My Mother is moving into an Assisted Living Facility soon, and will be needing an electric wheelchair. She’s 85, doesn’t learn new things very well, so I’m assuming simpler the better would be good for her. We’ll be asking her Primary Physician (Geriatric) to prescribe an appropriate chair, but in the meantime I have questions.
In your Not-Her-Physician opinions:
What bells and whistles, if any, are useful? Not useful?
What are prices like? (San Diego, CA)
Does Medicare (United Health Care) cover any of the purchase or lease price?
Yes, Medicare (traditional fee for service, anyway) does pay for electric wheelchairs. If your mom has a Medicare HMO (not Medigap) you’ll have to check with them.
All the electric chairs I see are very simple to operate. There are many companies that supply them and you can contact them for information and assistance in filling out the proper paperwork to get one. Do check out more than one company.
Try to get something sized to her.
Long battery life is a plus.
The more bells/whistles/appliances on the chair the shorter the time between recharging it
If she has difficulty learning new things simpler is better
Traditional Medicare does cover it at home or a covered nursing home stay, but you have to submit forms that a cane, walker, or manual wheelchair are not sufficient for normal daily living. Medicare Replacement plans probably have there own rules and undoubtedly requires their own form of prior authorization.
The only input I have is that if your mother is anything like my grandma was, and likes fun rides, make sure there’s a way to slow the chair down to a crawl, slower than a crawl! I don’t know how my uncle did it, but he basically turned grandma’s chair down, then more down than it was pre-set for a the lowest setting, then he broke it so it couldn’t be changed. (because grandma figured out how to change it)
Grandma loved her chair, “Wheeee!” was what came out of her mouth when she first got to ride on it. And then she was down the street with us trying to catch her. Uncle slowed it to the lowest setting and she routinely ran into stuff and other people around the home. Uncle slowed it down some more and she finally mostly used it as a point a to point b tool, rather than a fun ride and a way to amuse herself by seeing how many things and people she could bash into before they made her use the walker for the rest of the day.
My experience finding used medical equipment led me to discover both of the outlets I had used flat out refused to deal in used chairs saying they are now extremely patient specific, and someone buying one that’s ‘close enough’ could easily result in creating more problems for the patient - and they wanted no part of that, and could find no way to prevent it, and were convinced they ‘might’ even be, in some way, liable. Your results may vary, of course!
My boss, who used to have a job approving/disapproving these things for Aetna, says to be very careful to NOT mention “going outside” as a reason your mom needs an electric wheelchair. Medicare considers electric wheelchairs as medically necessary for getting around *inside the home when the patient doesn’t have the upper body strength for a manual wheelchair. But they’re not approved for outdoor use; if they hear “outdoors”, they’ll decline it and steer you to a scooter, instead. Scooters suck indoors, and they’ll only pay for one or the other, not both.
*That is, plenty of people do use them for outdoor use. But Medicare won’t approve it for outdoor use. Get her declared homebound and tell them she needs the chair to get around her home and be independent in her home. Home home home… http://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11046.pdf
We bought one for my late mother. At first she thought it was great, but then she realised that while she was in control, she had to look where she was going; whereas when she was being pushed in her old chair, she could look around to her heart’s content. Since one of her great pleasures was visiting gardens, this was a major handicap.
Based on my grandfather’s experience, the most useful feature is the ability for the entire chair to rotate in place. If the chair has this ability, then negotiating a crowded space such as a restaurant is easy. Otherwise it’s a nightmare.
Patient specificity can sometimes be a consideration - typically [and I use it in a guarded meaning] for chairs that someone is restricted to totally - as in they get schlepped into the chair in the morning and schlepped out of it for bed - with manual chairs particularly [what I and a few others in the board use] tend to not be 90/90s [angle of the seat back 90 degrees, and legs held by the foot supports at 90 degrees. Bad for a few reasons.] Angle of the wheels is also dependent upon what you want to use the chair for mainly [you want real fun, be watching when your PT guy is measuring and fitting an extreme sport chair! Talk about some real arcane needs chairs!]
I would imagine that if your relative is able to move in and out of their chair mostly unassisted and using it just plain for moving around the facility something like a fairly generic scooter like you see in a TV commercial like a hoveround is probably what they are ending up with. Pretty much light duty, low maintenance, relatively inexpensive.
[I am dreading my next chair consult - my doc has been rumbling about taking away my crutches and chairing me permanently :(]
What do you feel would be the best decision to make here? Fuck your doctor. I mean, yes, he has your best interests at heart but he does not know you as well as you know you. And it is your body we’re talking about here. And your life.
His concern is preserving whatever lifespan my assorted joints have left in them, and me stumping around really isn’t that good for them, I do suffer for a few days after I exert myself, so you could say that denial aint just a river in egypt… :smack: I have spent almost 30 years out of a chair after doing significant damage to my spine in a sports accident so getting stuck back in a chair is bothering me even though I know it is inevitable. At least it isn’t the damage putting me back in the chair!
On the plus side I piss off my endocrinologist because after 30 years I still have no diabetic neuropathy nor kidney damage, and my cardiologist because as fat as I am, I have no calcification nor placques in my blood vessels so if I actually had the money to I could get a pilots license <gimpy little happy dance> I love not fitting the typical fat diabetic slob stereotypes!
