Guide
Looking after your equipment
Most equipment failures are preventable, and most of the prevention takes about a minute a week.
The general rules
- Check the wear parts. Walker and cane tips, wheelchair tires, castors, brake pads. Smooth-worn tips are a genuine fall risk and replacements cost very little.
- Check the fasteners. Anything with a folding mechanism loosens over time.
- Keep it clean and dry. Particularly in Florida — humidity and salt air are hard on metal, bearings and electronics.
- Do not overload it. Weight capacities are engineering limits, not suggestions.
- Charge batteries properly. Follow the manufacturer's instructions rather than leaving things permanently plugged in or permanently flat.
Things people get wrong
- Pressure mattress pumps. Do not block the air intake by pushing the pump against a wall or covering it. It will overheat and it will stop working at 3am.
- CPAP humidifier chambers. Distilled water only. Tap water leaves mineral deposits that ruin the chamber and can carry organisms.
- Bed rails. If a rail develops play, stop using it and call us. Rail gaps are an entrapment hazard, not a rattle.
- Lift slings. Inspect the stitching and the loops before every use. A sling that fails does so all at once.
- Nebulizer kits. They are not indefinitely reusable. A degraded kit delivers medication poorly and you will not notice.
When to call us
Immediately, if anything that bears weight or holds a person feels different. Sooner rather than later, for anything else. Equipment we rent to you, we maintain. Equipment under warranty, we repair or replace.
Related
About this guide
This is general information written to be useful, not medical advice, and it is not a coverage determination. It does not replace what your own clinician has told you about your own situation — where the two differ, follow your clinician.
We deliberately publish no prices, allowables or fee-schedule figures. Those vary by plan, state and year, and a stale number is worse than none. Call (800) 304-7030 and we will verify your actual benefit.
Not sure where to start?
Call us and tell us what happened — a surgery, a new diagnosis, a discharge date, a supply you keep running out of. We will tell you what is usually needed, check your benefits, and ask your prescriber for the order if you do not have one yet.