I'd like to share my experience with Tactile Medical. Read on if you want to know more.
I got my device last Nov of '23. At the time I was sold the device, I was told it was a onetime purchase and my insurance covered the whole cost. No out-of-pocket costs. I started using the device with good results, maybe even great results.
Around Feb of this year, I got my first bill from them. After spending months working with their local team and Regional Area Director, I have an understanding that they billed my insurance who apparently did not treat it as a purchase but only a purchase of the garments and not the controller. Shouldn't be my problem, but TCMD continued to bill me every month with additional new out of pocket costs. Not only that, but instead of reaching out to me to try to solve the problem, I would get annoying automated calls from them that would act like they were going to connect you to someone live, only to have them request that I take the time to call their billing dept. to solve their problem.
That went on until earlier this month when I told them I was going to sue if they didn't stop harassing me. Even that had to be a threat made to a recorded phone line. But it didn't stop until Lacey Hard, the above-mentioned Regional Director, stepped in to get Jill, the head of collections, to finally stop that madness and deal with it on their side.
Sometime back around Feb/Mar of this year I started having some random intermittent problems with the controller. I have had some success in trying to solve the problem with some of their support people only to have the random problems keep re-occur. The problem is that the device just suddenly reboots itself. Sometimes in the middle of a treatment and sometimes without even starting a treatment.
If the machine reboots in the middle of the treatment, it registers a code that shows a power outage. If the machine reboots without being in a treatment, nothing is registered. You can demonstrate it by simply pulling the plug in the above-mentioned scenarios. You will get the one R2 or R1 codes if it's in process but nothing if it isn't when the reboot happens.
Now, TODAY (6/21/24), after all of the previously mentioned issues, the machine reboots twice while not even running a program on the machine. Again no log. First I deal with Tammi who claims to be an debug expert on their device. I try to bring her up to speed on the issues but she assures me she is read up to speed. She then asks me to start the debug process as if we knew nothing at all. As if it was still Feb., the first time i called in, instead of months later after I and their staff have waisted hours and hours and hours of my time trying to debug their billing and their product.
I would have thrown this machine long before now if it hadn't been for Lacey's heroic efforts to find someone somewhere that would listen inside their company. I know she found Jill in billing because that stopped that side of the problems.
After the morning today and the interaction with Tammi, I had another interaction with Emily, a CUSTOMER SUPPORT agent. Emily worked diligently with me to understand that i had already been through great lengths with and without their team to be pretty sure that it is likely a short (or more specifically, an open) inside either their device or their power supply. Something I probably couldn't reproduce in a video very easily since it is a random event and I don't film myself using their product. That was a hard and fast rule that TCMD makes their agents put their customers through in order to even consider replacing the unit or bringing it in house.......
Fortunately, Emily and Lacey converged at the right person in TCMD, that knew that the customer is usually (but not always) right. I don't know who that is, but they do.
Either way I'll have a new unit by next week hopefully if someother penny pincher doesnt get involved in something they nothing about. Customer Service!
Thanks Lacey, Jill and Emily and the mystery man. Keep it up!
Technology rocks, ................. read more