DOTmed recently spoke with Tony Burgos, manager of New Tech Associates (NTA), Palisades Park, N.J. Along with the company's 10 employees, Burgos helps NTA company produce over $4 million in annual sales, rentals and service of ventilators, LTVs, and respiratory support systems for manufacturers including Respironics, Inc. and Invacare. NTA provides its services to hospitals, sub-acute facilities, home-care companies and brokers, including manufacturer certified servicemen.

NTA is looking to expand not only its customer base, but also its operations base, seeking more drivers and salesmen. In the spirit of expansion, the company recently switched from dial-up to cable and also began using DOTmed. Over the past six months, NTA's sales have doubled. South America, Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan, India and West Coast (U.S) buyers have been reaching out to NTA because of DOTmed and the Internet.

"We do a lot more sales," said Burgos. "Sales and rentals have seen a big impact, now that event season is here.... This is the season when people get sick. Unfortunately, this is just how the business goes."
In addition to sales, Burgos also finds that Dotmed has been great for networking. "I've also developed some good business relationships with certain people that are on DOTmed like Bob Caples at MEQL, Cheryl at Hy-Tech Respiratory and Chris at Advantage Medical Systems. The names could go on forever. It's definitely a good building tool."

But sales is not the only thing that NTA does well. They also provide excellent tech support to customers. Recently, NTA was called upon by a California company to help provide tech support on the operation of unit being tested for sale. The device is a fraction of the size of a normal heated vaporizer, about the size of a dime. NTA's job was to make sure that the revolutionary and tiny unit performed the way it was supposed to, each and every time.

In another instance, NTA helped a customer in need when the customer's trained repairmen quit. The customer had spent several thousand dollars getting the technicians trained, expecting them to repair his rental equipment. NTA's expertise in repair led to an excellent business outcome.

As far as news affecting his business, Burgos is keeping an eye on China, and possible World Health Organization regulation of U.S. exports overseas. He recently had to turn down a request for the sale of a refurbished unit to China as it wasn't possible to ship the unit there legally. Burgos definitely keeps his business deals as clean as possible.

Burgos did have these final words of advice for anyone looking at a refurbished piece of equipment: "When looking to purchase a refurbished piece, make sure the paperwork follows JCAHCO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) standards, and it's done by a biomed technician who knows what he's doing, one who's manufacturer certified." Smart advice to be sure.

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