Back in 1989, John Wittenberg was one of the first people in the home care industry to begin selling refurbished respiratory products. Since 2001 he has headed up New York City-based Inventory Solutions, Inc.

"We sell only into the trade and work with dealers and distributors all over the United States," Wittenberg said. "We're not brokers. We buy our equipment--all of our equipment goes into biomed shops and is made patient-ready. We are effectively distributors for refurbished respiratory products. We do everything from ventilators to pulse oximeters to liquid oxygen, photo therapy, apnea monitors, sleep therapy--anything that a company would need to be in the respiratory business is what we sell."

Respiratory is certainly a premier area in the home care field with the prevalence of breathing-related disorders that necessitate use of the equipment by a growing patient population.

The DOTmed Certified designation (see related story) indicates that Wittenberg is a business person with a proven reputation for reliability. "One critical thing is we offer a warranty on all of our products and we carry product liability. All life-support product comes with paperwork," he said.

Inventory Solutions has a distribution warehouse in Georgia and enjoys steady growth in its snug niche between patients and business customers. "We don't compete with any of our suppliers. So if a private-pay person calls and says I need such and such, we don't sell to them. What we do is find out where they live and refer them to a home care distributor or one of our other distributors in their area."

DOTmed plays a vital role for the company. "We've been getting referrals from DOTmed. We find people have stuff to sell and contact us through [DOTmed]. It's a very strong venue for Internet use in the medical field."

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