Page 12 - Mobility Management, January/February 2022

Feature Series
COVID-19’S WIDE REACH
to FaceTime and resolve a problem in 10 minutes was just remarkable.”
Dickerson said “most” clients find getting to clinic challenging.
“If you add the component of the disability and how impactful that disability is, then time and distance,” he said. “Can you imagine living in a bit of a rural area, and now with the minimi- zation of clinics, because clinics are dying, you have to drive two hours on the highway to get to the outskirts of Manhattan? And then to go 100 blocks is another two hours to have your evalu- ation? And you have to do that three or four times? Just think about the burden of that.
“What did this person go through to get [to clinic] today?
And there should be no reason that you shouldn’t have, with guidance, a robust telehealth operation. Telehealth in repair
and service. However, if it’s not paid for, it’s going to be too resource-consuming, then nobody’s going to do it. We should be infinitely more radically aggressive in promoting the promise of assistive technology and what people with skill and compassion can accomplish for somebody with a disability.”
“What I see as a clinician as a plus of telehealth is being able to ensure good outcomes,” Carver said. “Now that we know we can do telehealth and we’ve had enough practice with it, when my supplier says, ‘Hey, Mrs. Smith’s chair is in, it’s ready for delivery’ —
but she is weak, she has difficulty with transportation, she may have the beginning of a wound — I can say, ‘Let’s just set that up by telehealth.’
“[Using telehealth] to see a person in their home, I can more specifically address their needs such as turns, speed settings, or raising the seat-to-floor height so they can transfer to their toilet a little bit easier. I wouldn’t have known that if we were here [in clinic].” (The Clinician Task Force has developed a telehealth document/decision tree: tinyurl.com/CTFtelehealthtree.)
Carver agreed that a significant number of consumers will always find it difficult to attend clinic in person. “And they were there pre-pandemic, and if I could step on the top of the moun- tains, I would apologize to those people, that we were not as tuned in as we should have been to their difficulties of getting to us.”
Mullen is concerned about how circumstances now could cause lasting changes. “A child has a progressing condition with their spine, and the spine surgery is postponed because they’re only allowing one parent to be admitted with the child at a time, and the family’s realized it takes two parents to provide for that child in the hospital, so they’re postponing it,” he said. “That spine is continuing to curve, putting pressure on digestive and respiration systems. Those delays are having lifelong impacts on children. An intervention very early on could have a huge impact and a different rate of progression for the rest of that child’s life.
“How do we protect children and promote long-term gains? What can we do for that child to increase the chances of them having a better outcome long term, when they’re 20 years old?”
On the business side, Mullen acknowledges that basic expenses are outpacing funding that was established well before the pandemic: “Even getting a van to deliver equipment is being impacted. The price we pay to get vehicles bought or repaired and on the road — when you’re running 30 vehicles on the road, the increase we’re seeing in terms of cost is quite a kick. All of these factors really start to add up.
“Our cost of doing business is going up, but revenues coming in are slow to catch up, and our provincial funding agencies have maximums on what they’ll pay. Now I’m touching it or going over it in certain situations. So now that’s adding another delay because we have to fight for more money, and they have to amend their budgets to allow for that. That client is waiting longer again to get the [equipment]. And sometimes what we quoted a while ago — what the manufacturer is charging us has changed. But we have to honor our old quote.”
To expedite deliveries — and prevent some delay-related expenses — Mullen said, “I was highly influenced by my grand- mother, who during the second World War had seen rations on things. I almost wonder: Should priority not be given to certain commodities? What’s more urgent? My grandmother couldn’t get nylons to wear because nylon was used for other things during the war. They couldn’t get tires for the car because that rubber was used elsewhere. If things get much worse, we need to start looking at prioritizing how raw materials are used, potentially.”
Dickerson said he has clients in a holding pattern: “We’ve seen
Speed up, save time...
Try ordering via the
new Bundled Pricing
options for Ride® Custom products
•Simplified and speedier order building: as few as two line items needed for most Ride Custom systems
•Easier and faster quoting: less time spent generating duplicate order forms for quotes and production
•Fewer itemized justifications are needed on the letter of medical necessity
Plus: 98% of Ride Custom products ship within 14 business days of receipt of completed order.
David Trujillo, motocross enthusiast, uses a Ride Custom 2 Cushion and a Ride Custom Back on his everyday wheelchair.
Ride Designs® Toll-Free 866.781.1633 www.ridedesigns.com
©2022, Ride Designs.
12 JANUARY-FEBRUARY2022|MOBILITYMANAGEMENT
MobilityMgmt.com
Ride: Easy