Erin’s Fluency Blog

I am very interested in building my professional career in a way that will promote and enhance the independence of people with disabilities.  One critical aspect of enhancing independence of people with disabilities is access to assistive technology (power wheelchairs, vehicle hand controls, hearing aids, hands-free computer programs, etc).  For a variety of reasons accessing assistive technology is often difficult for people with disabilities.  This is especially true of people with disabilities living in rural areas, where the biggest barrier is lack of professional expertise of assistive technology and lack of facilities providing assistive technology.  However, new technology has created an excellent way to connect rural people with disabilities with urban professionals trained in assistive technology.  TeleRehabilitation is a way of video conferencing that would allow occupational therapists and assistive technology service providers the opportunity to communicate with and evaluate individuals in remote areas in terms of current function and benefit of proper assistive technology.  For many individuals living in rural areas where lack of internet use, unemployment levels, poverty and lack of education are comparatively high, TeleRehabilitation is literally the only way they can communicate with professionals and access assistive technology.  The problem is that Medicare and private insurers are reluctant to pay for this type of care as they feel accuracy will be lost without true “hands-on” evaluation.  Although it is true that TeleRehabilitation has some short falls that “first-hand” care does not (i.e. cannot see minor tremors) I think this is simply an illustration of policy failing to keep pace with the ever evolving technological field.  TeleRehabilitation is the first economically reliable means of increasing independence of people with disabilities living in rural areas, while decreasing medical costs and enhancing employability.  As insurers continue to pay unnecessary medical bills for issues that could have been prevented through assistive technology and the Federal government continues to pay millions of dollars in income maintenance programs to individuals who could be working with access to assistive technology, it is inevitable that policies will eventually change.  This type of teleconferencing has brought many people together and has been very successful in allowing face-to-face contact despite great distance (i.e. GSPIA’s distance learning course in Macedonia, communication’s between federal officials and Army generals in
Iraq, etc.).  It is time the medical profession caught up.