When you sign your mother up for our medical alert service, your mom gets to choose between the necklace and wristband for her transmitter. There are a few images of these transmitters on our website. The best picture is on our home page. All you have to do is press the tab that says “What is it?” under the picture of the mother and daughter and then scroll down to view…

The necklace is a white transmitter button on a plastic, beaded chain, which is a break-away chain. This way if mom falls and the medical alert necklace gets caught on something, it will break rather than being a choking hazard. For your mom’s safety I recommend using our chain, but if she really wants to use a different one, she can switch it out easily. You can also adjust the length of our break-away chain. It is a 36 inch chain that hangs around 18 inches down when worn, but you can cut off some of the beads to make it the perfect size for mom. Either the necklace or wristband are both very lightweight. In fact, the transmitter button weighs less than an ounce. So your mom will be able to wear it at all times and barely even notice it!

The medical alert wristband is a black button on a black plastic wristband. It resembles a black wristwatch, but does not have a watch face. The band is a standard size band and can be replaced with a different band if your mom has a much larger or much smaller wrist. This band clasps on and this can potentially be hard to put on and take off for customers with arthritis. While both are excellent options, we generally recommend choosing the necklace button over the wristband. That necklace is more accessible during an emergency. If your mom falls and has an arm pinned behind her, it will automatically make pressing the wristband help button much harder! Its important to talk to your mom about what her preferred transmitter button is! She will be wearing this button at all times in her home, so its important for it to be comfortable for her as well…

A lot of companies advertise that their medical alarm service can be canceled at anytime. Having a month to month service is not unusual. Because of that, I cannot recommend a medical alarm service that requires any time commitment. Our service is just a month to month service and you are free to cancel at anytime. When it comes time to cancel, all you have to do is give us a call. We will give you all the instructions that you need for sending the equipment back. When we ship this out to you originally we cover the shipping cost, and when you are canceling the service you will cover the cost of shipping it back. We are very proud to have a hassle free cancellation process! A lot of companies out there are known for giving you the run around when it comes time to cancel. If their equipment is on a rental basis, they will be asking you to send it back when you want to terminate their service. And if they are not willing to provide the information for sending it back then you are stuck in a pretty tough spot. I’ve heard of companies that have a specific department that handles cancellations. When you call to cancel, they forward your call to that department’s voice mail and you do not get a call back. We don’t want you to pay for a service you don’t need or do not want! So we make canceling easy for you. We think that happy ex-customers are just as important as happy customers! So before signing up for a medical alarm, look at reviews of them online. If there are a lot of complaints about their cancellation process (or a lot of complaints in general) beware! Whether it is a year from now or fifteen years later, you will need to cancel the service. So it is very important to consider!

Everyday we answer lots of questions about our personal emergency response systems. We get a fair amount of people who ask if our monitoring center is open 24 hours per day. The answer is “Absolutely!”… Not only is our medical alert monitoring 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – we have a redundant back up center located in Texas just in case our primary center were in the middle of a large-scale natural disaster. With that redundancy in place, you’ll know that your dad will be covered no matter what. All he has to do is press his necklace button and help will be on the way! It is fair to assume that the monitoring for all personal emergency response systems is 24 hours a day regardless of the company. But not everyone provides redundant monitoring. So that really is an excellent question to ask any medical alert representative that you speak with! It is important to get a feel for any company’s monitoring, how their operators are trained, and so on. Some companies tell you to only go with a medical alert that owns their own center. I can tell you firsthand, there are good and bad monitoring centers owned by these companies just like there good and bad separate monitoring centers that a company might monitor through. So it truly is about the quality of the center, not whether the company owns their monitoring center! We are proud to partner with National Monitoring Center. We work with them every single day to better protect our customers, so we know how great they truly are! You can learn even more about NMC and our monitoring here: www.seniorsafety.com/medical-alert-life-line-services/monitoring/

You’ve probably heard it before, but it is true. The big difference between different medical alert systems mainly comes down to the customer service. There is no sure fire way to find the very best in customer service, but I can help you with some quick guidelines to follow! First, avoid sales organizations. There is an epidemic in the medical alert systems industry of pesky and aggressive sales calls to seniors. Maybe you simply called to get some info from a company, or you gave them your phone number online. If a company is calling you over and over, they care more about selling you than protecting you. Don’t give in to the sales pressure! Next, trust your gut! If someone is helpful and straightforward with information, happy and pleasant to deal with, and you have a great feeling about their service – that is what you call good customer service! Just because you had a good conversation with a company, doesn’t mean you have to go with them right away. Call around and get a feel for all the companies you are interested in. And lastly, you can easily find good information online. People share their experiences on the web (especially when they’ve had a negative experience). While I would not recommend taking every single anonymous comment on the web as an unbiased fact, you can easily see if there is a trend occurring. If there are tons of negative comments to be found online for a given company, its because they are not treating their customers right! I hope this helps in your search! We certainly focus everyday on treating our customers how we would like to be treated in the same situation because we really care! Even if you don’t choose our medical alert service, I want you to find a great company for your mother! With the right amount of research, that is easy to do…

When you receive your medical alert package from us, you will need to find an active phone jack and electrical outlet to plug the alarm system monitor into. Most people have a number of different jacks to choose from in their home. So they are presented with a choice for where to plug this in. Putting a little thought into where you are setting this up the first time will ensure that you don’t have to go through that process again in the future. For most people, setting up the alarm system monitor in a central spot works best. Having it centrally located within your home will optimize the range of the speaker. That way, no matter where you are in the home when you press your emergency call button, you will be able to speak back and forth with an operator and let them know what is going on. Some seniors prefer to set up that monitor in their bedroom or a different room that they spend lots of time in. No matter where you set it up, test the range by doing a Walk Around Test when you first set it up. That way you know exactly where the speaker covers. Once you set it up you are good to go, and all you have to do in the future is remember to test your emergency call button once a month!

In an industry riddled with annoying and frustrating sales calls we know how very important it is to be different. We consider it disrespectful to call seniors at home, interrupt their days, and try to pitch our medical alert service, and we know you would feel the same way. Not only do we not make sales calls, we don’t call you to follow up even after you call us and express interest in our service. The decision is yours. And you would need to call us back if you have any follow up questions or want to place an order. We encourage all seniors and their families not to support the ongoing cycle of aggressive sales calls in the medical alert industry. If you are getting a follow up call from a company and you didn’t even leave them your phone number, don’t order with them!

Lately, lots of seniors across the country have been getting called by a company called “Senior SafeAlert.” Their website is SeniorSafeAlert.com, and when you try to call the number on their website, it goes to their voice mail. Due to the similar name, we have received calls from angry seniors who have confused our company with Senior SafeAlert. It is important to note that Senior SafeAlert is a different company than us, and we do NOT make any sales calls.

What can you do to stop these annoying sales calls from that company? There are a few important question to ask, so don’t hang up! Who is calling? What is the name of this medical alert company? What is their website? What is the name of the person you are speaking to? Where are they calling from? Write down the caller id that this call came from. Any and all information you can gather will help stop these robocalls! Beyond asking them to put you on their Do Not Call List, you can file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission at: https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form1088.action?form_type=1088B … Doing so will help stop those calls and help protect seniors across the country!

When you order one of our medical alert systems, we get it packed up and shipped out that same day! Our mail picks up everyday around 2 PM PST Monday through Friday, so if you are in a rush to get your package soon order your mom’s wrist alert before that time! If you order later we will ship it the very next day, or if you order over the weekend we ship first thing on Monday. Once it is out in the mail it should take somewhere around 3 to 4 mail days to arrive. We know that our new customers are often excited about getting their medical alert systems in place. Maybe they waited a little too long to get this started or just want to feel protected sooner. Either way, we take shipping this to you fast very seriously! We know the giant positive impact a good wrist alert can have on your mom’s life, so we want her to get everything plugged and in working as soon as possible… Not only do we ship fast, but our standard shipping is free. And if after a couple days you are curious exactly where your package is, just give us a call. We’d be able to track it for you and let you know when you can expect it to be delivered!

Most people browsing through our medical alert site tend to agree that having medical monitoring devices in your parents’ home is a very smart idea. But when you are signing mom and dad up for this type of program, it is very important to have their consent. So what if they don’t want a system or feel like they aren’t old enough for these elderly monitoring devices? Here is why I think this is a smart idea for any and all aging seniors! Medical monitoring devices are not about the short term, they are about the long term. Maybe your mom and dad have not had any falls yet. This is a great thing, but it is not a reason for them not to have this type of device. By installing elderly monitoring devices before your parents’ first big emergency, it will help them get help quickly. This could be 1 year down the line, or it could be five years. If/when it happens, your mom will simply press her help button and help will be on the way. By getting help quickly, this device will help to prevent mom from developing ongoing health problems from that emergency and help her live a longer, happier life. It’s important for your parents to understand that your goal is the same as theirs. You want them to be around and healthy for a long time! And you want them to stay living in the home that they love! Elderly monitoring devices are a great, low cost way to do this! The time will probably come when your family discusses moving mom and dad in with you or a sibling or even considers an assisted living center. If they already have a medical alert in their home, they can easily stay living in their home for longer. Most seniors even bring their system along when they move in with a family member or into senior living. Getting help whenever they need it is not about the short term. It’s a long term, lifestyle thing

My grandmother recently got one of our medical alert systems installed in her home. I’m very happy that she has chosen to protect herself with this. In the off chance that an emergency happens, she’ll be able to get the help that she needs quickly and therefore continue to live a happy and healthy life for many years to come! Now, when people call in to ask about our medical alert systems, I always tell them about how easy plugging in our systems is! But to be honest, I was a little worried about helping my mom plug this in. My mom isn’t very technically savvy, and we’ve had many long drawn out sessions over the phone where I tried to help her find something on the internet. So given our history, I was hoping that one of my uncles would be there to help instead … But to my surprise my mom plugged in the system in very easily. While I was there on the phone to help, she did it pretty much by herself. It was connected immediately and we were on to testing it! All you have to do when plugging in one of our medical alert systems is plug it into an active phone jack and the electricity. Then if you had a phone plugged in there before, the phone will plug into the back of our equipment.

I’m so happy to have my own grandmother as one of many lovely customers! And she’s pretty excited about it too!

Nic

This week I’ve been talking with my Mom about getting a medical alarm for my grandmother. About three years ago, my grandfather passed away. While one of my uncles lives with her now, she spends a lot of time alone with her two little dogs. She hasn’t had any falls or other emergencies. But we are wanting to just get ahead of any potential problems! After all, we want her to be around for many many years to come! I see the amazing benefits that these medical alarms give seniors every day that I come into work at Senior Safety, and I know that the long-term positive effects of having a system in her home will go far beyond just safety.

So this is how we are getting started: I requested a Vial of Life packet be sent to her so that she could get started filling out all of her medical information and having that ready just in case something were to happen. You can request a packet for your mother or grandmother at the Vial of Life website. Often this is a smart place to start since it’ll be good for them to have regardless of whether they decide on having a medical alarm. And next, we are going to talk to her about having a medical alarm in her home. It’s never too early to get started with this sort of thing, but it is my grandma’s decision! She’ll be the one wearing that button every day, so we really need to get her approval rather than just springing something like this on her. I hope she is open to the idea! In the meantime, I’ll be here to help explain how this type of service can help her whenever she is ready, just like I do on a daily basis with other families across the country!

Wish me luck!

Nic