hey this is kevin with all-star medical and today uh we want to go over do i qualify for
a mobility scooter or power wheelchair um you'll see in our showroom here in hermitage that we have
about over 20 different models of mobility scooters and power wheelchairs and we get a lot of
questions on can i qualify through my insurance and you know what is actually the difference
between a power wheelchair and a scooter a lot of people don't realize that they call them
with generic names whether it's a rascal hove around uh you know something of that
nature and they call everything a scooter but there are actual differences so one of the ones
i'll show you right here this is a a mobility scooter here made by uh pride mobility this is
a scooter and the way to tell the difference between a scooter and a power wheelchair
your scooters have a handlebar and a tiller so you're gonna drive with it in the front okay so
that's kind of how a mobility scooter works where on a power wheelchair i'll show you right here
how a wheelchair has a joystick that's the best way to understand how these work power wheelchair
has a joystick a mobility scooter has handlebars when it comes to insurance guidelines they call
this a power wheelchair or power mobility device they call a mobility scooter a power
operated vehicle um if you've seen any of the videos i've done recently i did one on hospital
beds the other day and i had a local coverage and determination that comes from medicare guidelines
and it actually showed for the hospital beds what the qualifications were it was one page uh
power wheelchair uh is actually 20 pages long i only have five i wasn't going to print out
all 20. but just to give you an idea how tough it is there's a really a lot of data
and a lot of information that you have to get over to uh the insurance in order to qualify for this
it is not as simple as my doctor wrote me an order i really try to stress that just because your
doctor wrote you in order that's a starting point i kind of highlighted a couple things here that i
wanted to to go over and um some of the big things that really stood out to me everybody wants it
uh for outdoor use well i want to go to the grocery store go to the mall or you know i'm
going to a festival and that's what i really need it for i don't need it with any home so on
this local coverage and determination i actually highlighted a couple things and one of them was
if any power operated vehicle or pwc which is power wheelchair is only use out is only for use
outside the home it will be denied as non-covered so when i tell people this sometimes they're like
well my doctor said i could have it it doesn't matter if you only want it for outside the home
you have to qualify for it inside the home and if you use it outside the home that's fine but you
have to qualify for it inside home in order to qualify the guidelines are pretty strict
you basically have to have a written order seven element order and a lot of other documentation
showing that why you can't use a cane to get inside your in around your home okay
so if you can't use a cane they'll go okay a cane can't be used for upper body weakness or
balance or whatever it may be then they're gonna want to know why can a walker be used
same thing you have to document why a walker can't be used within the home to get around and do your
daily activities which are basically get to the bathroom get to the bedroom and get to the kitchen
and those are little things that have to factor in so if you qualify that way the next step is
why does a manual wheelchair not work so you have to justify why manual wheelchair can't be used
within the home and do what you need so you can see as i'm going along you've got a big criteria
of information that you have to get that's why typically it's about a you know close to 60 to
90 day process for insurance to even cover one because the suppliers that do that have to go
through a big process we are strictly a retail company we don't file any insurance with a
prescription we can help you save tax but we don't file any insurance this is strictly cash sales
when you come into a store like this basically you'll see that for insurance purposes there's
like one model only of each style they're not going to give you different options
uh different you know features and stuff they pay for the most base model
where if you want something a little bit different you can get that here with us but i just want to
make sure people understand that and give them a resource to look into it because if you want to go
through insurance by all means we recommend if you can get qualified for it to do that
but we're here to help you understand the process and do what we need to do so what we've done here
is we've kind of broken down a couple of chairs to show you some of the features and benefits
um for example this is the power chair that i was sitting in earlier this is it broken down a lot of
your manufacturers have actually went through and they have got these items non-covered and
they're for retail only like you couldn't actually build this item through your insurance it's not a
covered item so as you can see it's very portable you take it with you anywhere you want to go but
these are some factors you know that you need to understand hey this might actually work out for me
i don't have to get a vehicle left i can put this in the trunk of a car back seat and do some things
like that on the mobility scooters here just to give you a quick reference they do the same thing
most of them do i should say not every power wheelchair every scooter is going to break
down like this but on this one break it down take it up fold the tiller down
go back up so now you broke down into about four pieces the basket comes off as well but
again they become portable some of your larger mobility scooters like this they do not break down
they're also not going to be you know we get people that love the items like this that are
real big they think they're so cool but these aren't qualified for inside the home so even if
you did qualify you're not going to get something like this because it can't be used within the home
you also have to justify the item you're getting can be used inside the home which that makes it
difficult for any type of scooter because turning radius and i'll show you that um turning radius
there's a big difference between power wheelchairs and mobility scooters on uh power wheelchairs
you'll see that i can just pretty much turn just like this and i can spin around
really tight i cannot do that however with um a mobility scoop
when i turn this on in order for me to turn around i'm gonna have to go all the way around
and back up you can see how much how tight the turning radius is
and that's the anti-tippers rolling on the back there but again that's what we try to do here at
all-star medical we try to show you the features and benefits of all the different scooters and how
they work and how they'll help you uh one of the uh features i always like showing is we have one
that is a jazzy air and to give you an idea of how the jazzy air works
one second as i put this on this actually has a lift on the chair this comes in real handy
for people that um say you're trying to reach a kitchen countertop or you're trying to cook
and see what you're able to cook this gives you a visual insurance doesn't cover that
i have in the criteria here a seat elevator is non-covered option for on a power wheelchair so
it's not covered but it's a feature you can get but usually it's out of pocket expense
um and it's very handy um so again these are little things to look at um this is typically what
you'll see through insurance is a power wheelchair similar to this it's covered and it's a great unit
but you really can't break this down i mean you could take it apart but it's twice as heavy as the
the go chair here or the light rider envy it's a lot heavier and it's just not really portable
so you typically do need a vehicle lift on something like this if you were to travel
with it or do anything of that nature but again what we're trying to do here is just show you the
guidelines and help you understand what you need to do that prescription is just the starting point
um you're going to have to talk to your doctor and there's no forms to fill out there's going
to be documentation that they're going to have to show in their notes the history of this issue if
they can't show why walker like kane why manual wheelchair will not work for you you're not going
to meet the medical justification in order to get one and if you still need one that's where we come
in we can help you we have financing options you know there's lots of things that we can do
that other companies don't do i mean we do anything from care credit get financing
paypal credit um and we give you options you know you walk in here and you see the
selection that we have um all of them have a few different features and benefits whether it be the
way they fold up whether it's the seat elevator whether it's something you want to do a little
bit more outdoors bigger battery life um you know all sorts of things factor into what you know our
consumers won't and that's what we try to show you here you will not find anywhere like this
hardly in the country much less you know around tennessee um we literally have every kind of
option you can imagine to go try all these things out and and find out what works best
for you so if you ever have questions you can always reach out to us at 615-730-9438
that's our location here in hermitage we have a website which is all-starmedicallc.com
and you can go on there we've got pretty much every scooter that's here we have
on um our website you can see the specifications uh whether it's a certain weight capacity certain
battery life whatever it may be you can even order them online you know we drop ship them
right to your home we even have white glove delivery service that they'll bring it in
your home break it down or you can just come in store you say hey do you have this chair
we have it here for you come in and pick it up so we got a lot of different options
and especially if you're local you will not find anything like this in tennessee
uh that has the options and the selection that we do our staff is very knowledgeable
very helpful and we're going to go through the process and figure out what works best for you
if for some reason um you do meet these guidelines we will by all means say hey here's how you need
to go to we'll get you in touch with a medicare provider or whatever that insurance is say hey
reach out to these people and go down that process so a lot of things we can help you with again
always feel free to reach out to us we appreciate you sharing this video if you can hopefully this
was helpful again this is kevin with all-star medical you can give us a call at 615-730-9438