Assistive technology equipment: assessment, loan and reuse

It is the government programme that exists so a person with a disability can get the equipment they need and know how to use it. It does two distinguishable things: it assesses you and gives you direct services — and the Act says you can ask for it yourself, without an agency referral — and it runs a permanent recycling, loan and reuse project, expressly authorized to receive donated equipment. It lives at the University of Puerto Rico’s Medical Sciences Campus.

The Act describes the Program’s reach as broadly as possible: it shall serve “the needs of all persons with disabilities,” and adds the full list of what cannot exclude you: “regardless of age, origin or social condition, type of disability, race, colour, nationality, gender or gender identity of the person, political or religious affiliation.” The Act publishes no income thresholds and no list of covered diagnoses. The concrete criteria for receiving equipment or a service come from the Program’s regulation, which we did not read.

Information pending verification.

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: You can ask yourself, with no referral

   It is the Act’s most useful sentence and it sits in Article 4(m). The Program must “Offer direct assistive technology services to persons with disabilities who require them, whether by direct request or through public agencies and entities and private entities.” Direct request: no agency has to send you.

2. 2

   Step 2: What counts as an “assistive technology service”

   The Article 2 definition is broader than people assume and worth reading whole before ruling out your case. It includes “Assessment of the assistive technology needs of the person with a disability, including a functional assessment of the person in their usual environment”; “purchase, lease or any other means of providing for the acquisition of equipment”; “selecting, designing, adjusting, adapting, customizing, applying, maintaining, repairing or replacing assistive technology equipment”; “coordinating and using other therapies, interventions or services with assistive technology equipment, such as education and rehabilitation programmes”; and training and technical help both for you and your family and for the professionals who attend you. Repairing and replacing are in there, not just obtaining.

3. 3

   Step 3: The permanent recycling, loan and reuse project

   Article 8 obliges the Program’s Director to “establish and coordinate the Permanent Recycling, Loan and Reuse Project for Assistive Technology Equipment, with other agencies, Government corporations and the collaboration of private entities, for the purpose of promoting, encouraging and facilitating the use and reuse of assistive medical and assistive technology equipment.” And it gives the express authorization that makes donating possible: it “is expressly authorized to receive any assistive medical and assistive technology equipment donated, transferred or assigned to it by federal, state or municipal bodies or by private entities or persons.”

4. 4

   Step 4: There is an inventory, and it separates used from new

   We say this because it changes the expectation of whoever receives equipment from the project. The Director “shall establish an inventory of equipment received as donations, allowing identification of previously used equipment from new, and shall also estimate or value annually the donations received in equipment, as well as any cash donation.” Equipment may come used and the inventory itself identifies it as such.

5. 5

   Step 5: Other agencies must recycle equipment too

   This tells you where else to ask. The same Article 8 provides that, so public agencies and corporations “among which stand out, without limitation, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration of the Department of Labour and Human Resources” provide equipment “in a more efficient and economical way, they shall be obliged to structure and implement an assistive technology equipment recycling and reuse programme, in coordination with the Puerto Rico Technological Assistance Program.”

6. 6

   Step 6: There are also agreements with specialized clinics

   Article 4(n) gives the Program the function of “Establishing collaborative agreements with specialized clinics and with other public or private institutions, for the provision of assistive technology equipment to persons with disabilities, through the Program’s Permanent Recycling, Loan and Reuse Project.” We did not read which agreements exist today, so we publish no list of clinics.

7. 7

   Step 7: The Program also looks for where the money comes from

   It is a little-known function and may serve you more than the equipment itself. Subsection (b) requires it to “Document and disseminate information related to assistive technology and sources of financial resources for acquiring this equipment and these services, among persons with disabilities, their relatives or representative and among employees of government agencies or private entities that have contact with persons with disabilities, including insurers.” Funding sources and insurers are named in the text.

8. 8

   Step 8: Where the Program lives

   Article 3 places it: the Program is “attached to the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico, which shall be the government entity continuing the Puerto Rico Technological Assistance Project.” The Campus provides it with location, infrastructure, security, maintenance and administrative services, and “shall establish collaborative agreements with other University of Puerto Rico campuses to guarantee the Program’s services.” The Act publishes no address or telephone, and we do not invent them.

9. 9

   Step 9: It gives priority to the most marginalized groups

   Article 4(f) says it plainly: the Program must “Give priority to the most marginalized groups of persons with disabilities and periodically develop and implement, as the regulation provides, a comprehensive action plan based on the results of public hearings and statistical studies.” The plan and the concrete priority come from the regulation, which we did not read.

The Puerto Rico Technological Assistance Program is attached to the University of Puerto Rico’s Medical Sciences Campus. PRFácil has no agency record for the University of Puerto Rico, so this guide is filed under the general-government facet and names the Campus where the Act names it. The Act allows direct requests, but publishes no address, telephone or form. If what you need is the warranty on an assistive device you bought, that is another Act and we have a separate guide; likewise if you are looking for the essential-services voucher for a person with a significant disability.

• Believing an agency must refer you: the Act expressly allows direct requests.
• Thinking they only obtain new equipment: the service includes maintaining, repairing and replacing, and the reuse project handles previously used equipment.
• Not asking at Education, Health or Vocational Rehabilitation: the Act requires them to have their own recycling and reuse programme coordinated with the Program.
• Ruling out your case over age or type of disability: the Act says it serves all persons with disabilities regardless of age or type of disability.
• Ignoring the funding-information function: the Program must disseminate information on sources of financial resources, including insurers.
• Assuming the equipment is free: the Act does not say so, and we do not infer it.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Portal de Servicios del Gobierno de Puerto Rico (PR.gov)

  PR.gov

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov