be helpful for patients with diabetes who may urinate more frequently. Many, there are many younger younger people, both pediatric and young adults who suffer from diabetes. It's great for people after surgery who may have difficult, a difficult time getting to the bathroom. It's great for after injury recover and a young person with an ACL repair or there's so many really use cases for this and it's certainly not limited to older adults or bedbound patients.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I'd like to talk more about that. But now first, let me ask you about the whole industry in general, the DME, durable medical equipment, and then there's durable medical home equipment. Is that the subcategory?

Well, there's DME, which is durable medical equipment, and that encompasses kind of the widest net. So that includes, you know, respiratory machines and hospital beds and insulin pumps. And true medical-based products. And then HME, which is home medical equipment, is a subset of that, which can include those products but not necessarily includes those products. And then what has happened over the past few years is that products like bed, bed urinals, bedpans, grab bars are being purchased on Amazon or on direct-to-consumer websites like ours. And traditional durable home medical stores, those really ugly stores that have crutches hanging in the window, a lot of them are not carrying— no longer carrying these types of products because they can't compete with Amazon. They can't compete with people Googling and having them delivered to their home. So CVS carries some of these products now. We— our goal is to be an entire aisle at Target or Walmart. You, you know, local pharmacies are now carrying a lot of these products.

And this is Val. So within home medical too, there are sort of— we describe it— there are 4 major categories: toileting, which is where we're starting out. There's mobility, which is maybe what many people are most familiar with. So walkers, rollators, things like that. There are items for bathing like shower chairs, steps to get into the tub, bath mats to prevent slips and falls in the shower or bathtub, and then items for dressing to help people literally with activities of daily living, putting— getting their clothes on and off. So like I said, we're starting in toileting, but we plan to create products in each of these 4 categories to meet consumer needs.

So toileting, mobility, bathing, dressing. Mobility includes wheelchairs too, of course.

Yes.

Not just walkers and canes. So I'm curious then, do these all fall under HMC, this home medical equipment?

Yes.

Okay. And they may or may not be falling under durable medical equipment.

It depends who you ask. I don't think there are any strict guidelines, but we as a company, Boom Home Medical, at least right now in our business model, we are not planning to attack true medical equipment like respirators, insulin pumps, dialysis machines, things like that.

Beds.

Okay, more commonly done in the hospital, in a kind of a medical care setting.

Sure. Okay. Yeah, so that makes it really clear then what your target product line is. And who are the target users? I mean, you mentioned urinals. And this could be anybody that's needing some additional products in their home.

I mean, there's a population of baby boomers that are aging into this category, so they are clearly a demographic we're targeting. But as Val stated earlier, we have people who are buying the urinal and taking it to festivals like Coachella. We have people who have bought the urinal that use it for their kids in the car for road trips. That we have people that have taken it camping.

One of the— I still have a college-age child, my youngest, and what I hear him and his friends grumbling about is the trip off the upper bunk all the way down the hall to the bathroom. So, I mean, our urinals could be used by college students because right now I hear some of them are using water bottles.

Well, the boys are.

The boys are. Hmm.

So it's wide open in terms of the audience, potential users of your products, not just the medically compromised, but really any, anyone.

Anyone.

I'm going to say something incredibly bold.

Yes.

I believe that Boom Home Medical is the first to create a lifestyle brand around these products. And to support that mission, or in support of that mission, we were just notified that we won an Edison Award, which is essentially an Academy Award in industrial design. So to win an award of innovation for industrial design for a bedside urinal is literally unthinkable. But we're proud. To say that we will be accepting our award on April 19th.

Congratulations! That's great. That's super.

So we're really building a lifestyle brand that can be used by anyone, but there is the obvious population that will need these products.

Yeah, that's a great— uh, congratulations again. So it's really, again, just a wide range of products. Can you compare what your lifestyle brand is with the traditional kind of outmoded. Can you give us some other examples besides the urinals? What else is coming into the 21st century from BoomHill Medical?

Well, one of our products in the toileting line are going to be urinary pads or absorbent urinary pads.

Incontinence pads.

Incontinence pads. So when you say they're the things you put down for, for your puppy, everybody immediately knows what they are. They're blue plastic on the bottom and white on top. Their intended use is for people suffering from incontinence. They put them on their bed, they put them on chairs or couches, and to keep everything dry and their furniture protected. We have— I mean, we can't understand, but it took a minute. But we, as soon as we looked at it, we couldn't understand why they all looked exactly the same and why they were so ugly. So we've worked with our designer to create beautifully patterned absorbent incontinence pads. They look, we like to say, they look more like a throw blanket on your sofa than a puppy pad. It's interesting, some of these items are actually advertised on Amazon, and if you look at the description, they'll say, for older adults, puppies, and bunnies. And we just— that is absurd. It's absolutely—

it's demoralizing if you need that, right?

You know, so, and the number of people that use them is much higher than I think most people ever imagine. One of the Amazon Basic models looks the same, blue on the bottom, white on top, has over 175,000 reviews. So there's— we just feel that there's this unmet need. And so we're gonna try and turn that category upside down.

Sure. Yeah, no, that's huge. That's huge. I'm curious, why do you think— I mean, with all the innovations in healthcare and, you know, design and hospital environments, why do you think this equipment line has kind of stagnated and kind of not been improved? And what's the problem there?

Well, I think the problem is the people who need it most, which tend to be older adults, haven't stood up and demanded better. You know, we, I think they call them the silent generation for a reason. They got what they got and didn't get upset. And I think people aging into the 65+ category are sort of a different, a different, have a different way of thinking. They're used to innovation in all aspects of their life. You know, they use iPhones, they, some of them drive Teslas, they, ride Peloton bikes. They've experienced innovation in design throughout their lives, and they're just not going to tolerate the same old, same old.

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. The counterculture '60s generation. Sure. Yeah. Why do we have to accept what we've always had in the past?

Why?

I mean, it's the thermostat existed until Nest came along and changed things up and nobody thought to change it.

Yeah, it's interesting. And I don't, I don't know the answer to this. I'm not a marketing expert, but so much, so many consumer products, I would say the vast majority are really targeted towards younger people. I remember my father, and this was years ago, said something, was talking to somebody, I believe it was Nike or one of the big shoe companies, and said something about marketing them towards older people like himself who really needed a comfortable pair of tennis shoes. And the person basically told them, we don't want you wearing our shoes. You know, they want this sexy, young aura surrounding their products.

So, yeah, that's a good point, Valerie, because we're seeing such a huge shift in that demographic now. But the, I'd say the silver tsunami, that's not the right phrase. I think marketing experts are recognizing the huge demand from this demographic and It's just untapped. I think you're at the front edge of it where you're recognizing that we do want more modern products, more comfortable, more better designed products. And I can see that compared to our parents and grandparents.

Right. Want and deserve. We would— I think we both feel strongly that this is a population of people, they deserve this and it should be available to them.

You mentioned your father. I know when we spoke earlier, you said your dad was Dr. Art Ullin, and you said he was one of the first TV, or was it radio?

Uh, medical journalist. He was one of the first medical journalists who reported on air. My dad and a physician by the name of Tim Johnson, my dad was on the West Coast and Dr. Johnson was on the East Coast, and started doing healthcare stories on both the local news and some of the national news shows. Back in, I think, maybe the late 1970s, early 1980s.

I remember the name. I almost couldn't picture his face, but I'm not sure. Yeah, but you followed in his footsteps. That's great.

He's not on air.

I did. I did. Not on air. No.

No.

Not yet. And I followed his footsteps in medicine, and he's got two granddaughters who are both— one graduated medical school this past spring, and the other started medical school this year. So he's very excited. Excited about that.

Our generations. Yeah.

Healthcare legacy.

Yeah. Road stars to you. That's great. So back to the Luna product. Is that for sale now? Is it available retail or people can order it?

Yes, it's available on our website, boomhomemedical.com, and it's available on Amazon.

Boomhomemedical.com. We'll cover that again.

Yeah, and it comes in 3 colors. So depending how bold you want to be, or we have a beautiful subtle gray, a blue one, and our boldest color is coral.

Coral. Yeah, I see it.

Actually, it's taken us by surprise. It's one of the best sellers. That and blue are neck and neck for top sellers.

How about for males? Do you have anything yet for men?

We don't have it yet, but it's coming soon. It's called the Johnny, and we're in the manufacturing phase of it. And it's masculine and looks— we say looks at home in your home as you do, but it's very masculine. It looks like something you could buy at REI to go on a camping trip. And we are coming out with the Johnny as well as a smaller, more portable version of the urinal. That you could throw in your backpack or keep in your glove box or doesn't hold a night size of urine. It's more go on the go. And those two products will be coming out soon.

Yeah. So it's perfect for the long drives when you don't want to get off the road.

Exactly.

Yeah, sure. Exactly. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, you'll have both versions in a smaller size, men and female, or?

The men can use the— we're making one portable size that can be used by men and women.

So I'm curious, how much does health insurance come into the picture? Are there any reimbursements for any of these products yet? Or is that more for the beds and wheelchair?

So most insurance does not cover these products when it comes to wheelchairs and walkers and things like that. Usually it's covered, but lots of people have these HSA accounts or FSA accounts. Medicare offers, I think it's quarterly, $100 spend or something. I forget what it's called, Medicare Advantage or something where they send you like a catalog and you can buy Band-Aids or things like that. So you could use your HSA account or those kind of for savings. But these products are not universally not covered by insurance.

So if your primary care physician wrote an order for a urinal because you were bedbound, the insurance wouldn't cover that? Health insurance?

There might be some products that insurance covers.

At least with Medicare, frequently what they do is if it's a covered category of items, they will only cover the least expensive product or model. Anything over and above that, you pay out of pocket yourself. Then they don't even reimburse you the difference. So if they can, if the covered product is $2 and the one you want to buy is $20, you don't even get the $2. You're, you're at, yeah, you choose to go out of network.

Well, that really helps to kind of differentiate between this whole long line of medical equipment from your lifestyle equipment. And you're really not dependent on the healthcare industry and insurance. Medicare, Medicare Advantage. You're really looking at the individual lifestyle choices to purchase these products. Yeah, so that raises the other question in my mind: how does that help the individual in terms of their own self-care? And I know you're both very interested and intent on improving the person's dignity and sense of self-worth. How do you think these products kind of contribute to that added affirmation. What do you think? What are your thoughts?

Well, I mean, I'll just use the Luna as an example. I think we have a slogan that our marketing company came up with, for pee, not flowers, because really when it's bedside, it looks like a vase. I think that's what most people would— nobody would think it's a urinal. So our hope is that by making something beautiful that people feel comfortable leaving out, they feel comfortable. Somebody comes and walks into their bedroom, they feel comfortable with people seeing it. More people will use it. And I, something I talked about before were slips and falls at night. It's a huge issue, particularly for older adults. But also, I have friends who are middle-aged who have cracked their heads open on the way to the restroom at night. So if you make something beautiful enough that people will use it, I think it will help tremendously in people's safety and willingness to kind of care for themselves in a somewhat different way than what they may be used to.

Yeah, they don't have to hide the bedpan, so to speak.

Right.

Yeah.

We're making a beautiful bedpan also.

You are.

And a bedside commode, something that you'd be comfortable leaving out.

Yeah. So that's a big factor then for you as you design these products. How does it help restore that sense of dignity for the individual or help them feel okay about, okay, these are some, some of the changes, some of the setbacks that come with my aging years. I've got to recognize that and not be ashamed of it. Just kind of embrace it. This is part of my passing age and I'm okay with that. Yeah.

Hopefully we make them not only look less bad, but make them kind of attractive.

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. And you mentioned designers. So you have your own industrial designer help putting these ideas together?

We do. We've been working with a phenomenal designer, Herbst Produkt. Herbst has won the Edison Award, which we just won for the urinal, over a dozen times. I think ours makes it 13 times. They are— have collaborated on all of our products to date, and we plan to kind of move that relationship as far into the future as we possibly can. So They've just, they, they understand the importance of, they're younger than we are, but they understand the importance of what we're doing on a very deep level.

Yeah. Yeah. That's key. Yeah. To understand what you want and to be able to put those ideas down into something concrete. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. So where would you like to be in a year from now? Would you like to be in CVS or? Walgreens or Rite Aid.

We'd like to be an entire aisle at Target or Walgreens, but not just an item on a shelf, but a destination. We want people coming into the store asking if they carry Boom Pump Medical Products.

And kind of even beyond that, beyond where we're selling and how much we're selling, we want to I mean, getting to what you were just talking about, we want to change the way people feel about their aging bodies or their, or their, or infirmity. We want people to, there to be a level of acceptance and an element of beauty to it. And so if we can start, if we can move that needle a little bit, I think that would be a huge, huge win.

Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's great. You know, it's not about anti-aging, it's about adapting and moving on. Here are my changes. I'm going to face this. I'm going to fix what I can and I'm going to continue to move on. So it is about adapting. Yeah. And that's why to me, living to 100 is, it's a great destination, but it's more than that. It's, it's a mindset, right? It's whatever it's going to take you to stay, uh, stay moving forward. Yeah. So we're on the same channel. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. So just looking at a time right now, we're just about outta time. So what's the takeaway for the audience? What would you help our listeners remember from our program today?

We say it a lot of different ways, but we're saying the same thing, which is embrace aging. Don't rail against it. It's truly a privilege, one that you not everyone gets, including my own parents and brother. If you're lucky enough to age into the category that you need these products, you're winning. And so I'm a marathon runner, Val's a bodybuilder. We're closing in on 60. We're embracing it. You know, we— part of our new campaign is a woman kind of upside down rock climbing, and it says, Boomer, ha! You know, and that's sort of how we feel.

Sure. Yeah. So it is, it's celebrating, time to celebrate our age. Yeah. Not to fight it, not to resist it. Yeah. That's great. Looks like we're out of time. Thanks to both of you.

Thank you so much for having us.

Oh, you're very welcome. Before I wrap up, I just want to remind my listeners about visiting my website, livingto100.club, sign up for my email list and download a free copy. Of my 9 tips to make living longer enjoyable. You'll also see an option to contact me with your questions and comments. I welcome your feedback. Finally, thanks again for being a premium club member. Your, your support helps us keep the program going. I believe that the messages we share each week can lift our spirits, help us to stay engaged, and look forward to getting older no matter what gets in the way. So Valerie and Bernie, thanks so much for being a guest. For those who might want to contact you, what's the best way to do that?

Yeah, boomhomemedical.com.

And if anybody wanted to contact you, they can submit a request to the website?

There is, there's an email at support@boomhomemedical.com.

Okay, boomhomemedical.com. Okay, so thanks again and thanks to everyone for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

Thank you so much.

You're most welcome.

Hi everyone, this is Meredith from the Senior Fitness with Meredith podcast where I discuss discuss all things for seniors, from fitness, your health and wellness journeys, how to be all over strong and beyond. I also have my mini podcast called Motivation with Meredith. It's a great quick motivational pick-me-up for your days. Join me, listen now, search for Senior Fitness with Meredith on your favorite podcast platform.