Reply from Florida Telehealth
Hello All,
This is Scott, the owner of Florida Telehealth (formerly RescueTouch). I've been thinking about how best to respond to Tim's review for a couple weeks now. I think it's best to respond in a way that is beneficial to all of you who are dealing with the challenges of aging or an aging parent and looking for an alert company to assist with the challenges. You, I, and Tim are all in that club.
If you are reading this, most likely you or someone in your life is above the age of 70 and could use a hotline to help from time to time. I have three such people in my personal life at ages 79, 83, and 100. In my professional role with Florida Telehealth and former role as EMT with Virginia Beach EMS, I have another 5000+ ranging in age from 40 to 100+. From my conversations with Tim's father, I anticipate Tim’s father is 85. While some certainly handle the challenges of this club better than others, it's not easy being in this club, is it?
Time to address concerns Tim expresses in his review. In general, Tim's review is based on significantly limited facts, and is also deceptive. That limits the validity of his review. Of course you, the audience, wouldn't know that until you hear the other side of the story.
As you read in Tim's review, he cannot confirm that I did not troubleshoot his concern that the battery was draining faster than expected. The reason is, Tim and I never communicated again after our initial conversation. It was during that conversation that Tim continuously conveyed that he knows more about troubleshooting a medical alert account than I. When he couldn't influence me to just ship-out another system without troubleshooting the entire situation he became frustrated and we agreed that it's best if I work directly with his dad. Tim gave me his dad's phone number and Tim and I never communicated again. Tim leaves that unsaid. Tim is also being deceptive with his statement about their Georgia farm. Tim writes that statement in the first person, as if he was speaking directly with me. He wasn't. He got that information third-party from his dad, and he doesn't include other relevant information his dad and I discussed.
I did immediately contact Tim's dad. His dad is a kind grandfather-like gentleman who I enjoyed working with. Together we agreed to troubleshoot the device over several days so I could remotely monitor the battery drain. He agreed to charge it up to 100% and then not charge it again while I monitor the battery status. During this conversation there was something specific that Tim's dad said that raised a red flag. He said he was experiencing either Covid fog or Covid brain. I cannot recall which term he used. To me that signals he understands his neurological performance is struggling, whether Covid or age related.
Important Note: When I'm troubleshooting an account, it's not only the device that I evaluate. Because of our older clientele, I also evaluate the wearer's ability to manage the system. It's not uncommon that neurological slowdown is the reason behind the service concern. While troubleshooting, I also evaluate the cell signal strength at the client's location. It's not uncommon for weak cell signal to be the reason behind the service concern. There are other aspects I evaluate, but those two are the reasons for 90% of our service concerns.
Ok, back on track with troubleshooting Tim's dad's service concern. I started the troubleshooting the afternoon of May 27th. Here are the battery life numbers.
May 27th at 2:15pm - 100%
May 28th at 5:24am - 81%
May 29th at 1:16pm - 77%
May 29th at 6:01pm - 100% (Tim's dad must have mistakenly charged the device while we were troubleshooting it.)
May 30th at 9:26am - 80%
After that I was unable to connect with his device. I attempted to contact Tim’s dad but was unable to do so. I attempted to reach Tim, but his voicemail was full. We lost touch for 3-4 weeks. When we finally spoke again, Tim's dad said he and Tim had been to their farm in Georgia. I stated that during the limited time I was able to troubleshoot his device, I recognized that he has significantly weak cell signal at his home in Florida. He explained that his home is in a somewhat rural area in Central Florida. That was great news because his home is less than 20 minutes from our location in The Villages, FL. I told him about the weak cell signal and inconsistent battery life readings and that I really wanted to get his device into a stable environment where I could retest it and make recommendations after that. He agreed that I could drive over to his home, meet him in person, shake his hand, and retrieve the device. He said the only problem with the plan is that the system is still at their Georgia farm. He said Tim had rushed him out of Georgia and the device got left behind. He agreed to contact me when he had retrieved the device from Georgia.
About a month later, our admin department received two voice messages 30 minutes apart from Tim's dad. The voice messages were left in the evening and forwarded to me. I called Tim's dad early the next morning. His dad did not remember leaving the back-to-back messages the night before and said it must have been Tim. It wasn't Tim. It was Tim's dad's voice, calling from Tim's dad's phone number, requesting a return call. At that moment, it was confirmed to me that Tim's dad was struggling with neurological decline. That’s sad news to confirm. I really like Tim's dad and was looking forward to meeting him. During that conversation we agreed there were too many significant hurdles to overcome to continue with his service. I refunded his last quarterly payment of $126 and Tim's dad and I said our gentlemanly goodbyes.
Literally 30 seconds later, I received notice from Bestcompany that Tim had left his factually limited and somewhat deceptive review. I called Tim to discuss my findings and address his and my concerns. Tim's voicemail was full. Yes, again. I sent him a text to call me, but have not heard from Tim.
In conclusion, during the limited troubleshooting I was able to do before they took the system off the grid and to their Georgia farm, the battery life showed to only drop from 100% to 77% in two days. That is certainly within the 5-day expected battery life. The customer breached our service agreement by not making the system fully available for a thorough troubleshooting of their concern. There is no indication that the customer ever read the user guide or tested the system at their rural home in Florida or their Georgia farm. From my limited troubleshooting, I conclude that the cell signal at their rural Florida home is too weak to reliably connect the device to the cell towers. I expect we would have been able to improve that by switching to our other cellular provider. I conclude that the cell signal at their Georgia farm was little to none. That without a commercial level cell signal booster there simply would not be enough signal strength to ever connect the device with the cellular grid. I conclude that there was two distinctly different customers on this one account. One Tim, and one his dad. I conclude that Tim is trying to do the best he can, but is on unfamiliar ground with his care of an aging parent. As I've stated before, I really like Tim's dad. I'm disappointed I won't be able to continue to assist him. He's 5-Stars!
If you're looking for the level of personal attention and healthcare knowledge I convey in this response, and my other customers describe in their reviews, you're invited to reach me at 800-888-7565.
Sincerely,
Scott A. Lepper
Founder, CEO
Florida Telehealth, LLC
Aug. 25th, 2022