Bloom [ Persona ] Providing In-Home Medical Solutions January 2007

by Mike Williams
Images by Russell Byrne

Mike’s family- and friend-based business has the noble goal of bringing the exactly appropriate medical equipment to the homes of people in need. They have the experience and passion to get this right.

I grew up with an awareness of the need for appropriate in-home medical care since my mom has Multiple Sclerosis and my dad suffered with many ailments. The experience gave both my sister and me a sympathetic heart for people with special medical requirements, as well as an inside view of how the industry worked — and sometimes failed to work — in solving patients’ need. We developed a passion to reach out to people and help them wherever we could do so.

My folks moved to Discovery Bay in 1979 and, therefore, became pioneers in what was at that time a new community. I graduated from Brentwood’s Liberty High School in 1992. I was active in a lot of athletics and eventually became a ranked Junior Tennis player and also played other varsity sports.

My upbringing made a big difference in my life. I was infused with a work ethic and with an attitude of perseverance. I was raised to believe that there is no excuse for bad quality. It’s the attitude I took with me onto the tennis court, as well as the manner in which I approach my professional life.

Days of Preparation
I wanted to attend college at Berkeley or Stanford so I could play in the Pac-10 Athletic Conference. However, I got a Tennis Scholarship for the University of Oregon in Eugene and thus became one of “The Mighty Ducks.”

In college I majored in Kinesiology with a minor in Psychology, which seemed to me to be good preparation for a profession in the medical field. I wanted to be a physical therapist. Right out of college, however, I took a job in sales working for a company that provided oxygen supplies and sleep equipment for in-home care.

Among other things, the job involved billing insurance companies. I learned a lot about our country’s health insurance maze, which is, unfortunately, an important component of the home medical equipment industry.

I realized almost immediately that I had found a professional home and fell in love with the work. I was always intrigued by the idea that I could do something to impact people and exert a positive influence upon their quality of life. I appreciated the ability of our assistive technology to implement solutions in the homes of people with special needs.

I later gained even more experience with another company as a medical equipment representative distributing orthopedic appliances and surgical implements. I began working with surgeons on specific cases, helping them understand their choices for total knee or hip repairs and replacements. I especially became a specialist working with physicians who were performing ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction) procedures.

I created a fantastic sales territory through my policy of paying personal attention to each individual account. I was always “there” for the doctors and for their patients. When patients were released I immediately made available to them appropriate rehab equipment tailored to each patient’s exact equipment needs.

I began to create relationships with clients and with other people in the industry. I loved the work! And knew I wanted to stay in the industry and spread my good services around.

My positive experiences and passion for home healthcare gave me great confidence in setting up Med Solutions six years ago. I created a set of proposals that I shared with the people in my network. Some of them were too contented with their lives or lacked sufficient imagination to catch the vision. However, a number of my friends and family jumped on the bandwagon with a “let’s do this!” attitude.

By the time the dust settled our fledging business had five owners including my sister Carrie Williams; my parents, Jim and Peggy Williams; a long-time friend, Bryan Glessner; and myself. We started the company out of our Discovery Bay garage and from the beginning the enterprise seemed to take on a life of its own. We on the team developed an extreme culture of best effort that reflected our determination to succeed.

Down to Business
We initially opened the business from our home on Riverlake Road. We had limited financial resources and planned from the beginning to develop the business by leveraging our extensive understanding of the industry and of the requirements for the work we were doing. We built the business on moxie; we were confident that we had what it would take to succeed.

Even though the business was new we were starting it with a track record. We had experiences with many of our customers; they knew who we were and what we stood for so we were naturally able to attract them to our services and products. Our customer base started to grow quickly. We began hiring new employees including Joe Arreguin and Chris Wood. Two other important employees include Lina Morfin and Noemi Montano.

We were outgrowing our space. Before long we were outgrowing our garage. We installed three storage lockers on the side of my parents’ house that were soon full of braces, walkers, commodes, et cetera. 

For a while we were locked into our Discovery Bay neighborhood by a lack of revenue sufficient to support our moving the business to a more appropriate location. We began moving inventory at break-neck speed. Trucking companies were lining up to take turns at dropping off inventory in front of my folks’ house. The neighbors became understandably irritated, and we began having problems with the city. We eventually relocated to our present Brentwood site to the relief of our neighbors — and of us all, actually.

None of this was surprising, since we were putting into effect the expansion that we had designed into our original business plan.

We continued gaining market share and began finding customers in areas outside our local region as far away as Southern California. The opportunity was so great in the L.A. Basin that we hired a representative, named Christian Silva, who was another graduate from Liberty High School and one of our neighbors.

We eventually became overextended so we brought Christian back to assist us in our Mobility Department and gave up the Southern California part of the business, at least for now. We are making plans to franchise our operation and expect someday to have thriving clones of our Med Solutions operating in population centers around the state, and possibly beyond.

Our professional goal and the mission of our business is to provide a resource to the community that goes beyond merely supplying medical equipment. We work hard to localize our services to the particular living environment in the home where they will be used.

We provide a service that is unique in the country, I think. We are servicing 60 national contracts, each of which rely upon us for same-day service. If a call comes at two o’clock in the afternoon from Florida, for example, requiring a bed to be delivered to San Mateo, we’ll have it set up in the client’s home before dinnertime.

Such guaranteed service comes at the expense of long hours and hard work. That level of service, however, is what makes our company special. We’ve been able to build our extraordinary business because of the loyalty of our staff, who makes it possible for us to provide service at this level of detail.

Many special needs people living in our area don’t know where to direct those needs. Once they get into contact with us, we align them with the best equipment and services possible. In this way we become sort of a clearinghouse for service — matching client needs to available resources in the most effective way possible.

Many outpatient medical companies attempt to play this role, but they are always limited in the amount of time they can devote to a single client so they often end up not providing the services most appropriate to the client’s needs.

All for One and One for All
Like everything else, our industry is all about networking. One of the best parts of having your own company is the ability to leverage the business as a way of getting family and friends involved in developing important and satisfying careers.

Somebody said, “You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.”

I agree with that! Life is more than just making a buck; we’re helping people we love to succeed. We’re giving back to the people we serve from the good things we have been given ourselves.

All the people we’ve hired have been graduates of Liberty High and all reside in this area. In fact, eight of us in our company grew up on Riverlake Road. Some of us grew up together. All of us were good friends and in some cases were schoolmates together. Four of our employees actually attended kindergarten together.

Our staff has all come to us through personal contacts of one kind or another. We haven’t had to publish ads in the Brentwood Press or on Craig’s List to find qualified employees.

It’s fun working with people you love! My folks come in most days. My mom is a key manager and decision-maker in the company. My grandmother, Betty Bowlby, handles collections for us and keeps hounding health insurance companies who often pay as slowly as they can, so she keeps chasing after outstanding accounts. She does a great job staying on top of that! Kerry Guggenheim and Norma Ceja also play key roles in our billing and collection efforts.

Our company tries to pay forward the good that comes to us. We treat employees and patients as we would want to be treated. We will continue building our business by combining that philosophy with a sound business plan based upon goals that are attainable and measurable.

Reaching our goals in our business demands a team effort. On one hand it requires a never-say-die attitude. On the other it demands sincere commitment and trust from the members of the team for each other.

“Work hard! No excuses.”

Those are four words for putting together both an effective business and a well-lived life. °