Just about every day, I hear about a new medical alert button company. Every year there are more people reaching the age where they need some form of protection at home, and the internet marketers have picked up the scent. I was recently introduced to Link to Life, and here is what I found:
In researching Link to Life, I clicked around their website to find out more about them. First, although having a Better Business Bureau (BBB) icon on their website, you’ll find that when you click on it and are brought to the BBB website, Link to Life is NOT BBB accredited. And, they appear to have 63 employees. That either means that if 64 people press their buttons at the same time, someone isn’t going to be a happy camper. Of course, it could also mean that Link to Life outsources their call center work (to where I do not know). They are rather cheap – only about $20 a month – but that does not include any fire protection (for which they charge an extra $100) or protection while away from home (not available at all). Offering no contract and no guarantees, Link to Life appears to be like every other average medical alert on the market, and certainly not up to the level of Life Alert.
I researched Link to Life in particular after a recent series of phone calls from a prospective member and her family. I received a call from Lori in California, asking me how to go about getting protected with Life Alert. Lori is disabled and her family feels that if she is going to continue to live alone, she needs to be protected. I told her I was happy to help make sure that Life Alert was the right fit for her and her family. “My caseworker at The North Los Angeles County Regional Center also says I need Life Alert,” Lori added. “They are the ones who sent away for the Life Alert brochure.” I took a look at the Center, and found that they are a non-profit organization that provides services and support to people with developmental disabilities. “I have never heard of Life Alert partnering with an organization like this, but I think that it’s a wonderful thing that they are helping people get protected,” I said.
Lori and I chose the Life Alert protection package that fit her needs, and included a monitored smoke detector, as well as the portable unit so that Lori was protected everywhere. Lori then asked me to call her sister Patti to go over the system with her as well. Patti and I had a lovely conversation, in which she told me that I had definitely provided her peace of mind.
So in order to set Lori up with Life Alert, both Patti and I contacted the Center to get the ball rolling. The service coordinator Melinda was handling Lori’s case, and was the one who had contacted Life Alert to begin with. But after speaking to Melinda, it was discovered that the Center does not work with Life Alert, but with Link to Life. I was a little shocked to find this out, considering it was Melinda who had suggested Life Alert to Lori and Patti in the first place (I’m not sure how the mistake was made). I did ask Patti to give Link to Life a call, and see if they set her mind at ease as I did. If not, it didn’t matter how cheap their medical alert was.
In the end, Lori gets (in my opinion) a sub-par medical alert that doesn’t offer as much protection as Life Alert does, and the The North Los Angeles County Regional Center saves some money working with (again in my opinion) a second rate company. I don’t exactly call that a win win.
