Recycling center is CM gold mine
All you have to do is ask
Like the Santa Claus he plays each year at Christmas, Ed Butchart, executive director and founder of Friends of Disabled Adults and Children (FODAC) in Stone Mountain, GA, has filled the wish list of many traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivors and their families.
TBI survivors often are left with drastically reduced financial resources. Not only are the rehabilitation costs staggering, but if the family breadwinner is the TBI patient, he or she may never return to full employment, leaving the family with reduced income.
Although many states have brain injury trust funds to which case managers can refer patients for additional services and support, there are always unmet needs for items such as assistive technology, transportation, or medical equipment. Next time that happens, case managers may wish to pick up a phone and call Butchart. (For more on brain injury trusts, see article on p. 41. For a list of states with trust funds, see p. 40.)
"We don’t ask about a person’s circumstances. There’s no eligibility requirement here. If you call and say you need something and we have it, it’s yours," he says. "If we don’t have it, we put you on a waiting list and call you when it comes in."
Butchart describes his nearly 5,000-square-foot warehouse as a "big recycling center." FODAC accepts donations of used medical equipment, medical supplies, computers, and assistive devices the organization refurbishes and then gives away to those who need them. "We have people using our wheelchairs in 34 states and more than 50 countries," says Butchart. "If a person is alive and has a need, we try to fill it. Our services are limited only by our ability to fund them."
"I’ve had many clients who have received items such as tilt tables from FODAC," notes LuRae Ahrendt, RN, CRRN, CCM, a nurse consultant with Ahrendt Rehabilitation in Norcross, GA. "They have a workshop there for people with disabilities where they redo used equipment. Several of my clients have also worked over at the FODAC shop." Ahrendt urges case managers to continue to search for resources such as FODAC. "Case managers have to continue to look at their role as including locating multiple funding sources. We are not going to meet the many needs of these patients by managing the funds of a single payer. Providing information on organizations like FODAC to patients and families is one of our responsibilities."
[To contact FODAC, call (770) 491-9014. More information on the organization is available on the FODAC Web site at www.fodac.org.]
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