This month's headlines
 

Sales compensation is powerful management tool. Annual Conference breakout helps members answer tough questions, such as, “How can a well-designed compensation plan help the specialty distributor balance the demands of its own bottom line, that of its manufacturer partners, and those of the reps in the field?” Manufacturers’ lessons: Achieving success through specialty sales and marketing companies. Rick Pfahl of Bovie Medical walks manufacturers who attended the Annual Conference through the whys and hows of working with specialty sales and marketing organizations. The Lifemed Group: A lot of ground to cover. One of IMDA’s newest members services the entire country of Canada with five sales reps, two clinical specialists and two customer service agents. Free Webinar: Sales reps in the OR – Navigating a liability minefield. What your reps say or do, or neglect to say or do, can transcend your company’s liability parameters. Learn more in this Webinar, Monday, Aug. 31. GPOs may go under lawmakers’ microscope again. Seven GPOs received letters from three senators asking for detailed information on how they spend the money they make on administrative fees. Accountability sorely needed in GPOs’ affairs: Sethi. In a new book, S. Prakash Sethi explains why the GPO industry’s Code of Conduct doesn’t hold water. But IMDA readers should beware: This 180-page book would have been better half that size…or less.

Keystone, Colo., is the site of the 2010 Annual Conference, May 16-18.

Annual Conference Sales compensation is powerful management tool

CHARLESTON, SC—IMDA members would agree that theirs is a complex business. Specialty sales and marketing organizations typically represent a number of manufacturers, each of which has a line of products. How does the specialty sales and marketing organization ensure that its reps are getting the job done for every one of them? How does it balance the demands of manufacturers, sales reps, customers, and its own bottom line? Sales rep compensation may be the most effective tool to help them do so.

For the second year in a row, sales compensation was the topic of two well-attended, lively breakout sessions at the recent Annual Conference. Facilitated by Tony Marmo and John Marmo of Martab Medical, and Don Reiter of Special Respiratory Care, the breakouts offered a forum for discussion on compensation and, as it turns out, reimbursement for expenses.

Traditional approaches

The breakouts began with a discussion of the four traditional approaches to sales compensation, each with its own upside and downside, as presented by Tony Marmo.

• Straight salary plan. The no-commission approach promotes attention to the customer and a degree of sales rep loyalty, as long as the salary is competitive. However, it fails to motivate those reps who thrive on competition and individual achievement. Often, the most successful approach to using the straight salary plan is to combine it with an effective bonus program based upon corporate profits.
   
• Salary plus commission offers sales reps a guaranteed base salary and commission. Generally, businesses offer relatively high base salaries only to seasoned reps who they feel can hit the ground running and who can quickly sell enough to earn their keep. Commission percentages will vary based on a number of factors, including gross profit, cost of sales, length of sales cycle and the complexity of the sale.
   
• Salary plus draw. This plan advances a predetermined amount of commission to a rep each month with the expectation that the rep will sell enough to reimburse the company. The recoverable draw method calls for the rep to be responsible for paying for shortfalls in commissions out of future commissions. Nonrecoverable draw means that the rep is not obligated to reimburse the company. Recoverable draw offers less financial exposure to a company, but non-recoverable draw is more attractive to reps, who will have increased earnings stability during their first months on the job.
   
• ‘Sink or swim,’ or ‘pay for performance.’ In this approach, the rep receives no salary, just commission. Most companies realize that although there is no direct financial exposure, they may have difficulty attracting qualified reps with this approach.

Complex business

One topic that surfaced during the discussions was the complexity of translating manufacturers’ annual sales goals into goals for individual sales reps. If the manufacturer is calling for, say, 20 percent growth in sales (and the IMDA member agrees that the number is do-able), is it fair to expect every rep to increase his or her sales 20 percent – not only the rep who sold the lion’s share of that manufacturer’s products the year before, but the one who barely sold any?

Several years ago, Martab Medical decided the answer was “no,” and so began drawing up “salespersons’ budgets” for each of its reps, based on past performance as well as sales targets. “They are a way to drive sales activity and results toward the products and manufacturers most valued by management,” says Tony Marmo. Each rep has a dollar amount quota for each key manufacturer, and for each product as well. Those reps who have lagged somewhat on a given manufacturer’s lines are expected to improve their sales at a greater rate than those who had excelled. Others in the discussion groups reported taking the same approach.

1099s

Jim Herrman of Med Alliance Group in suburban Chicago shared how his approach – the use of 1099s (independent contractors) on straight commission – has served his company well and accommodated rapid growth. “If you give people a high enough percentage of gross margin, they can make a handsome living, and they take possession of their territory as if it were their own personal business,” he explained after the Conference. “We’re not much into hand-holding.” Med Alliance’s strategy is to tap salespeople who are experienced and successful, and share a healthy percentage of the profits they generate. As the reps experience the rewards, they tend to devote much of their time to Med Alliance’s product line. (But to maintain 1099 status, they retain other companies’ lines as well.)

The approach has allowed Med Alliance to grow from four to 15 people. It offers a relatively risk-free way to expand, and it spares Med Alliance from a lot of sales training exercises. In fact, at this point in its development, Med Alliance is taking on the sons of some of its existing reps. “The father kind of hovers over the kid and actually acts as his mentor,” explains Herrmann. “This way, we don’t have the sales training issues we might have had with someone else.”

Expenses

With gas prices rising and falling like a superball in early summer, some IMDA members at the breakout were questioning how much to reimburse their sales reps for gas mileage. When gas prices are hovering around two bucks, 55 cents a mile is a pretty good deal for the rep. But when pump price doubles, then driving on company time is a losing deal for the rep. In essence, the company may be incentivizing him or her to stay home rather than get on the road and call on clients. Some companies, including Martab, avoid the problem altogether simply by paying reps for gas used, tolls and parking. (That said, it can be a challenge to monitor Friday-afternoon fill-ups.) Others use commercially available products, such as that from Runzheimer International, to monitor and control travel expenses.

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CHARLESTON, SC—Educating manufacturers of innovative medical technologies about the role of specialty sales and marketing organizations is an important part of the Annual Conference and Manufacturers Forum. As he has in the past, Rick Pfahl of allied member Bovie Medical, Clearwater, Fla., spent some upfront time with manufacturers doing just that.

“Some had a good understanding and some were new to this distribution model,” said Pfahl after the Conference. “I think all of them looked at the channel with a new viewpoint in one aspect or another.”

After reviewing the various options that manufacturers have to promote and market their technologies to hospitals and physicians (e.g., employing a direct sales force; using telemarketing; or contracting with general-line distributors, independent reps or specialty sales and marketing organizations, such as those in IMDA), Pfahl zeroed in on the strengths, potential drawbacks and secrets of success when working with specialty sales and marketing organizations.

• The major strengths of working with IMDA members include:
• They are less expensive than a direct sales force.
• They have “skin in the game,” that is, an investment in inventory.
• They have existing and often long-standing customer contacts.
• They save the manufacturer “soft dollars” by handling invoicing, collecting and shipping.
• They offer fewer points of contact for the manufacture than direct or independent reps.
• They allow for a regional strategy. (The approach a manufacturer uses in California is not necessarily the same as in New York.)
• They have high credibility among providers due to their long-standing relationships.
• They can generate synergies among the various products they carry. (While talking to a clinician about one product, the specialty distributor can present another, related one.)
• They offer a way for the manufacturer to enter the market quickly.
• They can help “flush out” product lines in the concept phase; they are an excellent resource for market research.
• They provide a “continuity of customer relationship.”
• With the right contract, they can represent a product throughout its entire life cycle, even its commodity phase.
• They provide “vendor credentials” to get into the accounts.
• They carry another layer of insurance.
• Oftentimes, their company is recognized as its own “brand.”

But manufacturers have to recognize that working with specialty sales and marketing organizations presents some challenges as well. For example:

• The sales and marketing organization – not the manufacturer – “owns” the end-user relationships.
• The IMDA member has more than one product in its bag, and thus cannot devote 100 percent of its time to any particular one.
• The skill set required to manage a specialty sales and marketing organization is very different than that required to manage direct reps.
• The specialty sales and marketing organization may have more influence in creating the “product image” than the manufacturer.
• GPOs rarely award contracts to specialty distributors and reps.
• Specialty distributors demand healthy margins in exchange for the product introductions they do.

Making it work

Having taken all those factors into consideration, and having decided to embark on a strategy with specialty distributors and reps, manufacturers should understand the importance of writing a good contract. “The contract can address all of the needs of both parties and clearly define expectations even beyond the typical metrics,” said Pfahl. During the session, he also spoke with manufacturers about the fact that specialty distributors can represent some products throughout their entire life cycles – from innovation to commodity -- just by changing expectations and rewards in the contract.

A well-written contract:

• Includes the exit strategy and how it is triggered.
• Establishes fair quotas based on data, and accommodates the specialty distributor’s input.
• Covers multiple years, and perhaps includes a short (90-day) out clause, which gives the distributor confidence to invest in the product and the manufacturer time to validate its distributor pick. (The 90-day period can be used to measure metrics other than strictly sales.
• Offers geographic or price exclusivity, without which there is no commitment from anyone.

Manufacturers who wish to employ specialty sales and marketing organizations should also expect to provide the following:

• Qualified people who can do clinical sales training in the field.
• Advertising.
• Attendance at regional and local shows.
• Lead generation.
• Customized marketing support.

The relationship will suffer without good communication about sales successes and challenges, as well as effective sales strategies, said Pfahl. “Specialty distributors need to be very clear with manufacturers on the services and benefits they can offer,” he continued. “They should avoid assuming that manufacturers clearly understand the flexibility they can offer.”

By being clear on these points, the specialty distributor not only increases the odds of building a successful relationship with the manufacturer, but also helps the manufacturer’s sales manager “validate” the specialty distribution channel to others in his or her organization. “Detailing the advantages of this channel makes it easier to justify the channel to those corporate managers who think they know it,” said Pfahl.

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The folks at The Lifemed Group -- one of IMDA’s newest members -- cover a lot of ground. Based in the Town of Collingwood, Ont., on Nottawasaga Bay at the southern point of Georgian Bay, Lifemed Group services the entire country of Canada with five sales reps, two clinical specialists and two customer service agents.

“Canada is geographically 20 percent larger than the United States,” says President and CEO Murray Maynard. “However, the medical system is only a fraction of the size of the U.S. market. While there are about 1,600 hospitals in Canada, only 45 centers perform open-heart surgery or coronary angioplasty. Approximately 80 hospitals have interventional radiology programs.”

Long-time IMDA members may recall when Lifemed -- a former iteration of The Lifemed Group -- was a member of IMDA in the mid-1990s.

Canada: Starting point, ending point

Maynard himself has covered quite a bit of ground in his career. He began his career in the medical device industry in 1984 with Vas-Cath, a Canadian company that produced catheters for hemodialysis and peripheral angioplasty. As vice president of sales and new business development, he worked with distributors all over the world, including many former IMDA members. He left Vas-Cath and moved to Germany for two years to establish a catheter division for Gambro. He then moved to Austin, Texas, as president of Jostra Inc., manufacturer of a line of heart/lung machines, oxygenators, catheters and tubing sets.

Following his tenure at Jostra, he moved back to Canada and in 1996 established Lifemed, a national medical device distribution company representing a number of companies in interventional cardiology, radiology and vascular access. The company was purchased in 2003 by one of its manufacturer partners.

In 2003, he formed The Lifemed Group. The company represents five manufacturers with a product portfolio including PFO/ASD occlusion systems, intravascular ultrasound and fractional flow reserve technology, CTO catheters, coronary embolic protection stents, and thrombus aspiration catheters.

“The decision to start my own company was largely borne out of the fact that I was keen to return to Canada on a permanent basis and saw the opportunity to establish a distributorship that concentrated on high-margin niche markets,” says Maynard. “Having traveled internationally for many years, I had developed great connections with a variety of small manufacturers with superb technologies. The chance to continue those relationships and grow a business at home marked an excellent opportunity and challenge.”

The Lifemed Group remains focused on the subspecialties it knows best -- interventional cardiology, radiology and vascular surgery. “We are frequently approached to represent products outside that ‘space,’ but we confine the business to our core expertise,” says Maynard.

Location, location, location

For the first several years of its existence, The Lifemed Group was located in the downtown core of Toronto. “However, on more than one occasion, we outgrew our facility and were also faced with the escalating cost of rental space in the city,” he says. “Given the nature of our business, we rarely had physicians visiting our offices and only periodically met with suppliers. As a result, it was apparent that we did not have to be in Toronto.

“My team is made up of people who love to ski in the winter and golf in the summer. Located 90 minutes northwest of Toronto, Collingwood offered the perfect scenario for both activities. Therefore, I purchased a large century home on an enormous lot and converted it to offices and warehouse space. It was a great decision in that the staff were thrilled with the location; and the economic benefits to owning our facility were obvious. It also provides us with unlimited room for expansion.”

IMDA members can welcome Murray Maynard to IMDA by calling him at (705) 445-7000 or e-mailing him.

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IMDA members whose reps call on the OR know that the potential for liability is high. What your reps say or do, or neglect to say or do, can transcend your company’s liability parameters. A free Webinar sponsored by Medmarc is designed to provide actionable ways to mitigate the risks. The Webinar will be held Monday, Aug. 31, from 2 to 3 Eastern.

The Webinar will be presented by Eric L. Zalud, a member of Medmarc’s defense panel and chair of the Benesch law firm’s litigation practice group. He focuses his practice on product liability matters, including medical device defense. He will discuss the “dos and don’ts” of calling on the OR, offering specific pointers and general guidance on policy parameters. Topics to be covered will include:

• Avoiding mistakes that can lead to broken relationships with customers.

• Protecting your employees in the OR.

• Preventing the expansion of liability.

• Preserving the “learned intermediary doctrine” defense.

• Preventing lawsuits before they arise.

• Limiting recoverable damages.

• And more.

IMDA, Alliant Insurance Services and Medmarc have established a proprietary liability insurance program to better protect the assets of IMDA members and reduce their overall cost of risk. For more information on the program, as well as the upcoming Webinar, contact George Ayd Jr., Medmarc’s assistant vice president, business development and marketing, at (703) 652-1309 or by e-mail.

GPOs may go under lawmakers’ microscope again

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Three influential senators have asked seven of the nation’s biggest GPOs for detailed information on how they spend the money they make on administrative fees. The senators are interested in what other services (besides contracting) the GPOs provide, and how their revenues are affected when members buy off contract. The senators have also asked for copies of contracts that GPOs sign with manufacturers, something normally not made public. Yet to be determined is whether GPO executives will be called to Washington to testify, as they have several times in the past decade; or whether lawmakers will consider revoking the “safe harbor” allowing GPOs to collect money from companies to whom they award contracts (a practice which, save for the “safe harbor” designation, would be illegal under Medicare’s laws against kickbacks).

The senators making the requests were Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chairman of both the Special Committee on Aging and the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee; Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), of the Senate Finance Committee and a member of the antitrust subcommittee; and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is on the Finance and Aging committees. Recipients of their letters, dated Aug. 11, were MedAssets, Premier, Novation, Consorta, Broadlane, Amerinet and HealthTrust Purchasing Group.

The letters, copies of which IMDA Update obtained from Senator Kohl’s office, asked for the GPOs to produce the following information by Sept. 8:

1. Details on the “functions and activities” that the GPO performs on behalf of its members that are related to negotiating and administering GPO agreements and contracts.
2. Details on the activities and services offered “beyond activities related to negotiating and administering group purchasing agreements/contracts.”
3. For each of the activities described in Nos. 1 and 2, “identify the source(s) of funding, including to what extent the activity or service is paid for by administrative or other fees collected from manufacturers, other vendors and suppliers, and distributors in connection with group purchasing functions and activities.”
4. Description of all types of payments received from manufacturers, other vendors and suppliers, and distributors, and the purpose for which the GPO receives each type of payment. “In addition, please provide copies of sample contracts or agreements outlining such payments.”
5. Description of any payments received from GPO members, and the purpose of each.
6. Description of the circumstances under which the GPO awards sole-source contracts, and identification of such contracts.
7. Description of the criteria (i.e., volume purchases, size of company) with which the GPO makes purchasing selections of medical devices.
8. Description of the impact on fees collected by the GPO “if a client decides to go off a sole-source contract or its purchase volume fails to meet the percentage specified in a purchasing contract.”
9. Copies of sample contracts for any “bundled” agreements, with description of price concessions, including any tiered discounts for reaching specific volume targets.

If GPOs are asked to testify, it would not be the first time. GPOs were the subject of Senate hearings in April 2002, July 2003, September 2004 and March 2006. In October 2004, Kohl and others introduced the Medical Device Competition Act, which would have 1) put strict limits on administrative fees, 2) required that personnel who negotiate contracts with GPOs be certified, and 3) required the Department of Health and Human Services, the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to issue final regulations specifying business and ethical practices that are contrary to antitrust law and ethical standards. The bill died when Congress adjourned in November 2004. But in early 2005, the Senate gave GPOs (and their trade association, the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association) until mid-March to come up with a voluntary Code of Conduct. The organization did create such a Code.

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Book review Accountability sorely needed in GPOs’ affairs: Sethi

IMDA members who have an aversion to GPOs will nod in agreement with – if not roar in approval of -- S. Prakash Sethi’s book, Group Purchasing Organizations: An Undisclosed Scandal in the U.S. Healthcare Industry (available on Amazon.com). Sethi is clearly no friend of GPOs. In fact, he believes GPOs are damaging to U.S. healthcare in that they are oligopolistic (a handful of companies controlling vast amounts of purchases), self-aggrandizing (collecting vast amounts of money from vendors in return for signing lucrative contracts with them), and, for lack of a better term, murky (that is, secretive about how much money they collect and how they spend it).

In Sethi’s view, GPOs are to be commended -- in a backhand sort of way -- for just two things: First, for their skill in getting the government to rule in 1986 that administrative fees from vendors constitute a “safe harbor” in Medicare’s Anti-Kickback laws, meaning that GPOs cannot be prosecuted for collecting such fees; and second, for the savvy they have demonstrated in avoiding direct government intervention in their affairs despite the scrutiny of Congress and the public. (Needless to say, the book was published prior to the recent letter sent by several U.S. senators to seven GPOs demanding information on their revenues and how they spend them. See related article in this month’s IMDA Update.)

The problem for readers is, the book reads like a research paper, which, in fact, is what it is. Much of it was prepared as part of Sethi’s report to the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition of the Committee on the Judiciary. Many pages are devoted to rehashing the events that transpired between 2002 and 2006, when GPOs caught the attention of lawmakers and the national media, including the New York Times. It includes, in an epilogue, a detailed description of a whistleblower’s lawsuit filed in September 2007 against Novation, VHA and University HealthSystem Consortium, accusing the GPOs of shaking down vendors in return for signing contracts with them and other illegal activities.

There’s virtually nothing new in most of what Sethi writes, and there’s way too much of it. The book is 180 pages long; it easily could have been half that – or less.

Analysis of the Code of Conduct

There is one exception to these objections -- Sethi’s analysis of the GPO industry’s Voluntary Code of Conduct, which has been institutionalized in an organization called the Healthcare Group Purchasing Industry Initiative (www.healthcaregpoii.com). That this is the strongest part of the book should come as no surprise. Codes of conduct are Sethi’s strong suit.

Sethi is University Distinguished Professor, Academic Director of Executive Programs, and Professor of Management at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, The City University of New York. He is an expert on international codes of conduct, and has written 24 books and 135 articles on that and related topics.

He is also CEO of the International Center for Corporate Accountability (www.icca-corporateaccountability.org), which is based at the Zicklin School of Business. According to its Website, ICCA’s mission is to “urge multinational corporations to create voluntary standards that would guide their conduct in overseas operations regarding issues such as wages and working conditions,” and other issues. “An even more important aspect of our mission is to create systematic procedures by which we provide independent external monitoring to verify compliance by the companies with their voluntarily created codes of conduct.”

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It is the absence of independent external monitoring that riles Sethi most about the GPO industry’s Code of Conduct. It’s a point he makes forcefully – and often.

For example, Sethi points out that in 2002, in response to Congressional scrutiny, Premier Inc. commissioned Professor Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, to conduct an independent study on the GPO industry and to recommend best practices to be adopted by the company. In his report, Hanson listed 18 general ethical principles for GPOs to follow. But to Sethi, the report is more a public relations exercise than meaningful document.

“These are indeed good ethical and aspirational principles, which not only GPOs but all companies should follow,” he writes. “However, from the perspective of this author, they leave everything to the discretion of the companies without indicating any specificity as to actions, accountability and transparency in compliance verification. In the absence of meaningful, transparent, and independent verification, the rationale of voluntariness and expectation of public trust falls on its face.”

Indeed, Sethi is delightfully cynical about most codes of conduct. “Creation of industrywide voluntary principles or codes of conduct has been a growth industry for the last two decades,” he writes. “Unfortunately, the widespread creation of such codes by corporations and industry groups has not gone beyond the rhetorical stage.” Sponsoring organizations too often fail to take adequate steps to enforce the codes, and they neglect to make transparent their efforts toward compliance and improved performance, he says. Oftentimes, the codes are watered down to please the laxest members of the organization. Such codes are a sham, and they fail to instill public trust in the organizations who issue them. Such is the case with the GPO’s code, according to the author.

Six core principles of ethics

The HGPII consists of six core principles of ethics and business conduct. HGPII publishes an annual report on how its members are complying with these principles, and a grievance process is in place to keep everyone on their toes. All signatories must:

1. Have and adhere to a written code of business conduct. The code establishes high ethical values expected from all within the signatory's organization.

2. Train all within the organization as to their personal responsibilities under the code.

3. Work toward the twin goals of high quality healthcare and cost effectiveness.

4. Work toward an open and competitive purchasing process free of conflicts of interest and any undue influences.

5. Share with each other “best practices” in implementing the principles. Each signatory shall participate in an annual Best Practices forum.

6. Be accountable to the public.

Even so, Sethi believes the entire effort falls short because it fails to adhere to what he believes are eight conditions “that must be met for an industry-based code to demonstrate measurable and credible compliance with the industry’s voluntary initiative.” Those conditions are (emphases are Sethi’s):

1. The code must be substantive in addressing broad areas of public concern pertaining to industry’s conduct.

2. Code principles or standards must be specific in addressing issues embodied in the principles.

3. Code performance standards must be realistic in the context of the industry’s financial strength and competitive environment. The industry should not make exaggerated promises or claim implausible achievements.

4. Member companies must create an effective internal implementation system to ensure effective code compliance.

5. Code compliance must be an integral part of a management performance evaluation and reward system.

6. The industry must create an independent governance structure that is not controlled by the executives of the member companies.

7. There must be an independent external monitoring and compliance verification system to engender public trust and credibility in the industry’s claims of performance.

8. There should be maximum transparency and verifiable disclosure of industry performance to the public. Standards of performance disclosure should be the sole province of the code’s governing board.

“The GPO Initiative is weakened by a lack of specificity, nonexistent performance standards, an internally controlled and self-serving governance structure, and an absence of genuine independent external monitoring,” writes Sethi. “[It] needs to be enhanced by requiring the GPOs to make full and complete disclosure of their finances. Moreover, the financial disclosure would be certified and independently verified by an outside auditing firm.” In a perfect world, the information to be provided would include:

• All sources of income and their connection with GPO operations.

• Disclosure of operating expenditures in meaningful categories.

• Details of compensation packages for top executives.

• Distribution of surplus revenue to member hospitals and the criteria used to determine allocations.

• Disclosure of ownership interests in GPOs by their managers and also by the managers of member hospitals.

In light of the letters that the Senate recently sent to the seven GPOs, it appears that lawmakers just might have read Sethi’s book.

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IMDA Update Published by IMDA 5204 Fairmount Ave., Downers Grove, IL 60515 Phone:  (630) 655-9280 (866) IMDA-YES (866-463-2937) Fax: (630) 493-0798 Website:  www.imda.org E-mail:  imda@imda.org   Staff Katie Swartz: Executive Director Judy Keel: Executive Vice President Patti Perillo:  Senior Administrator Mary Moran:  Chief Financial Officer Mark Thill, Editor & Communications Director (847) 255-0716 Mitchell Kramer, Legal Counsel (800) 451-7466 Barbara Kramer, Legal Counsel (734) 930-5452 George Ayd, Jr., Insurance Administrator (703) 652-1309         2009-2010 Directors President Kevin Trout, Grandview Medical Resources, Inc. (412) 914-0950 President-Elect Anthony Marmo, Martab Medical (201) 512-1100 Secretary/Treasurer Hal Freehling, Jr., O.E. Meyer Company (419) 609-1633 Chairman of the Board Dave Campbell, PhD, Vital/Med Systems Corporation (303) 660-0888 Directors-at-Large Tom Birmingham, Bay State Anesthesia, Inc. (978) 682-6321 George Howe, Mercury Medical (727) 573-0088 Philip M. Reilly, KOL Bio-Medical Instruments, Inc. (703) 378-8600 Don Reiter, Specialty Respiratory Care, Inc. (818) 717-8807 x19 Bill Schultz, IPV Medical, LLC (760) 212-2769 Past-President Shawn Walker, Bay State Anesthesia, Inc. (978) 682-6321 Manufacturer Representative to Board Tim Beevers, Beevers Manufacturing & Supply (503) 472-9055 The ideas presented in this newsletter may or may not be applicable to your particular situation.  Always consult your tax advisor, attorney or CPA before putting them into effect.