Seating and Positioning

Wheelchair Prescriptions with Short Rehab Stays

Getting the appropriate wheelchair when patients are discharged so early is a common challenge these days with rehab stays getting shorter and shorter. The average inpatient rehab stays are now 7-10 days, with patients going home to receive Home Health services. Considering that an ultra-lightweight manual wheelchair can take weeks or months to get due to the process that is required, how can you ensure that your patients get the appropriate wheelchair?
First, when you do your initial evaluation be thinking about whether your client may need a wheelchair when going home. If the answer is yes, treat your evaluation as if they are going to need a K0005 wheelchair, even if they initially go home in a lower end manual wheelchair for a short period of time. K0005 documentation should be more than sufficient to cover a lower coded chair so there is no real duplication of process.

Important Facts

Applications for ActiveReach™ & ActiveHeight™

ActiveHeight™ and ActiveReach™ is the dynamic combination of power seat elevation and anterior tilt function now available to power wheelchair users who rely on power seat functions to improve their health, function and participation in everyday life. The combination of ActiveHeight™ and ActiveReach™ allows the wheelchair user to perform tasks in a more ergonomically correct way, similar to how a non-wheelchair user would do. For example:

Alternative Funding for Standing

Not everyone has the luxury of having a funding source that pays for a power standing feature on a power wheelchair. If you are fortunate enough to have a funding source that covers standing, you are in the vast minority but good for you! Most payors follow Medicare’s guidelines to some extent which generally means they consider standing to be statutorily non-covered. This doesn’t mean you can’t get a standing system, but it does mean you will have to work a little harder to get it covered. Some insurance companies will make exceptions when the clinical documentation for standing is compelling enough. However, more times than not, you will need to explore alternative funding methods to get your stander.