Well over 3 million Americans use wheelchairs to get around on a regular basis. That number is expected to go up dramatically in the years to come.
If you ever find yourself in a wheelchair, it’s going to be difficult for you to get from point A to point B at times. But you can make wheelchair transportation easier on yourself by taking the right steps.
One way you can do it is by calling on the right medical transportation company to provide you with wheelchair transportation services as necessary. They’ll be able to assist you in getting to hospitals, doctors’ offices, and other medical facilities.
There are also other things you can do to make disability travel simpler. Check out five ways you can do it below.
1. Make Your Home More Wheelchair Accessible
If you’ve had to use a wheelchair for quite some time now, your home might already be wheelchair accessible. But if you just started using a wheelchair recently, you may not have made the necessary upgrades to your home just yet.
In this case, you should aim to make your house as wheelchair accessible as you can get it. Otherwise, you’re going to have a tough time simply getting out of your home when you have to go to something like a doctor’s appointment.
Doing something as simple as widening the doorways in your home will help you get around in it faster. It’ll also make it easier for you to leave the house when it’s time to go.
2. Get Ready to Leave Your House in a Wheelchair Early
If you need to use a wheelchair to get around, you’re going to want to try to avoid getting into the habit of getting ready to go at the last minute all the time. This will be a recipe for disaster for those who utilize wheelchairs since it’s not easy to hurry when you’re in a wheelchair.
You should make sure you know what time a wheelchair transportation company will be coming to pick you up and strive to be ready when they arrive. By doing this, you’ll be able to get out the door on time so that you aren’t late for whatever appointment it is that you need to attend.
3. Consider Investing in Door-to-Door Wheelchair Transportation
If you’re someone who has gotten the hang of getting around in a wheelchair, you might be able to settle for curb-to-curb transportation services from a wheelchair transportation company. They’ll pick you up out front of your home and drop you off in front of your preferred destination.
But if you’re someone who struggles to get around with ease in a wheelchair, this kind of setup might not work for you. Your best bet is going to be to invest in door-to-door wheelchair transportation services.
These services will have a company coming right to your front door and possibly even inside your home to help you out. It’ll also have this company bringing you into the medical facility that you’ll be visiting.
All of this should help reduce some of the strain that wheelchair transportation might normally put on you. You won’t feel quite as stressed out as you make your way from point A to point B when you have the right wheelchair transportation company in your corner.
4. Rely On a Company With the Best Wheelchair-Accessible Rides
Before you enlist the services of a wheelchair transportation company, you should ask them about their fleet of vehicles. They’re going to need to have state-of-the-art wheelchair-accessible rides that they can pick you up in.
Ideally, these rides should have electric hydraulic lifts that can be used to put you into them and take you out. You won’t have to worry about getting in and out of your wheelchair when their vehicles have these types of lifts installed.
You might assume that every wheelchair transportation company would have these lifts on their vehicles, but this isn’t always the case. So you shouldn’t be shy about asking if a company uses them before trusting them to provide you with disability travel services.
5. Provide the Right Destination for Wheelchair Transportation
When you arrange to have a wheelchair transportation company pick you up at your house and drop you off somewhere, you’re going to need to provide them with addresses for each of these locations. It’ll obviously be important for both of these addresses to be correct. But it’ll be extra important for the address of your destination to be right.
If you provide a company with the wrong address for your destination, it can cause a ton of confusion. It can also lead to a company unloading you and your wheelchair from a vehicle only to discover that you need to be loaded back into their vehicle and dropped off somewhere else.
Don’t be afraid to double- and even triple-check the address of your destination, especially if you’re heading to a facility you’ve never been to before. It’s better to be safe than sorry in this situation.
Contact Us for All Your Wheelchair Transportation Needs
Trying to get around when you’re in a wheelchair can have its complications. But you should be able to make things easier by putting the tips found here to good use.
Our wheelchair transportation company can make getting around in a wheelchair easier for you. We can also provide other medical transportation services like stretcher transportation for those who need them.
Reach out to us today to get more information on our services or read through our blog to get more tips on topics like manual vs powered gurney transportation.