Do I need to get a home assessment before I buy this mobility product? It’s a question Lifestyle & Mobility are asked a lot. After all, when browsing our website, you’ll likely see “This product requires a home assessment” or words to that effect, quite a bit. Why is this exactly?
Prescriptive Products
In short, whether a home assessment is needed usually comes down to whether or not a particular mobility product is prescriptive. Wondering what makes a product “prescriptive”? You’re not alone. One sure-fire way to check is if a product page includes an extensive order form. This is often helpfully labelled as being a prescriptive order form. To give an example, let’s take the Klaxon Klick Scrambler, a powered add-on for a manual wheelchair, as shown to the left. Powered add-ons will virtually always require a home assessment for reasons of safety alone. This is also where the “demonstration” aspect of a home visit really comes into play.
The “Scrambler” can transform a manual wheelchair into a powered mobility vehicle capable of exceeding 12mph. So, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that we require any potential users to try before they buy. Anything else would be unsafe. And that goes for the whole variety of powered add-ons out there.
A Lifestyle & Mobility home assessment goes beyond simply figuring out what configuration of a product is right for you – it also looks at whether that product itself is right for you. Thanks to the reduced overheads of our online retail department, we can offer discounted rates on the base models of most prescriptive products we stock, but that doesn’t mean that face-to-face contact is normally left out of those transactions.
Try Before You Buy
In many ways, the crucial importance of knowing what you’re getting ahead of time is why, if it is recommended to get a home assessment for a product, you should. For one thing, prescriptive products are tailor-made. This means that, even when bought at a distance, if they are ordered in a particular configuration (with a completed prescriptive order form) they are non-refundable. Getting it right is vital! Of course, it’s about much more than money. When we send an assessor out on a free home visit, they will bring one or more products for demonstration whenever possible. It may turn out that a more economical option turns out to be best for your needs, or it may not. Fundamentally, something like a standing powerchair, or high-spec active wheelchair, will be too integral to your life for getting the order wrong.
A prescriptive wheelchair like this Permobil Panthera X3 will be a huge part of a user’s life. Getting the specs right is vital. Hence the need for a home assessment
So, if you’re thinking about buying a prescriptive mobility product, there’s an obvious first action to take. Book a free home assessment with us today!
As always, thanks for reading.