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Fair and unbiased commentary is the foundation of our core principles here at MedicalAlertBuyersGuide. To that end, here’s a breakdown of our methodology behind our rankings each year.
Cost & Value
There’s no reason to pay more than you have to for a medical alert subscription – especially when there are so many great providers in the market.
Pricing
All of our medical alert providers range between $24.95 per month for basic services to $60+ per month for premium mobile cellular offerings. Anything more will automatically disqualify a provider from our rankings. It doesn’t make sense for families to overpay for basic 24/7 monitoring.
Value
If you’re looking for premium features, we take a look at the value of each add-on and see if it’s worth the cost. Some companies now offer the option to purchase equipment so we look to see if the upfront investment saves you money in the long-run.
Customer Service
Each year, our team mystery shops select providers and determines the experience during the sales process, tech support, billing and cancellation procedures of each company.
Sales Evaluation
Was the sales representative patient, honest, and compassionate? Were they using high-pressure sales tactics? Were they trying to simply get as much money out of us or were they laser focused or making sure we got what we needed to help our loved ones? For example, did they try to sell us a mobile GPS device when we strictly told them that the customer only needed help in and around the home.
Tech Support
Being that most customers of medical alert systems are elderly adults that live by themselves, we had to make sure that customer service teams were super patient and didn’t rush us off the phone. Were reps able to help even if the same question was being asked multiple times? Were they willing to wait while it took longer that normal to plug in a cord? Could they help walk us through signing an online service agreement via email?
Billing and Cancellations
As we closed out the account, we wanted to take a look at retention/cancellation procedures. Did we get hit with any hidden long term contracts or restocking fees? How long did the rep take in trying to convince us to stay? In the event of a death, were they compassionate and understanding?
Equipment
We take the time to dive in-depth with each company’s equipment to make sure they’re in-line with industry standards.
Ease of Setup & Testing
No one wants to spend more than 5mins setting a medical alert and we make sure setup is as easy as plugging in a couple cables into the power outlet and wall jack. From there, we check to see how easy it is to conduct a test call and rate the volume, clarity, and two-way communication features of the system. If it’s a mobile device, we also check cellular coverage, GPS accuracy, and test battery life.
Monitoring & Response Times
This part is pretty self explanatory. We push the button on each device and test to see how long a signal is received and how long before a 24/7 live agent comes on the line.
Backup Battery, Water Resilience, Comfort, Aesthetics, Automatic Fall Detection Accuracy
From here, we test other features of each device. How well does it hold it in the shower? If the device gets unplugged (power outage) does the unit still work? What’s it like wearing throughout the day? Is it comfortable to sleep with? How well does fall detection work? Does it trigger a lot of false alarms?
Reputation
Although we’d like to think of ourselves as the end-all, be-all to the medical industry, we make an effort to see out reviews, testimonials, and data from other sources
ConsumerReports.org
For years, ConsumerReports has been a household name in providing reputable, credible and reliable source of products reviews in the country. Like us, they mystery shop all of their brands and provide real, unbiased, and unpaid, user experience content to their subscribers.
Google Reviews Platform
Google’s review platform is the most reliable when it comes to generating real human testimonials from actual customers (confirmed by gmail subscribers) and does a great job of filtering out and recognizing bots and fake accounts. There are a lot of questionable review platforms on the Internet that, depending on how much a company pays, is able to generate a high volume of positive reviews for a company while filtering negative commentary. Google reviews are 100% user generated and doesn’t have options for paid features.
Ready to Research?
We’re confident this guide will give you a better idea as to how we rank our top companies each year. Jump to our Best Medical Alert Systems for 2024 comparison page and get to know our favorite picks for 2021. We wish you all the best on protecting yourself and your loved ones!