Destiny Maxam was bedridden for months in 2023 after the steering device on her wheelchair broke, leaving her unable to get around on her own.
The Lowell resident said she developed pneumonia while waiting for a fix, because her bed didn’t have the same kind of tilt feature to protect her weakened lungs as the chair.
Maxam ended up in the emergency room on a ventilator. She eventually recovered. But it took almost five months for a Tennessee-based company to send a technician to look at her chair, obtain the needed parts, and fix the machine. She said in her experience, that’s not unusual.
“That’s the big confusion that people have — they think it’s the exception, and it’s not,’’ she told GBH News in an interview at her office at the Disability Policy Consortium, a Boston-based disability advocacy organization. “It is the norm. Every single time you call, you’re going to experience this wait.”
Maxam is one of a growing number of people in Massachusetts and across the U.S. affected by slow repairs of wheelchairs. They say they are forced to wait months to get a fix, missing work and family obligations and sometimes threatening their health.
Wheelchair users point to a combination of factors: complicated medical or insurance and a lack of technicians. But they also say that private equity firms — which aggressively buy up companies, often with the plan to cut costs and then resell them — is a big part of the problem. Two out-of-state companies, Numotion and National Seating & Mobility, now own most of the national market, and many wheelchair users say they are focused more on profit than service.
“The market is essentially a duopoly … over the past 15 years especially, things have gone downhill,” said Nicole Lomerson, a research associate at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University, who also also uses a wheelchair.
Numotion and National Seating & Mobility, also known as NSM, did not respond to GBH News requests for comment.
But researchers and advocates say private equity’s growing role in health care is a significant concern. Jim Baker, the executive director of Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Chicago, released a report in 2023 finding Numotion has acquired at least 25 of its competitors since 2013, and NSM has acquired 42 since 2016.
“What we’re seeing in wheelchair companies is a classic example of what private equity firms call a ‘roll-up transaction,' where essentially, they buy a company and then use it as a platform to buy lots of its competitors,” he said. “In this case it provides, really, a captive market.”
Tens of thousands of people use wheelchairs in Massachusetts, which range in cost from hundreds to more than $30,000. Maxam, who has used a chair for 18 years, says private equity’s business model leads to less incentives for companies to do simple repairs. She says there used to be more mom-and-pop companies, where technicians got to know their customers.
“The more years that pass, the less and less availability there was for those small [shops],” she told GBH News.
Maxam is advocating for pending state legislation requiring faster repairs, which is based on a similar bill passed last year in Connecticut.
More than a dozen complaints have been filed in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Consumer Advocacy and Response Division against Numotion and NSM since 2020.
“Wheelchair users rely on their devices, and long repair delays can deeply impact their physical and mental wellbeing,” said Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a statement to GBH News. “I strongly support commonsense reforms that require wheelchair manufacturers and dealers to expand their warranties and complete repairs within a reasonable timeframe so that consumers can continue to live their lives fully.”
Some lawmakers are taking the issue on at the national level. In 2024, two U.S. senators — Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal — wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about the “alarming” trend of private equity affecting vulnerable people across the country.
“Currently, wheelchair users seeking to repair their equipment face significant barriers as a result of a wheelchair supply market that is largely controlled by two PE-owned companies,’’ the two wrote. “For the nation’s 5.5 million wheelchair users, repairs that take weeks are leading many to be trapped at home and at risk for other detrimental effects.”
Nobody at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded to comment for this story.
A growing industry
GBH News spoke to nearly a dozen wheelchair users who say they have struggled with long waits to fix a wheelchair.
Among them is Franklin Pineda-Lopez, who works at the Boston Center for Independent Living. He said he once waited more than a year to fix an armrest on his wheelchair. He said it’s necessary to keep his balance, avoid aches and prevent falling.
Pineda-Lopez, who has a spinal cord injury, commutes from Haverhill to downtown Boston three times a week and is often out in the city meeting people. He attributed delays to insurance complications as well as slow repairs.
“It’s not like a car where there’s many car shops and you can just … take it anywhere and get it fixed,” he said. “Our wheelchairs are our legs.”
Pineda-Lopez spoke to a GBH News reporter as he navigated around a crowded Downtown Crossing sidewalk with a left back wheel that started to wobble as he sped up. He says this winter, with significant snow and ice sidewalks, made the problem worse.
“I like to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, which is why I have to always remember to kind of slow down,” he said.
Problems with wheelchair repairs also disproportionately affect Black wheelchair users and people with public health insurance, according to a 2021 study published in the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.
The study found that many users face discrimination in healthcare settings. Out-of-pocket costs can be prohibitive, so some users may put off maintenance until the problem is more urgent, and people with lower incomes are less likely to have a suitable backup chair at home.
“Repairs and adverse consequences appear to hit those most vulnerable with the least financial resources,” the study concluded.
There are a handful of physical locations around the state that wheelchair users can go to if they need a new part. But getting to those facilities is a challenge with a broken wheelchair or on public transit.
Some wheelchair users say that even those facilities themselves are sometimes inaccessible. For example, near the entrance of the Numotion location in Taunton, there is a curb leading out of a crosswalk rather than a ramp, making it inaccessible for a wheelchair.
There are dozens of negative reviews about the company through the Better Business Bureau.
“I do not know if they are unwilling to make the repair and keep claiming the same issue, or if they are ordering my part and giving it to someone else,” one person wrote in May. “I need this resolved urgently as my daughter needs a fully functioning wheelchair.”
Legislation gives users hope
The bill moving through the House and the Senate in Massachusetts would require wheelchair companies to complete repairs in 10 business days from start to finish; to respond to the initial request in one day; and to order parts three days after the evaluation.
The legislation also would remove a prior authorization requirement for people with chairs that are less than five years old, require companies to provide a loaner chair if the repair is expected to take more than 10 days and give wheelchair users the right to sue for damages if the repair violates the regulations.
Critics include the National Coalition for Assistive & Rehab Technology, a New York-based nonprofit that represents wheelchair suppliers. At a 2025 hearing, Diane Racicot, vice president of payer relations for NSM, raised concerns about language in the bill, including a need to provide loaner chairs.
Still, the momentum on Beacon Hill gives hope to some wheelchair users like Lomerson, whose research focuses on the experiences of parents with disabilities.
She says she, too, has missed family time because of a broken wheelchair. Last summer, she had a problem with her SmartDrive, a device that helps speed up a manual wheelchair. Lomerson says the technology allows her to use a lighter chair that she can get in and out of the car. Without it, she says, she has to stay home, unable to enjoy summer activities with her daughter.
“Things like camping, things like going to Southwick Zoo where there’s tons of hills, going into Boston for the day to go to the MFA,” she said. “Those are all things we like to do in the summer, and a lot of that stuff wasn’t possible last summer.”
This story emerged from listening sessions GBH News held with community members. Do you have something about your community that you want to share? Email us at equityandjustice@wgbh.org.
