Last week I found out that DH had been approved for a hospital bed. (I had heard it was almost impossible to have medicare approve a hospital bed unless someone was completely bedbound, but evidently DH's other medical issues warranted it.)

The reason I'm writing about this is because when the home medical equipment company came, they brought a used bed. When I questioned the delivery man about the damage I saw on the bed, at first he lied about it, and said it just got scratched up in transit. After pointing out more and more damage, and finding dirty smears on the headboard, he admitted that it was a used bed. Then he said that as long as it worked, there was no difference between a new bed and a used one. I thought differently, and refused to accept the used bed. When I called medicare, they said that a patient is always supposed to get a new bed, and that they don't pay for used medical equipment.

Evidently this company is selling used equipment and billing for new equipment. I wonder how many people they've been able to make this switch on. Usually by the time a hospital bed is required, there's so much stress that checking the bed carefully when it is delivered (who is looking for fraud at a time like this?) is not high on the list of priorities. I wouldn't have thought to check it, except that it was brought in in pieces, so I had time between trips to look at it.

Just thought this deserved a mention, so other people would know that this might happen. I will omit my thoughts on people who try to make money like this on terminally ill people and their families.

Yesterday a new bed was delivered, still in the original shipping boxes, with all the proper paperwork. I'm glad to have this bed for DH, but I'm getting really tired of having to fight with people about what seems like every single thing related to his care.

I don't believe that new equipment is necessarily furnished. When I was still working in public health nursing, some of the hospital beds that were furnished by suppliers and billed to Medicare were clearly used, and often old. I always instructed the aides to refuse to use any malfunctioning equipment and to call the supervisory nurse immediately so we could address the issue. (This after I found that one patient's reclining wheelchair would flop back all the way--the aides were propping it up by leaning the chair with the patient in it against a bookcase to stop it from tipping backward all the way and dumping the 96 year old pt. onto the floor. Yes, I threw a major fit with the company!!)

These experiences were in New York, but Medicare is national, and the regs. are the same in any state. I can't speak for Canada.

In Ohio, the equipment furnished by Hospice and billed to Medicare was all in perfect condition and immaculate. It all looked new, although I don't really know whether it was or not. We had a hospital bed, over bed table, and the small transfer wheelchair, as well as the oxygen concentrator.

elizabeth - I can't speak for all of Canada, but here in Quebec there is no expectation of getting new equipment from the health care system. Everything that we have been supplied with to date (that I did not purchase on my own) has been used - but in good working order. Our local CLSC maintains an equipment cupboard - items may be "borrowed" for as long as necessary, and when they are no longer needed, they are returned to the CLSC, and repaired and cleaned as necessary. This goes for anything from walkers and canes to lift chairs and hospital beds.
In fact, when my DH is placed, I will probably donate the items I purchased on my own (superpole and a frame for the toilet) to the CLSC to augment their supply so that they are better able to serve others.