I acquired a Permobil C500s VS a little over 2 years ago via United Healthcare insurance.
That model has been replaced in Permobil's lineup with the F5 VS.
My wheelchair has the standing feature (that is what the VS means), seat elevate, push handles, light kit, and a set of snow tires (in addition to the regular tires). It also came with lateral thigh supports (which I use like transfer handles), lateral hip supports, lateral thoracic supports, arm keepers (bits that bolt onto the side of the armrest to keep my arm from falling off), headrest, and a cup holder.
It did not come with transfer handles, but I acquired a used set of those along the way.
My United Healthcare insurance paid for everything on my wheelchair except the seat elevate and the cupholder. I would have cancelled the cup holder, but it would have meant starting the order all over again. Policies differ, so what mine covered might not be covered under your policy. But, it is worth pushing for.
The DME provider worked with me on the price of the seat elevate capability. I think it cost me about $1,200.
Here is how I rate things:
1. Seat elevate - essential for my lifestyle. Very much worth the money I spent
2. Standing feature - useful for me, as I get very tight achilles. It makes it a breeze to get in and out of the chair. It also helps me be at eye level when talking to folks. I definitely want that on my next chair.
3. Lighting kit - essential for my lifestyle. I am often out near or after dark. It is surprising how often we load and unload the wheelchair after dark. I would not want to do that without lights. My backup wheelchair (Permobil C500 Corpus 3G) does not have lights. I bought a bicycle headlight and taillight set for less than 30 dollars and found a place to mount them on the backup wheelchair. Not perfect, but probably good enough for most folks.
4. Transfer handle - I use this on my backup wheelchair. The lateral side support suffices on my primary wheelchair. I need something to help transfer, but either of these work for me.
5. Push handles - Useful for when I get myself stuck and there is someone strong to help get me unstuck. I wanted to remove them so I could put a larger backpack on the wheelchair. My wife said NO WAY (very emphatically
).
6. Lateral thigh support - Essential for me
7. Lateral hip supports - I don't use them
8. Lateral thoracic supports - Absolutely essential for me. I could not use a wheelchair that does not have these.
9. Arm Keepers - I did not use these for the first year. I now use one for my right arm and it makes an amazing difference.
10. Headrest - Absolutely essential for me. The one that came with the wheelchair did not work well enough for me. Insurance bought me a Stealth which works much better (though is still not perfect). Oddly enough, the permobil headrest does a good job for me on the Corpus 3G seat on my backup wheelchair.
11. Snow tires - Quite valuable to me. They are not just for snow. The silly foam-filled indoor tires that come standard will slip on any remotely slick surface (sand, gravel, wet asphalt, grass, and, yes, snow. The pneumatic snow tires are so much better on these various slick surfaces. I have really enjoyed having them. I have put about 1700 miles on the regular tires and 100 miles on the snow tires.
12. Cup Holder - I have never used it.
13. Seatbelt - I did not use it for the first 2 years, but recently installed it. It is very nice to have the security it provides. It really does help prevent me from sliding down in the wheelchair.
Many of the accessories can be purchased for a fraction of their list price when purchased used off of ebay. For example, I recently saw a set of lateral thigh supports on ebay for about $50.
As another example, the power leg rest actuator had failed on the used wheelchair I bought as a backup and the leg rest had been converted back to manual. A new legrest actuator cost about $1,400. I was able to find a used one on ebay for $120. It was plug and play and took my friend and me about 15 minutes to install. It took some research to find the right one, but I sure saved a lot of money.
As a final note, I vastly prefer the F5 over the F3. The F3 is too tippy for my tastes and has a much shorter range. The difference in stability between the F5 and F3 is even larger than between the C500 and C300 (the previous models).
Steve