Chris Rice’s company, Diamond Respiratory Care of Riverside, Calif., was awarded eight contracts in Round 1 of competitive bidding in 2008, an impressive feat in itself.  Then, two weeks into the three-year contract period, everything was thrown out because of wayward paperclips and staples, and the process started over.

Incredibly, in the 2009 rebid, Diamond repeated its sweep in all eight categories of HME products in which Rice submitted bids.