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.