Invacare VP Tells Real Rehab Story in Words and Pictures

AMHERST, Ohio — Mark C. Sullivan got fed up one day with
all the negative press that paints wheelchair providers as “a bunch
of crooks” and decided to set the record straight.

In two months, the vice president of rehab for Elyria,
Ohio-based Invacare put together a book, a photo essay titled
DENIED: A Short
Guide to “Appropriate” Mobility for People with
Disabilities that will soon roll off the online
presses.

“I decided it was time to fight back a little bit,” said
Sullivan, a 25-year industry veteran who tells the real story of
complex rehab through people who use the equipment and who took all
the photos himself with the exception of one. Marilyn Hamilton,
co-founder of Sunrise’s Quickie wheelchair, wrote the foreword for
the book and also made some major contributions to it, Sullivan
said.

DENIED “is targeted as an education piece to Congress
and to payers as to what complex rehab is really about,” the author
said. “The real ‘ask for’ is to reverse the in-the-home restriction
through H.R. 3184.”

Introduced in July by Rep. James R. Langevin, D-R.I., H.R. 3184
would eliminate the Medicare restriction on home medical equipment.
It currently has 14 cosponsors. Sullivan hopes his book will
generate a lot more.

“My real hope is that everybody will buy one and will give it to
their congressperson. I want people to get it into the hands of
every House representative and every senator,” said Sullivan.

He is not looking for profit from the book. “I don’t make a
penny off it,” he said. Instead, it’s the principle of the matter
that is important, he said.

“I think [the in-the-home Medicare restriction] is at the core
of our problems,” Sullivan said. “We should be talking about
productivity — not what these people cost, but what they can
produce and contribute back to society and reduce the cost.”

The in-home restriction, he said, “just allows them to get away
with cheap products,” many of which do not fit the end-user’s needs
and end up creating problems.

In his book, Sullivan clearly delineates the problem of the
in-house restriction and points out that ”properly fit”
wheelchairs “allow people to work, to go to school, attend church,
reduce caregiver care and prevent expensive pressure ulcers,
contractures, orthopedic deformity and respiratory problems. The
right wheelchair represents an enormous value to the user, yet the
expense represents only a tiny percentage of the overall health
care dollars spent in the country.”

Sullivan, who said he hopes to have some copies at Medtrade in
Atlanta in October, is hopeful that that message will come through
loud and clear to those who read DENIED.

To see an excerpt of the book or to order a copy, go to http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/869705.