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August/September 2002

By Ben Van Houten, Associate Editor

Permobil Inc, Lebanon, Tenn, has been manufacturing power wheelchairs since 1968. Rehab Management spoke with Larry Jackson, president, about the company’s new advertising campaign, as well as the issue of federal reimbursement.

Q: Permobil is currently in the middle of a new advertising campaign. Can you talk about its theme?
A: We call the campaign “Perception/Reality,” because there are a lot of misperceptions about our company, in addition to the industry, that we need to address right now. The main issue we are tackling is the misperception that, as a person with a disability, you cannot get funding for a Permobil power chair. This is simply not true. You do, however, have to be a patient with a higher rehabilitation need to get this federal funding, and I believe that is where the misperception lies. So we are focusing on educating dealers, patients, and anyone else who would purchase our chairs. We are also doing another advertisement that deals with the industry in general, which we will launch this August. At any rate, we have gotten a very good response so far, including a lot of emails from individuals who are wondering about the details of federal funding and reimbursement, and how they can go about getting it. In our segment, we are seeing products and equipment that are getting progressively worse in quality.

Q: In your opinion, what do you think is to blame for this perceived drop in equipment quality?
A: This all started several years ago, with the whole Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which included wheelchair reimbursement. With the introduction of the K0011 power wheelchair reimbursement part of the act, the government was finally paying for equipment through Medicare. And, obviously, that was a huge success, since there were 83,000 of these K0011 chairs sold in the United States last year. But in our opinion, they have cut corners with that chair, and the mentality to us seems to be, “you should be happy just to get something—anything—from the government.” It is a very bare-bones product. And even though it is still a power wheelchair, it does not have a tilt and recline system, like our chairs have. Without that, patients can develop pressure sores within a few years, which, of course, results in more money spent on medical bills. It has been very frustrating for us to observe this. Why are we, as an industry, able to make technologically exceptional equipment, but not be reimbursed for all of it? Many of the companies selling these $5,000 K0011 chairs would not even want their own family members to use one, but that is the situation we have.

Q: Besides the advertising effort, is there anything else Permobil is doing to try to get its message out?
A: Absolutely. The main focus we are working on is networking. We are really stepping up our efforts to collaborate with both physical therapists and dealers. We are encouraging them to write to Congress, with the goal of securing more federal funding for the wheelchair industry. It’s sort of a grassroots movement, and we hope it will pay off in the long term.

Q: Are there any trends going on at the moment that you feel are worth paying attention to?
A: I am consistently noticing that more and more companies in our industry seem to be focusing on rehab now. So it is a good time for us to be getting our message out there, which is essentially that we are for quality health care. And, to us, the system as we see it today does not provide that to people.

—Ben Van Houten, Associate Editor

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