I encourage you to consider the potential of buying a new wheelchair through a good Durable Medical Equipment (DME) company. I use NuMotion and in my area, their technical and sales folks are very good. The administrative folks are very kind, but have difficulty wading through the immense amount of paperwork needed to get anything done.
If your father has insurance (medicare and/or private insurance), he can get a new wheelchair if his needs have changed and those changes, along with a corresponding need for a new wheelchair, are documented by appropriate medical professionals.
Getting him an appropriate wheelchair seems like the priority right now. If his current wheelchair is not appropriate, getting a new one through insurance is the most likely path to getting the right wheelchair. Doing so depends very much on the quality of the sales person you work with. Look around and find the best salesperson. It will make a big difference.
My salesperson is a former physical therapist. She knows a tremendous amount about wheelchairs, how to fit them, and how to work with the insurance providers to get them paid for.
It took me 4 months to get my first wheelchair through NuMotion. From your post, it sounds like your father will need a more capable wheelchair soon. I encourage you to start now if you decide to go through insurance.
If a wheelchair is acquired via insurance, then insurance will also pay to maintain that wheelchair (new tires, batteries, bearings, motors, control modules, seat backs, headrests, etc.). I know, because I have been through this.
When you get another wheelchair, regardless of the way you get it, I encourage you to keep the old wheelchair as a backup. Wheelchairs are complex things and do break. When they break, it can take a very long time to get them repaired.
My insurance-provided wheelchair was in the shop once for 4 months while waiting for insurance approval and parts. That repair cost about $12,000 and was paid for by insurance (minus deductible). I was very, very glad to have a backup wheelchair during those 4 months!
In total, that wheelchair has had $45,000 to $50,000 of repairs done to it in less than 4 years, all covered through insurance. If I had not had insurance, I would have done the repairs myself (well, my friend would have, but I would have supervised
) It would have cost a small fraction of what the DME billed insurance.
Not all wheelchairs will need as extensive and expensive repairs as mine do. I do not abuse them in any way, but I do use them extensively. You can check out a few of my threads to get an Idea of how I use a wheelchair. Certainly I am not a typical user
.
If you go the insurance route to get a wheelchair, be aware that most insurance will balk at paying for the seat elevate function. There are ways to get that function at reduced to no cost. Let us know if you run into that dilemma.
Steve