{"id":2601,"date":"2017-08-22T10:17:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T18:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/?p=2601"},"modified":"2017-08-22T10:20:53","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T18:20:53","slug":"the-dme-challenge-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/the-dme-challenge-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The DME Challenge Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by: Christine Fitzgerald, Community Advocate, Silicon Valley Independent Living Center<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not all situations and needs are the same, and this extends to medical needs. \u00a0Without insurance coverage, many would be forced to choose between DME and basic needs, like food or housing. \u00a0As it is, many people already have to make this choice between purchasing food or buying their medications.<\/p>\n

\"group<\/a><\/p>\n

Non-Profit organizations, like our Independent Living Centers (ILCs)<\/a>, would be put into an ever growing job as “broker”, connecting those who need DME or other medical equipment to those who have it available.\u00a0 I can’t speak for other ILCs, but even though we have a beautiful new office, we don’t have, nor will we ever have, unlimited space to house all of this equipment.<\/p>\n

There might be other funding streams that can be tapped into to help pay for the equipment needed, and often gently used equipment can be found. \u00a0However, where does this leave folks that need more personalized equipment or other items that are DME, but cannot be shared or reused- like urological equipment? All of these things need to be covered!<\/p>\n

Durable Medical Equipment covers many things. It covers one-time purchases, like walkers, hospital-style adjustable beds, and wheelchairs.\u00a0 DME can also cover on-going repeat needs such as catheters and other urological supplies. \u00a0To NOT have access to these things and other medical needs, like medication, would force many of us into a crisis mode- even to the point of a medical emergency. \u00a0I don’t know about you, but I do not plan to need more than what I need now. However, life is unexpected, and I don\u2019t want to be stuck without access to something that I might need!<\/p>\n

\"women<\/a>***Note from editor:<\/strong>\u00a0Ability Tools invites readers to get involved in advocacy and have your voices heard. There are a variety of issues that impact people with disabilities every day. To learn\u00a0more or to get involved in a local advocacy team visit the DO Network<\/a>\u00a0or follow them in Facebook<\/a> or Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by: Christine Fitzgerald, Community Advocate, Silicon Valley Independent Living Center Not all situations and needs are the same, and this extends to medical needs. \u00a0Without insurance coverage, many would be forced to choose between DME and basic needs, like food or housing. \u00a0As it is, many people already have to make this choice between…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,65],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-2601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-at-advocacy","category-durable-medical-equipment","tag-advocacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2601"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2628,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions\/2628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}