Elizabeth Lebron’s lifelong dream was to take a cruise. At age 50, however, the prospects of setting sail seemed unlikely. She hurt her back at work and was dependent on a scooter for mobility. The accident aggravated an asthmatic condition, and congestive heart failure developed. On oxygen 24 hours a day, she thought travel out of the question.

Then the company that supplies her respiratory care equipment referred her to Medical Travel, Inc/The Disability Travel Experts. “When we heard from Elizabeth, it seemed a straightforward case of paying attention to detail and making sure everything was in place along the way,” says Ira Goldberg, president and director of Medical Travel. He and Elizabeth spoke by phone, and the travel ball was rolling.

Then, just 4 days before Elizabeth’s scheduled departure, the September 11 terrorist attacks happened. Elizabeth was sure her Caribbean cruise plans would have to be scrapped. Fortunately, airports re-opened in time for her to catch a flight from New York City to Ft Lauderdale, Fla.

“But things didn’t go smoothly. My flight left three and a half hours late, which gave me just a half hour to get to the ship,” Elizabeth says. Using a flight attendant’s cell phone, she called Medical Travel, which was able to talk with the Carnival Triumph cruise ship and confirm that it would wait for Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, Goldberg tried to find out where the plane would land. “We finally tracked Elizabeth down in the luggage area at the Ft Lauderdale airport,” he says. Because he wasn’t allowed to bring the equipment on board as usual, the pair met in a security office so Elizabeth could learn how to use the concentrator by herself.

“Medical Travel was right there for me all the way,” she says. “My 14-year-old daughter and I had a ball. The ship was easy to navigate, and I could hook my small oxygen bottle to the back of my scooter and I was good to go.”

Thirteen-year-old Medical Travel Inc, headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla, caters to the travel needs of patients with special medical conditions. Clients include dialysis, oxygen, ventilator, and wheelchair users. The mostly middle-aged clients often have multiple physical problems.

The company began when an associate on dialysis asked Goldberg to arrange travel and oxygen for him. “It took time to really understand what’s going on with people requiring oxygen,” Goldberg says. “No one is out there holding your hand. What you do is by trial and error. You try to understand and make all your corrections as you go along so the problem that may have existed before doesn’t happen again.”

Medical Travel’s job is broader than just providing and servicing HME. It is the adaptation of the right equipment so that a patient can leave home and travel like an able-bodied person, free from worry.

The company’s five employees all are aware that they are in a business that requires extremely close attention to detail. The process begins with determining a client’s precise oxygen requirements by talking with them and seeing their prescription. Designing the itinerary around these needs starts with where they live and where they want to go. “In the case of someone going on an Alaska cruise departing from Vancouver, for example, we find out particulars such as how they’re going to get to Vancouver, do they want to come in earlier, are they going to drive or take a plane, and do they need oxygen at the airport,” Goldberg says.

It surprises many travelers that most airlines will not allow passengers to bring their own oxygen aboard. It must be serviced to the client by the airline, at $75 per flight segment. Goldberg says that with Air France, the client has to buy an extra seat for the oxygen, and with Lufthansa, oxygen is simply unavailable.

In addition, only some airlines provide oxygen. Goldberg says a recent client who was booked on Delta, which will supply in-flight oxygen, ran into problems when part of the flight was on Delta Express, which will not supply oxygen. Through last-minute scrambling, Medical Travel was able to make the oxygen available and the client had his vacation as planned.

Problems can also arise when traveling between countries because oxygen equipment fittings are not universal, Goldberg says. Everything must be coordinated so as not to incur massive costs sending equipment back and forth.

It is common for Goldberg to get last-minute calls from travel agents who often do not understand what is required in handling a patient with a special need. “Because they do not do what we do, they run into all sorts of surprises that they ask us to correct. Although we always will do what we can to help, if we are not paid for doing the travel for an individual, yet we do all the work, that’s not a great position to be in,” he says.

Goldberg prefers to use Medical Travel’s own equipment if it makes sense logistically. “We know it’s the best of the best, we know it’s checked before the people get it, we know they’re not going to have any surprises. We also have [HME] companies we work with throughout the United States and Europe,” he says.

He tries to show customers how to use the resources they have, usually their home care company and private insurance, to avoid an excessive cash outlay. Medicare or private insurance usually provides oxygen on a monthly fee basis within the United States. A person going to Puerto Rico is covered, because Puerto Rico is a US protectorate. But a client on a cruise that goes more than three miles off the coast, or on a ship registered in Liberia, or even on a cruise between Vancouver and Anchorage is not covered because the trip goes outside the United States.

Medical Travel’s goal is to get clients to think of themselves as able-bodied, so when they travel they forget about their handicap. Goldberg tells his clients they can do whatever they want, provided that it is properly planned out, and the planning part is what Medical Travel does best.

Judy Wade is a contributing writer for Dealer/ Provider. For more information, or to become a referral company for Medical Travel, visit its Web site at www.medicaltravel.org.