Refurbished medical equipment fills supply chain gaps

By Kate Ruder, Kaiser Health News

DENVER — Michele Lujan needed a wheelchair for her 52-year-old husband who had been hospitalized with covid-19. But she had lost her job, and money was tight. Insurance wouldn’t cover the cost, and she didn’t see the use in buying something to meet a temporary need. So she turned to a loan closet not far from her home in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch.

At South Metro Medical Equipment Loan Closet, crutches hung from the walls, knee scooters lined the floor, and shower seats and toilet risers overflowed from the shelves. She found a wheelchair she could borrow for free.

“I didn’t realize all the other medical items they have,” Lujan said.

Medical equipment reuse programs like these collect, clean, and lend devices — often at no cost to the borrower. They vary in size from small outposts at community churches to large statewide programs like the Foundation for Rehabilitation Equipment and Endowment, or FREE, which provided nearly 5,000 devices to thousands of low-income adults and seniors in Virginia last year.

Such programs save low-income and uninsured patients money, and by refurbishing used medical equipment, they keep it out of landfills. During the pandemic, the programs have also helped soften the impact of supply chain-related shortages and are helping meet increased demand as delayed elective surgeries resume.

“Once hospitals started elective surgeries again, there was a huge increase in need,” said Donna Ralston, who founded the South Metro Medical Equipment Loan Closet six years ago in a 10-feet-by-10-feet shed at her church.

Today, the volunteer-run organization opens its warehouse doors by appointment to anyone who is in need and recovering from surgery, illness, or injury. “Oftentimes, we’re loaning equipment to patients who would otherwise have to wait two months to get it from their insurance providers,” said the organization’s president, Pat Benhmida. “We fill in these cracks quite often.”

Besides insurance delays, hospitals across the U.S. have reported not having enough walkers, crutches, canes, and wheelchairs. Supplies are limited because of shortages of raw materials such as aluminum, said Alok Baveja, a professor of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School in New Jersey.

“The availability, not just the cost, has an impact on the durable medical equipment industry,” Baveja said.

The crunch may be made worse by disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said American Hospital Association spokesperson Colin Milligan.

Aluminum prices have more than doubled in the past two years, including more than 20% over the past six months on the London Metal Exchange. A bill that passed Congress April 7 to suspend normal trade relations with Russia will allow President Joe Biden to raise tariffs on aluminum and other imports from that country, increasing aluminum prices even more.

Baveja said one silver lining of the pandemic is that reused medical equipment has gained greater acceptance and use.

Last September and again in January, southwestern Virginia hospitals delayed…