Growing demand in Bowling Green’s health services sector has been a boon to locally owned businesses acting as suppliers to the industry. But those involved say while demand is growing, government reimbursements for covered benefits are decreasing, posing challenges as a result.

For Bonnie Strode, owner of Tomorrow’s Woman, demand is leading to the doubling of the business’ building after eight years of operations at 2362 Russellville Road. Strode will expand the building by 1,200-square-feet and it will be complete by April, she said.

Strode started the business with four types of “pocketed” bras, used by those who have had a mastectomy, or seek to even out, enhance or replace breast tissue.

But now she has more than 40 different styles of the bra - crowding the current store in the process.

“I need a place to display them,” she said.

Under the 1998 Women’s Cancer Health Rights Act, those who purchase the “pocketed” bras carried by Tomorrow’s Woman can have a percentage covered with medical insurance if the consumer is buying the bra because of lumpectomy or mastectomy procedures.

Considered “durable medical equipment,” Strode said pressures remain on her business as vendors raise prices, but reimbursements from the government decrease.

“I will always carry (the bras) - as long as I don’t go into the red,” Strode said.

As a result, Strode is supplementing her mastectomy-related business with other products, such as nursing supplies, year-round swimwear for larger busted women, body shapers, bridal-themed selections and chemise or camisole options.

“I am going to listen to what people want,” Strode said.

Beginning the business after seeing her mother, grandmother and grandfather undergo bouts with breast cancer, Strode left a job in pharmaceutical sales to tap into an underserved niche.

“Money isn’t everything,” Strode said.

Strode remembers her mother’s stressful experiences while being fitted for bras - seeing the tears and hearing wishes for a nice place women who were undergoing cancer treatments or had to have breast tissue removed could go.

Angie Fugate, a three-year employee of Tomorrow’s Woman, said a growing part of Strode’s business is wigs, bought mainly by people undergoing chemotherapy treatments or who have thinning hair. Tomorrow’s Woman has 125 different wig styles available.

First Choice Home Medical, a locally owned and operated business that has catered to the home health industry for almost five years, is also experiencing similar pressures regarding government reimbursements.

Owned by Thad Connally III, the business provides home medical equipment and supplies and is growing 15 to 20 percent a year because of demand, according to marketing director Skip Wirth.

“The most cost effective alternative to a hospital stay is home care,” Wirth said.

A majority of business for First Choice Home Medical comes from those with respiratory therapy needs (oxygen or sleep apnea products), those who rent hospital beds, or need home-stay furniture, like grab bars, walkers, canes or wheelchairs.

As technology enables services that were once confined to hospitals to be performed at home and as baby boomers age, the demand for home care is poised to rise, Wirth said.

First Choice Home Medical and similar businesses are dealing with government aims to cut reimbursements for home health services, Wirth said.

“It’s the first thing government tries to cut,” Wirth said.

“We have to continuously operate at costs dictated by the government,” Wirth said. “There’s no way we can pass that along to anyone.”

Market suppliers breathed a short-term sign of relief as government officials in the House of Representatives and Senate passed a Medicare package just before Christmas that stopped short of cutting physician payments, and left out a proposal to cut reimbursement payments for oxygen and the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs, according to a home health trade industry report.

But as Congress puts Medicare back on its agenda in the spring, Wirth and other local providers remain on guard.

“We are constantly trying to fight for the industry,” Wirth said.