Plan to speed up wheelchair repairs passes Connecticut Senate

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — A plan that would decrease the amount of time it takes to get a wheelchair improved passed the Connecticut Senate on Thursday afternoon.

The plan hopes to reduce the existing long wait times. If it passes the House, Connecticut would be the first state in the nation to regulate wheelchair repairs.

During a disability rights rally, Iunre Smart, of New Britain, said he’s had to wait weeks to see repairs.

“It’s very frustrating to wait for so long, when these are our legs, these are our hands,” said Smart, who has used a wheelchair for seven years. “This is how we get around. This is our vehicle.”

According to the Connecticut Department of Social Services, more than 5,000 people rely on wheelchairs in the state. Two companies dominate the wheelchair market locally and nationally — National Seating & Mobility (NSM) in Newington and Numotion in Rocky Hill.

A state-mandated wheelchair repair task force discovered the average time to get a wheelchair repaired from in home assessments to completed repairs is two months.

“They need to hire more staff and there needs to be pressure put on the private equity owners that are the ultimate decision makers,” said Jonathan Sigworth, a consumer advocate and spokesperson for the Connecticut Wheelchair Repair Coalition.

Senate Bill 308 would require wheelchair providers to make timely repairs in 10 days or face penalties, like reduced Medicaid funding.

News 8 reached out to both companies for comment. Numotion has not responded to repeated requests.

National Seating and Mobility opened its Newington doors to News 8.

“We assist clients for the procurement of customized wheelchairs and powerchairs,” said Chris Liquori, an assistive tech professional with NSM. “We typically we see about five-to-six clients a day. Sometimes as many as eight, depending on scheduling.”

NSM serves 3,200 wheelchair customers in Connecticut. It has about five repair techs, and 14 technicians overall.

Its warehouse of more than 200 wheelchairs range in price from $6,000 to more than $30,000.

Wayne Grau, the executive director of National Coalition of Assistive & Rehab Technology (NCART), said keeping wheelchairs in good condition is vital.

“We want to fix this issue,” he said.

Grau said NSM has made improvements and investments, including hiring more staff. But one of the biggest challenges is “prior authorization,” or new prescriptions, for repairs, which Senate Bill 308 would eliminate.

“That slows us down anywhere from eight-to-14 days,” Grau said.

Providers also ask customers to go in-shop for repair work instead of home visits, but wheelchair users said that’s not realistic. “

It doesn’t work for everyone,” Grau said. “But, if we can get some of the consumers to come in here, we can really focus our traveling technicians on taking care of those who cannot make it in here.”

Customers like Deborah Talbott, of Mansfield, describe her repair experience at NSM as complicated, time consuming and frustrating.

The reverend and mother said she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a van crash. She relies on her power wheelchair for daily living.

When her joystick broke, she said it took NSM six months to repair it, and that the parts weren’t available.

“The idea that if you break a leg, you have to wait six months for them to get a part to fix it seems a little ridiculous,” Talbott said.

Soon after, her power elevator broke, and she needed a new wheelchair.

“It was almost a year from the point of ordering this chair, to getting this chair,” Talbott said.

She said the exhaustive process needs to change.

“We are people,” Talbott said. “We deserve to live. We deserve to enjoy our lives just as much as anybody else does.”

The advocates are looking to lawmakers on the state and federal levels to regulate repair wait times.

“I would love for this bill to be passed so that we can have repairs done in two weeks and not two months, not six months not two years,” said Maureen Amirault, of Weathersfield.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.