In the spring of 2013, at 78 years old, my father underwent critical back surgery. Due to his age and some existing health risks, ailing health, there was a real sense of living on borrowed time. Fearful he might not wake from the anesthesia, I skipped a dear friend’s wedding and raced home before my father's surgery so I could be at his side for what I was afraid might be our last Father’s Day together.
Lucky for all of us, my dad made it through his surgery. But as I would soon learn, this was just the beginning of the challenges he would face as he regained his health and independence. My father had access to some of the best care in the world at one of the top orthopedic medicine institutions, but after the initial inpatient recovery period, it was time for him to go home and continue his recovery and rehabilitation.
To do this, he needed a walker, so the care team at the hospital ordered one for him. Pretty simple, right?
Except that the walker that was supposed to be there the day he got home -- the vital piece of medical equipment he needed to safely move around and regain his mobility -- did not arrive for weeks.
By the time the walker finally arrived , I had watched my father risk re-injuring himself every day, multiple times per day as he struggled to get around without the equipment he so desperately needed. I felt helpless as this fiercely independent man used counters and sofa backs in place of the mobility device he was promised to stabilize himself, and as I watched him try to make it across the small stretch of floor from the couch to the bathroom with nothing to lean on. I feared he would become one of the tragic health statistics we hear so often, of an older adult who, left unsupervised for a fraction of a second, fell at the wrong angle and hit his head, never to recover.
And that was when I saw the problem that would ultimately lead me to found Parachute: despite undergoing a complicated major surgery and a rehabilitation process that cost tens of thousands of dollars, it was our inability to obtain a $40 walker that ultimately placed his health, and even his life, at the greatest risk.
My father is my greatest role model. He is a proud and patriotic military veteran and a hardworking business owner, who’s always done whatever he needed to pay the bills and provide for his family.
As you probably already know if you’ve ever helped to care for an ailing loved one or been through a similar experience yourself, my father’s story is far from unusual. I did some research and found out that medical supplies and durable medical equipment (DME) fail to make it to their intended recipients up to 80% of the time or more.
Yes, you read that right. Most of the time, well over half of DME orders are lost, misrouted, rejected for bureaucratic reasons like coding and signoffs, or blocked for some other reason. It’s horrifying, it’s angering, and it needs to stop.
We owe people like my father a healthcare system that actually works, and care and equipment plans that don’t fall apart the moment patients are discharged to their homes. Our loved ones deserve better, and together, we at Parachute Health know we can provide it.
Let’s Reimagine Healthcare. Together.
- David Gelbard