Executive Vice-President Woody Andrawos and Director of Operations Todd Shuff give an exclusive look at American Senior Safety Agency’s National Monitoring Center!

Find out how our monitoring center is certified, our operators are trained and the contingency programs used when dealing with emergencies.

A medical alert necklace provides a senior with the peace of mind that with the push of a button help will be on the way.

The elderly are able to maintain their independence at home longer by wearing a medical alert necklace.

When your loved ones are in trouble they need a life line to reach out for help.

Frequently their life line is a senior medical alarm system that acts as a first alert if they fall or can’t reach the phone to call for help.

Seniors living alone live longer and with more confidence to stay in their own homes with a medical alarm at their side.

In my opinion, their own home is where a senior thrives best and is most comfortable.

I need to purchase an elderly medical alarm for my father who lives alone and has fallen in the past and needed help.

Doing a simple internet search, I was inundated by so many different companies. It’s very confusing.

How should I choose which company to sign up with?

Don
Brooklyn, NY

Hi Don,

I talk to people everyday who are equally confused. In reality the equipment from each company is very similar. Thus your decision should comes down to price, service, dependability, experience and reputation.

Questions you should ask include how much will you be paying monthly? Are there any other charges, like setup or installation fees? Can your price be raised? Are you committing to a certain time frame of service? How long has the company been in business? Is the monitoring center certified?

An independent website like Lawserver is a good start to compare different medical alarm companies for the elderly. Browse their site it’s a good read. And of course, we love what they have to say about us.

I hope this helps,

Noah

Your Question:

My elderly uncle does not have more than two phone jacks in his apartment.  He uses both of them already.  Does he need to get a separate phone line to use your emergency medical device?

Tammy

Baltimore, MD

Dear Tammy,

Your uncle will not need to put a separate phone line in his house to use our medical alarm. 

He would simply plug our speaker box directly into the phone jack in his wall and then plug his phone into the back of our medical alert.

Feel free to email me with more questions you may have.

Michelle

Of course, being the CEO of Get Help Now, Inc. I am prejudiced toward our own medical alarm system.

The key to our success is the quality of our Monitoring Systems approach. Our National Monitoring Center (NMC) is UL certified, Department of Defense approved as well as FM certified.

What do these approvals and certifications mean?

1. It means that we monitor within the United States, and we have the highest certifications and approvals in the land. Sometimes our competitors like to fool you and say that we monitor our systems in India. I have nothing against India but it just isn’t so. I guess they can’t figure a better way to beat our high quality service other than to tell and untruth.

2. Our National Monitoring Center is located in Aliso Viejo, CA and our fully certified back up monitoring center is located in Irving, Texas.

3. By having 2 completely redundant monitoring systems we stand apart from the rest.

We will answer your phone call to our center in 2 rings or less almost always. I’m very proud of what we do. We care.

Medical alert systems have long been known to help the elderly live a longer more productive life…especially if they fall often.

These 1st alert systems prevent your elderly mother or father from lying on the floor for hours or days.

Having been a pioneer of the medical alarm industry in 1980 I have heard untold stories of elderly seniors needing our help. What makes us different from many other medical alarm companies is that we care. I employ people like Michelle Moore to answer our service calls from the elderly…her Masters in Clinical Psychology gives us a better understanding of the elderly needs of our clients.

I often smile when I hear Michelle spending an hour on the phone with a lonely or confused senior and then getting off the phone and saying, “I love my job”.

 Jeff I have a question:

I am looking for a life alarm system for an elderly couple. We had life alarm system put in, only to realize the system is not compatible with their phone service. They DO NOT have a landline system from a major phone co. ATT, Pacific Bell etc.  phone in their home is thru their cable co. I believe it is Comcast cable. do you know of any system that works with cable phone service.

Pat

Sacramento, California

Hi Pat,

This is a sticky question. We have recently decided to allow our clients to use our systems with phones like Comcast…as long as they understand the issue at hand. Land line system phone systems sometimes don’t work perfectly when a medical alarm button is pushed…indeed they may fail. This failure possibility cannot be removed it is the nature of technology. That being said, replacing a land line based phone system with an Internet protocol (which is what a Comcast phone line is) places a larger unreliability to a medical alarm.

Both can fail, but an IP or voice over internet protocol VOIP has a higher incidence of problems due to the nature of the Internet, not due to the equipment used. In most cases the medical alarm will work when the button is pushed…when it fails to work perfectly it generally cuts off the ability to talk back and forth with the client but usually the message (signal) of the system works and the client is sent help without talking to them.

Whether a system can work at a particular time by either system is impossible to know at the time it is pushed, that is why all wise agreements state that the system can fail. Even 911 may fail to perform properly once they have been notified.

There is no equipment in the land that can guarantee with any certainty that the VOIP phone nor the land line can work at the time needed. However, VOIP is less predictable than a land line due to the nature of the Internet technology.

I hope this helps,

Jeff

Dear Jeff,

My aunt, Marion is a client.

She has been, or was, testing the unit daily, so it gets a lot of use.

She has also had two instances of needing help.

My question concerns battery life of the pendant transmitter of the medical alert.  Is it user replaceable?
Obviously, the life depends on the usage, but what is the range?  Is there a “low battery” warning?

Dennis
St. Paul, MN

Hi Dennis,

Your Aunt Marion is doing exactly as she should. Testing our medical alarm is very important to ensure her safety.

The range of the pendant needs to be range tested at her location.

The battery is not replaceable in the pendant transmitter. It will notify us if its battery is running low.

The average life of the pendant battery is a good 3-5 years.

Jeff

Loved ones are often concerned if they are making the right choice for their medical alarm company. This is reasonable.

What’s scary is that they often don’t check on mom, dad, aunt, uncle or loved one are testing their medical alarms on a regular basis.

It’s important! To often once the medical alarm system is purchased they leave their loved ones on their own. Trust me, our loved ones as the get older often forget to test. They can be left with a worthless help button if not tested.

Also testing their help buttons keeps them used to and comfortable with the system.

I can’t tell you how many of my clients have fallen and not pushed their button. When I ask them why they didn’t press their button. Mom will often reply, I wasn’t sure what to do…or, I didn’t want to  bother anyone.

Take the time to make your parents and loved ones comfortable with their medical alarm system.

I hate to sit here and lecture, but I hate more hearing someone was in trouble and didn’t get the help.

Make sure you and your loved ones can get the peace of mind you both deserve.