Because one healthcare horror story per day isn’t enough, I want to tell you the story of how I’ve been trying for over two months to get my uncle’s electric wheelchair repaired. It’s still broken. It still hasn’t even been picked up by the company that is supposed to repair it.
First, some background information.
- My uncle has an electric wheelchair because he needs one. He is permanently disabled, including a partial foot amputation and permanent circulation issues in his legs. He is never going to be more ambulatory. He is never not going to need a wheelchair. His electric wheelchair was previously prescribed by his doctor and approved by his insurance company, the same insurance company he has now.
- My uncle lives several states away from me. I visit as frequently as I can, but that’s less than I wish since I have a full-time job and other obligations.
- Prior to the wheelchair actually breaking this time, in the past when my uncle has told me it was broken in fact it just needed to be adjusted and I was able to get it working again when I visited him in person.
Given all that, here’s the journal of my efforts to get the wheelchair repaired.
June 3, 2026
I visit my uncle in person and confirm that the wheelchair really is broken and not just in need of adjustment. It actually stopped working several months ago but this was the first time I was able to get down to visit him since then.
June 8, 2026
I live chat my uncle’s insurance company, Healthfirst, and ask how to submit a request for the wheelchair to be repaired. The rep claims that the durable medical equipment provider for the wheelchair is Integra Partners (I know this is false when she says it) and that I need to call the Healthfirst member services department to have them to transfer me to Integra Partners for further assistance. I later learn that none of this information is correct.
I call Healthfirst member services and a rep there tells me that she does not know how the repair request is supposed to be handled but she will look into it and call me back.
Miraculously, she actually calls me back. She says the wheelchair was sold and is maintained by NuCare. She spoke to NuCare for me (it’s a miracle! a representative of the health insurance company actually helping!), and they said the doctor needs to send them a prescription for the repair, then they will get the repair authorized by Healthfirst and proceed from there. The Healthfirst rep says she’s going to contact the doctor’s office for me to get the prescription, then once the doctor sends the prescription to NuCare they will contact me to arrange for the repair, so if I don’t hear from NuCare I should call them directly.
June 9, 2026
I call NuCare and ask if they’ve received the prescription yet. They have not. I message my uncle’s doctor through MyChart and ask for them to send it (this is presumably the second request for this they have received, since the Healthfirst rep supposedly called them yesterday).
June 10, 2026
I call NuCare again. Still no prescription. I call my uncle’s doctor’s office and leave a message.
I leave for a business trip to Australia. I’m not going to be able to do anything about this for several weeks, so I hope something will happen in my absence.
July 2, 2026
I’m back in the U.S. and able to continue working on this. NuCare still hasn’t received a prescription. I sent the doctor’s office another message through MyChart (what else am I supposed to do?).
Later that day, another doctor from my uncle’s doctor’s office, not actually my uncle’s doctor, messages me through MyChart and says he has faxed the referral to NuCare.
July 7, 2026
NuCare says they’ve received the referral and submitted it to the insurance company for approval on July 3. They’re still waiting for approval. They say it usually takes 3–5 business days.
July 13, 2026
I call NuCare for a status check and they tell me they can’t help me because their “systems are down.”
July 14, 2026
I call NuCare. They say it still hasn’t been approved and I can contact the insurance company to ask why and try to speed it up. They give me the reference number that the insurance company’s portal gave them when they submitted the authorization request.
I live chat with Healthfirst and they say I have to call them on the phone and ask to be transferred to Integra Partners.
I get on the phone with Healthfirst. The rep there repeatedly explains to me the process that I already followed. I had to explain to her at least twice that I had already done what she was telling me to do and I was calling today exactly because it hadn’t worked and that needed to be fixed. She places me on hold multiple times, supposedly to consult with others, during this conversation. After one of these holds she comes back on the line and says there’s no authorization request on file and asks what phone number NuCare sent the referral to. I ask how the heck I would know that. She tries to give me the fax number for Integra Partners to give to NuCare and I lose my temper and demand that Healthfirst call NuCare and get this straightened out. She calls NuCare with me on the phone. Eventually after like 15 minutes on hold with NuCare she gives up and insists I tell NuCare to fax the authorization request to Integra Partners. I ask her what the point is of the authorization number that NuCare gave me, and she said she didn’t know and couldn’t find out.
July 15, 2026
A supervisor at NuCare tells me that NuCare did submit the authorization request properly to Healthfirst, through the proper portal, that the portal did give them the reference number that they gave me, and that somehow Integra Partners “lost” to referral request. How that happened is supposedly being investigated.
The NuCare supervisor further informs me that he is authorizing a repair tech to go to my uncle’s apartment tomorrow to examine the wheelchair despite the fact that the repair hasn’t been officially authorized yet by the insurance company.
July 16, 2026
I get multiple calls from a manager at Healthfirst, who assures me that they are investigating what happened and working on getting the repair authorized.
Later I receive an approval notice from Integra Partners through the Healthfirst member portal.
The repair tech actually shows up at my uncle’s apartment.
I speak to my uncle on the phone and he says the repair tech said they were going to have to take the old wheelchair back to their warehouse for repair or replacement and it could take up to four months for the repair/replacement to happen.
July 17, 2026
I call NuCare to confirm the accuracy of what my uncle told me and find out when they are going to be picking up the wheelchair. They say the repair tech has not yet entered a status update into the computer so they don’t know. They say they’re going to look into and call me back. [Narrator: no one called him back.]
July 21, 2026
I call NuCare again. They again say there’s no status in the computer from the repair tech. I give them an earful and demand progress.
July 24, 2026
I call NuCare. The rep I speak with claims that the wheelchair has been picked up from my uncle’s apartment and taken to the warehouse for further evaluation. They say it will be another 3–7 business days before there is an update.
August 10, 2026
I call NuCare and ask for an update. The rep I speak with says that in fact that wheelchair was never picked up from my uncle’s apartment, i.e., the rep I spoke to on July 24 lied to me. While on the phone with NuCare I call my uncle on another line and confirm that the wheelchair is still sitting in his apartment. So now another 17 days has been unnecessarily lost with no progress on the repair. The NuCare rep claims she has scheduled a pick-up for three days from now.
