Kinex Medical Company
A Cost-Effective, Efficient Way to Post-Acute Care

According to the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery article, Moffet et al, 2015, 97, 1129-41, “There is no inferiority of telerehabilitation compared with in-home face-to-face physical therapy. The costs of in-home telerehabilitation versus in-home face-to-face encounters in another study have determined the circumstances under which telerehabilitation may be more cost-effective.” To keep pace with the growing adoption of telerehabilitation, Kinex Medical Company has marked its prominence as an orthopedic specialty medical equipment company, facilitating the delivery and billing of Durable Medical Equipment (DME) and Orthotics for acute, post-acute, and in-home rehabilitation following injuries or surgeries. Having served the DME market for over three decades across 34 states in the US, Kinex Medical Company has introduced a rehabilitation tool combining a range of motion, telerehabilitation, video-based exercise, as well as a survey engine to help reduce readmissions. In addition, “Kinex actively engages in Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) in the post-acute care space, both on the federal and commercial side, allowing hospitals and surgeons to work with one vendor for all their post-operative orthopedic needs,” notes Mike Buckholdt, President and COO of the company.

As a leading supplier of Continuous Passive Motion (CPM) devices in the US, Kinex brings in a full range of post-operative CPM devices for knee, hip and the shoulder, as well as hand and wrist injuries. While traditional CPMs are mostly operated via a handheld controller that is hardwired into the device, offering no feedback on the progress of patients, Kinex’s CPM device, KinexConnect, is highly intuitive and can be controlled by an Android tablet.

“We use the cellular feature to monitor the patients in terms of utilization, frequency, compliance, and more,” mentions Buckholdt. Specially designed for the convenience of the elderly patients, the tablet enables them to control the range of motion and speed of the device while analyzing their progress week over week through color-coded feedback tools. The easy-to-use CPM machine eliminates the need to download any application on the smartphone to manage it; patients can utilize the tablet that runs on kiosk mode. Kinex also offers a comprehensive range of a variety of cold therapy products, which is highly cost-efficient for opioid epidemic and pain control. The company provides an array of bracing and support options, all the way from off-the-shelf models to ACL braces, hip braces, unloader braces, and more for patients afflicted with osteoarthritis along with portable ultrasound devices, TENS, and a multitude of electro-stimulation products.

In line with delivering value-based care, “we pride ourselves on being able to manage the post-acute spend while facilitating better outcomes with a variety of orthopedic diagnosis at a much lesser cost, enhancing patient satisfaction in the process,” informs Buckholdt. For instance, home health physical therapy (PT) post a total knee replacement often involves a bundled payment as high as $3500. However, with KinexConnect CPM model patients can receive equivalent care, combining video-based exercise and PT, at just $400. Kinex delivered the same benefits with its KinexConnect model to an orthopedic doctor who is a part of a physician group in a rural community. While the doctor was not satisfied with his existing PT processes, with Kinex’s novel CPM device, he was able to achieve significantly better outcomes in a couple of months along with a market-leading practice in terms of overall cost per case.

Kinex ensures that its equipment is delivered to patients’ homes, which are set up by trained fitters who also educate them on the usage. The company then monitors the performance and progress of the patients while offering round-the-clock support service for technical issues. Further, through a secure portal, Kinex enables doctors to pull the requisite patient data depending on their needs. “We have a compliance department that manages the complexities of Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial compliance issues,” Buckholdt mentions.