A chair that was not fitted to you is a chair you will fight every day. Our evaluators assess your needs, work from your practitioner's order, and stay with the equipment after it is delivered.
Three main types to choose from: rigid, folding and tilt-in-space. Our manual chair customers spend 8 to 18 hours a day in the chair, so it is configured to optimize performance and comfort, and to suit your home, work and transportation needs.
The best powered mobility device for the home environment, with range, stability and usability that exceed any other type of equipment. Most have a motor dedicated to each drive wheel, so they hold up outdoors as well.
A vehicle ridden while seated, with three or four wheels, steered by a bicycle-type handlebar and tiller. We have carried Pride Mobility products for years and it is our standard go-to offering.
Correct seating encourages proper positioning and pressure relief. Custom molds and seating systems, specified by an ATP evaluator rather than picked from a catalog.
First and foremost, scooters and power wheelchairs are not the same equipment, and it is important to know the difference before ordering. Scooters are the equipment you see in grocery stores. Power wheelchairs are chairs with wheels. For a lot of the people who ask us for a scooter, the home is where it has to work — and that is where a scooter struggles.
One of the main reasons people request a scooter is to use it outside the home, and outside the home is the one place a scooter is genuinely good.
Motorized wheelchairs are the best powered mobility device for the home environment. Most have a motor dedicated to each drive wheel, which is why they are often superior outdoors too.
Before you settle on a scooter, try this. Stand up from a seated position without using your hands and arms to assist in standing. If you cannot, a scooter is not the right device for you — better to know that before it is ordered than after it is delivered.
The other way to picture it: using a scooter in the house compares to using a riding lawnmower in the home.
Scooters are often used to replace someone’s automobile. It is a dangerous practice to operate a scooter or a wheelchair on the road.
Scooter and wheelchair users are more likely to be hit in traffic than pedestrians, and three times more likely to be killed. It is believed that a driver’s line of vision is such that a person sitting in either a scooter or a wheelchair is not seen at all.
Scooters were not designed to travel over sidewalks or on roads for extended distances. The scooter is meant to be transported from point A to point B by personal vehicle or public transportation — not driven there. If the plan is to ride it to the store, tell us before you buy, because that plan needs to change.
We would rather say this now than have you find it out in traffic.
Many of our manual wheelchair clients describe the chair as an extension of their body. Spending 8 to 18 hours a day in it, the configuration is what decides whether it performs or fights you.
There are three main types to choose from, and the right one depends on whether you push yourself, who else is pushing, and how the chair gets into a vehicle.
More efficient for a client who self-propels, and typically suitable for more active users. A rigid chair has fewer moving parts, so most of the energy from a wheel push turns into forward motion. Usually a rigid wheelchair will be easier to push than a folding one.
Easier to transport than any other wheelchair — almost any vehicle can carry one. Take off the wheels and leg rests, fold it, and it packs down very compact. Folding chairs normally come with back cane push handles so a companion can push or help push.
Designed to let more complex clients be properly seated, which is what makes proper positioning and pressure relief possible. The trade-offs are real: these chairs are not typically foldable, which creates transportation problems, and most people who need this level of positioning cannot self-propel.
Why a rigid chair pushes easier: a non-rigid chair loses much of the energy from a wheel push to flexing, and is often heavier and harder to propel because of the movable parts and heavier components. Take the moving parts out and the push goes into forward motion instead.
Complex power wheelchairs can be customized to meet the ever-expanding needs related to more progressive neurological diseases, or other severe musculoskeletal issues. If that describes where you are heading rather than where you are today, say so — it changes what we specify.
We are an authorized provider for every major manufacturer of power chairs. That access is there so you can choose the best equipment to meet your needs, instead of the best equipment one brand happens to make.
We have the training and expertise to design, install and configure the most sophisticated specialty drive controls on a motorized wheelchair. These can enable the most advanced clients to gain the ability to drive one at all.
Our staff regularly attends manufacturer training seminars.
Not everyone needs a converted vehicle. There are power wheelchairs that can be taken apart for portability, which for a lot of people is the difference between going and staying home.
The trade-off is capability: a chair that comes apart is not the same chair as one built out with seat functions, a larger deck and larger tires. We will be straight with you about which one you are actually choosing.
A vehicle lift is a great option for someone who has some mobility left, or whose equipment weighs in under 300 lb. The maximum weight a lift can handle tops out at around 450 lb, and what your vehicle can carry depends on the towing rating at the hitch and whether the body is unibody or frame.
Some power wheelchairs are right at 500 lb, which makes them completely incompatible with a lift. At that point the only option left is a drive-in van. Every seat function, larger deck and larger tire you add puts weight on, so this is worth settling before the chair is ordered, not after.
An inside lift asks something of whoever runs it. You need to walk from the front of the vehicle to the rear and back, stand for three to five minutes while the lift operates, fold the seat back of the mobility device or the scooter tiller down to its most compact position, hold a button on the handheld control the whole time it runs, and guide the device clear of the vehicle through the complete lift cycle.
If that list does not describe you or the person helping you, tell us before the lift is bought.
For riding in the vehicle rather than being carried by it, we work with various docking systems built to work with all types of powered wheelchairs and manual wheelchairs.
Insurance covers equipment based off of medical necessity, and every item that goes through insurance must be on Medicare’s PDAC for it to be eligible at all. POVs — scooters — are broken down by weight limit: 0 to 300, 300 to 450, and 450 and up, in pounds. Those classes are how insurance sorts them.
Insurance companies have long since recognized the trend to use scooters outdoors, and some have excluded scooters from their benefits. The few that still contain scooters in their benefits limit the use of the scooter to in-home use with limited community access — physician appointments, church, or shopping.
You do have the option to upgrade, whether for higher clearance or add-ons like a basket or a cup holder. Most add-ons and upgrades are not covered by insurance, so plan on paying for those yourself.
Assignment is the arrangement where a supplier bills your insurer directly and waits to be paid. Power operated vehicles — scooters — are non-assignment only here. Even with a prior authorization in hand, a scooter has to be paid for up front before it is delivered.
That restriction is specific to POVs. It is not a blanket policy across everything we sell, so ask us how a given item will be paid for before you order it rather than assuming either way.
Our goal is still customer service. We will work with you, provide the education, and go through the other options — including portable wheelchairs that are often better suited to the home than the scooter somebody came in asking for.
Step 1
Our certified ATP seating and positioning evaluators assess your needs and recommend equipment based on your physical and mental requirements, your home and work environments, and how the equipment will be transported in a vehicle.
Step 2
We keep a large selection of personal mobility equipment for clients to view and test. If we do not stock the item, we can normally obtain the appropriate power chair, mobility scooter or manual wheelchair within a week.
Step 3
After the initial evaluation the equipment is ordered and adjusted in-home to your specifications. Every piece of equipment we vend is customized, adjusted and fitted to the individual — then serviced by the same shop and the same people.
No. Most people think that once they have seen their practitioner and an order is written, the powered mobility device will be ordered immediately. This is not the case. Paperwork must be completed and gathered from multiple sources, then submitted for prior approval from your insurance provider.
Ask us for a realistic date at the start of that process rather than the end of it.
Call to schedule a free mobility scooter evaluation and try out different options, or to ask about a repair on the chair you already have. Our storefront has been open to the public since 1989.
Mon–Fri, 8:00am – 5:00pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday.