Page 12 - Mobility Management, June 2017

mm beat: perspectives
Gerry Dickerson:
A “Lifetime in the Industry”
At this year’s International
Seating Symposium in
Nashville, Tenn., the
National Registry of Rehab
Technology Suppliers (NRRTS)
presented the first Simon Margolis
Fellow Awards in memory of the
long-time industry advocate. The
recipients were two of Margolis’s
colleagues, Gerry Dickerson
and Michele Gunn. Mobility
Management asked Dickerson what it was like to receive the award, and his thoughts on what’s next for the complex rehab industry.
On Winning the Award
I was touched by winning the award at the same time as Michele Gunn, because Michele and I have been friends forever. It was just one more thing to connect us.
The bottom line to the whole thing is I loved Simon, and he and I thought exactly the same. We had the same values, the same moral and ethical compass, and the same belief that we truly needed to change what we do into an academic profession as opposed to just a job.
He and I were both profound believers in volunteerism, in giving back to the profession with work at NRRTS or RESNA. I was always an advocate, as he was, of polit- ical involvement because that’s where stuff happens.
A million years ago, when Al D’Amato was a senator in New York and we went to talk to him about some cuts, he looked at us across the table — we had a fundraiser for him — and he said, ‘Who the hell are you guys? I’ve never even heard of you. If you’re not sitting at the table, you’re dinner.’ And that just set a bell off in my head;
he was exactly right. If they have no idea who you are, they’re going to pick you apart like they would a turkey sitting at the table.
Simon and I were passionate about political activism being part of your job, and if it’s not part of your job for the benefit of your consumer, then have it be self serving, for your own benefit, so you have a job. A lot of people think going to D.C. once a year is their activism. That
was great in the beginning. But if you’re not visiting your representative two or three times a year, going to D.C. once a year isn’t going to help us.
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Consumer Detachment
You can use the old Ben Franklin quote: We must hang together or we will surely hang separately.
I like what I do and I like helping [consumers]. But
they beat the drum about “I don’t like the limitation of the speed of my chair.” It’s regulated by the FDA, there’s nothing I can do. But you can. Go to your Congressman’s office and say, “I can’t get across the Grand Concourse because my chair is limited by the FDA. They gave me some arbitrary limitation.”
So why don’t you go fight for that? I don’t have time.
In their defense, they’re being impacted at every level in their life. We have to look at the big picture. Here in New York City, when we get people that don’t show up to clinic, a third of the time it’s them, a third of the time it’s transportation because nobody showed up, and a third of the time, it’s some sort of other environmental aspect, like their aide didn’t show up or the elevator doesn’t work. You have folks who are fighting every day. Their medications have been denied.
People are struggling just to get through the day.
ATP Apathy
How do you get more ATPs involved? There’s an apathy towards advocating.
In their defense, there’s a lot of pressure for production and there’s a lot of stress and strain on everyone. At the end of the day, when you get a minute, the last thing you want to do is spend it doing something else [work related]. You just want the minute to yourself. But the bottom line is if we don’t do something to change the direction, there’s going to be a lot of minutes.
A month or two ago, the whole thing with the titanium upgrade [the Center of Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) refusal to allow beneficiaries access to titanium manual wheelchair frames, even if beneficiaries are willing to pay themselves]. That’s a non-event. I have articulate, competent, educated people with mobility impairments that want to upgrade their chair. Why are you doing this to them?
Fraud and abuse have been reduced, in CRT, to near zero. Clerical errors, policy confusion and other admin- istrative missteps continue to get reported as fraud and abuse. We, those of us committed to the profession, were never the ones committing the large-scale nonsense that prompted Operation Wheeler Dealer in the first
Gerry Dickerson
MobilityMgmt.com