Viemed Healthcare, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to the VIMED first quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to your host, Todd Zender, Chief Operating Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Gavin. Good morning, everyone. Please note that our remarks in this conference call may include forward-looking statements under the U.S. federal securities laws or forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities legislation, which we collectively refer to as forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current views and intentions with respect to future results or events and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results or events to vary from those indicated in forward-looking statements. Examples of such risks and uncertainties are discussed in our disclosure documents filed with the SEC or the securities regulatory authorities in certain provinces of Canada. Because of these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made in this conference call are made as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law. The first quarter financial results, news release, including the related financial statements are available on the SEC's website. I'll now turn it over to Casey to get things started.

All right. Thank you, Todd. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter 2023 earnings call. Today, we're extremely excited to report on how our core business is really clicking on all cylinders and certainly driving these record-setting first quarter results. We will also review our most recent pending acquisition of home medical products, HMP. Lastly, I'll spend some time providing our current view and outlook of the industry. First, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank our dedicated team of respiratory therapists, behavioral health specialists, staffing professionals, and administrative support staff who work continuously to deliver the best-in-class care to the patients we are privileged to serve. Our outstanding quarter is a direct result of their hard work. At the end of the first quarter, our ViMed family grew to 770 employees, and we are incredibly excited to soon welcome the H&P team into our family, which is expected to increase our headcount by approximately 180 employees. The first quarter of 2023 was an exceptionally strong example of our organic growth success. Our revenue results exceeded the top end of our guided range and confirm that despite being a larger company, we clearly have the ability to maintain our impressive pre-pandemic year-over-year growth rates. The strategy of having biomed healthcare staff that can find the right people to expand our organic business has proven to be successful. VHS has contributed to our ability to optimize our hiring efforts while our back office refines our training and culture. Our training will help drive continued organic growth throughout the year, and we are probably most excited to share it with our new employees onboarding from H&P during the second quarter. With open access to our referral sources restored post-pandemic, we only see positive forces ahead to support future growth. Furthermore, our respiratory equipment supply chain is stronger than ever before, with many new manufacturers competing for our business. The increased competition is driving down costs of our purchases of equipment and ensuring that we will have adequate supply to meet the needs of our patients. We expect to leverage our volume purchases in the near term upon closing the H&P transaction. The purchase of H&P will launch our acquisition growth initiatives with a stellar organization that has an extraordinary reputation with patients, payers, and physicians. Above all, the team at HMP shares our same culture and driving passion for treating each other with respect while delivering innovative patient-focused care. Upon close of the transaction, the acquisition will provide immediate geographic, product, and payer diversification to the combined organization. HMP is a major provider in Tennessee, northern Alabama, and northern Mississippi, and currently serves over 44,000 active patients. In 2022, H&P had annual revenues of approximately $28 million, and the expected purchase price of the transaction is approximately $31 million, subject to customary closing adjustments. While the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive, we are most excited about the opportunity to share our mature complex respiratory model with the strong team at H&P. Their organization already has an impressive foothold in the sleep business, and strong relationships with pulmonologists and local physicians. We are certain that we can complement their existing revenues by integrating our complex respiratory model. In the past, we have invested heavily in our scalable training, the proprietary technologies, and sound clinical protocols. Our biggest constraint to growth has always been our ability to recruit talented individuals that can go out and put our model into practice. Based on our long-standing relationships with the HMP team, we are confident that we have identified 180 incredibly talented individuals that will have access to our well-developed resources and capabilities. We expect substantial revenue synergies as a result of the combination. We plan to carefully integrate the organizations over the coming months as we also continue to recruit and train a robust pipeline of organically sourced hires. We expect our acquisition growth to be strategically measured. We have developed comprehensive integration plans based on our recently hired M&A executives' deep experience with the acquisitions. Our strategy is not to simply roll up companies and cut costs. We never want to impair or impede our strong organic growth. We are careful to execute transactions with organizations that we believe will continue to grow at impressive rates and are confident that well-executed acquisitions can create an accelerator to our organic growth model. Regulators and legislators also continue to work in collaboration with the home medical equipment industry to find practical solutions that ensure providers can deliver care to patients. For example, reimbursement relief legislation was recently introduced in the Senate that would extend the 75-25 blended Medicare reimbursement rate for suppliers in non-rural, non-competitive bidding areas throughout the end of 2024. These common-sense steps provide increased stability and predictability in the reimbursement environment in contrast to previous initiatives such as competitive bidding. Historically, any competitive bidding activities are initiated by CMS approximately 18 months prior to implementation of contracts and pricing. Although CMS has not announced plans related to future competitive bidding rounds, the timeline for around 2024 competitive bidding process has effectively lapsed and around 2025 is becoming increasingly unlikely as CMS has provided no signal that a return to the program will provide any savings. We remain confident that all current indicators promote a strong reimbursement environment for the coming years. As a result, our business is well insulated from recession and long-term inflation pressures. As the reimbursement environment evolves through Medicare Advantage trends and value-based arrangements, we are optimistic that our high-quality, cost-effective service offerings can continue to thrive. As health plan administrators become more sophisticated in their use of data and technology We are well positioned as a leading provider of high tech and high touch care in the home. We proactively invest in technology and protocols that create a seamless administrative process, capture data, and prove benefits to patients, physicians, and payers. In order to solve more problems for our customers as we scale, we are expanding our ventilation adjacent offerings and diversifying our product and service mix. Not only does our growing portfolio provide a robust continuum of care solution for pulmonologists and patients, but our ability to partner with patients sooner in their progressive disease state allows us to treat their underlying conditions at the right time. Adoption of innovation and technologies such as portable oxygen concentrators and remote setups of tap devices have enabled us to expand these portfolios quickly and in a cost-effective manner. These ventilator-adjacent offerings have the ability to increase the length of our patient relationships. For example, a COPD patient that is provided with oxygen solutions by Vymed may ultimately become a ventilator patient as their disease state progresses. Similarly, when a young CPAP patient with sleep apnea is properly cared for and kept comfortable and compliant, they typically remain a resupplied patient requiring fresh masks, tubing, and filters for decades. Most importantly, our peer-reviewed published medical research continues to demonstrate that clinical and financial benefits of non-invasive ventilation in the home are greatest when therapy begins immediately following the diagnosis. When we can get to the patient sooner, we ensure that the patients live longer and are kept comfortable. We are also seeing strong growth of our clinical placement and recruitment services offered through ViMed Healthcare staffing. In addition to continuously improving the quality and volume of internal hires, BiMed Healthcare Staffing is a solution for our external customers and strengthens our relationships with those partners, including the VA. VHS and our SBVOSB partners have been placing many clinicians throughout the VAs across the country. With more on our financial results, capital activities, and regulatory updates, I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Todd Denton.