This article is sponsored by Numotion. In this Voices interview, Mobility Management sits down with John Pryles, Chief Commercial and Operations Officer, Numotion, to talk about some of the key challenges facing the Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) industry today and the steps Numotion is taking to drive efficiencies. He also provides an outlook on what’s to come for Numotion and its clients as the CRT industry evolves.
Mobility Management: What life and career experiences do you most draw from, in your role today?
John Pryles: When I first got out of college, I started a transportation business, which led to a DME company, and ultimately, a CRT company. I didn’t know much about business, and I knew even less about transportation, but it laid the framework for everything I’ve done up to this point.
Starting things, failing repeatedly, learning from those mistakes, and trying again—all fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit—really shaped the first half of my career. I came to understand that failure is a natural part of life; you can’t avoid it, but you have to learn from it. Owning a business, especially with no prior experience, makes you extremely curious by necessity.
That curiosity has stayed with me. I’m always asking questions, learning about different parts of the business, and approaching things from new angles—all of which were instilled during those formative entrepreneurial years.
In the second half of my career, Numotion came together as United Seating and ATG merged, forming the largest CRT company in the United States. Many of us, myself included, were stepping into the biggest roles we’d ever held. I was fortunate to work with a leadership team that valued the field perspective, intentionally placing leaders with field experience in charge of field functions. They understood the business and what it meant to be an ATP, or to work in shared services, documentation, and customer support. They combined this with expertise from larger companies for functions like finance, compliance, and legal at the officer level, and that combination has defined the second half of my career.
In the first half, I learned from my own mistakes. In the second half, I’ve had the privilege of learning from some of the foremost leaders in healthcare—individuals who share the same empathy and have taught me much more about business, leadership, and building a strong culture.
What is your background with Numotion and the complex rehab technology (CRT) industry as a whole?
Like many in the industry—especially those of us in the “dinosaur bracket”—I ended up here through a somewhat winding path. Again, my business partner and I initially started a transportation company in Georgia focused on non-emergency transport. As we transported more customers in wheelchairs, we noticed they were often reliant on ambulances, which is costly.
As we got to know these customers, they began asking if we did service work, so we started providing it. Eventually, they asked, “Do you guys sell new chairs? We love your service.” One thing led to another, and we soon had the opportunity to start a CRT company, working directly with end users. What started as a small, ad hoc addition to the transportation business quickly became our main focus, as we discovered a much greater passion for caring for customers and the CRT side of things than for managing transportation logistics.
I was also fortunate to have people, even competitors in the small community, who took me under their wing, taught me in clinics, and showed me things I didn’t know. We built that company and, in 2007, sold it to United Seating & Mobility, which later merged with ATG in 2014 to become Numotion. Up until 2010, I worked as an ATP with United Seating but eventually moved into management.
That shift was a pivotal moment for me. I love—and still love—being out in the field, working with end users, but I discovered a new passion for building teams, shaping culture, growing the business, and serving the underserved market. That’s been my focus from 2010 to the present.
Tell us about your new role as the Chief Commercial and Operations Officer at Numotion.
It’s a really interesting role. Our CEO, Mike Swinford, told me “Everything we do is operations.” I replied, “Everything we do is sales.” Either way, I think the two go hand in hand. In many companies, there’s often a natural divide between sales and operations. One side is focused on organic growth, customer care, and building the business, while the other is focused on processes, productivity, inventory systems, and driving efficiencies.
In this new role, I’ve had the opportunity to sit right in the middle of these two areas. I knew the commercial side well because that’s my background, so this role has allowed me to pull both aspects together with a strong focus on our employees and customers. Many organizations keep these functions siloed, but at Numotion, there’s a continuous flow of care from the beginning of an order to the end. ATPs work with allied medical teams to identify the right equipment for the end user, then an entire team supports the follow-through. There’s documentation, insurance and funding, procurement, and equipment techs all working in unison with the end user at heart.
It’s a rewarding opportunity to oversee all these different facets, marking the start of the third part of my journey where my perspective has shifted from just growth, commercial work, and customer care to also encompass operations, cycle times, and process improvements. It’s been a lot to take on, but it’s been very rewarding.
What are some of the key challenges you see in the complex rehab technology industry today?
First and foremost is service. As an industry, we owe it to end users to do a better job around service—all of us. I’m pointing a finger out, but I’m also pointing three back at ourselves. Our CEO, Mike, is insanely passionate about bringing service times down to single digits. Even if it takes everything we’ve got, we’re committed to making that happen in the next couple of years because it’s so important. Our mission centers around mobility and independence, and when somebody needs service, they’re left without that mobility and independence. It’s on all of us to figure out, “How do we do it better and faster?”
There are a lot of factors that go into this, one of which ties into the second major challenge facing the industry, which can be split into two groups: payers and legislative issues. On the payer side, it’s no secret that CRT equipment represents a very small percentage of what insurance companies handle, but it’s often a high-cost item. The tendency is to deny it repeatedly. I choose to believe it’s not intentional; they may just not understand what they’re looking at or what they should do. Out of fear of making the wrong decision, they deny it without considering the impact in the field. If that’s the case, we can address it through education.
The fee-for-service model also poses challenges because it treats everyone as though they’re sick, and most of our end users aren’t sick—they just need technology to enable independence and mobility. This model makes it very difficult for us to provide all the services and support we want to offer. The industry did have a big win last year with the approval of seat elevation, and I’m hopeful for similar progress with standing support. If funded, that would be a game changer for wheelchair users.
We also need to shift the way people view CRT compared to DME. We’re not just providing bent metal—there’s a real need for that, but it’s not our focus. We’re dealing with a specialized area, maybe 240 codes or so, that define CRT. Our end users have unique needs, from the timeliness of services to the ongoing care required for progressive neurological diseases. It’s very different from the DME industry, and it needs to be treated as such.
I’d also add a fourth component: compliance. The industry continues to struggle with it, though it’s very complicated. We’re working with therapists who may not fully understand wheelchairs or assistive technology because they don’t specialize in it. Essentially, we’re asking them to understand physical deficits and document the assistive tech needed to justify equipment. That’s tough, as most therapists spend a day or two, maybe a week, in school learning about assistive tech, and then they’re out in the field, often in home health, working with clients who have very different needs. It’s a heavy burden for both the therapists and the companies trying to support them.
As the industry continues to evolve, what efficiencies has Numotion already implemented, and what’s on the horizon?
For us, we’ve made a lot of progress around service by implementing things like remote service. When end users come in with a complaint, we can triage it, and about 6% of the time, we’re able to fix it on the spot. For another 40%, we can diagnose what’s wrong, make sure we have the part, and then, when we go out to the client’s home, we can fix it right there.
We’ve also restructured many of our locations to focus on in-shop service. Think about it: sending someone out to a patient’s home to replace a motor is not ideal. You’re on their floor, making sure they’re out of the wheelchair—it’s not an ideal situation, but it’s become the industry standard. That approach is incredibly inefficient. You have to go out, inspect the equipment, diagnose the issues, determine the necessary parts, and maybe even get pre-authorization. Then, you go back, order the parts, and finally, return to their home to complete the work.
This involves multiple trips and long timeframes, resulting in a subpar experience for end users. Bringing people in-shop allows for a much better experience. Two key changes have made this possible in recent years. First, we’ve pushed many insurers to waive pre-authorization requirements for service, pointing out, “You’ve already paid for this; we’ve met the medical necessity criteria, so re-documenting is redundant.” Second, we’re now leveraging big data. We know the specific chairs in our installed base and the most common parts that fail, allowing us to keep those parts on hand. Now, when customers come in, we can often fix the chair the same day, which is huge.
This approach offers a better experience for customers, a safer one for our employees, and significantly improves cycle times. It makes all the sense in the world to keep doing it.
Looking at the bigger picture, I believe that big data, artificial intelligence, and similar technologies will soon become integral to the CRT industry. Insurance companies, our own company, and others will be able to leverage these tools. AI might seem intimidating, but it offers a lot of potential. It can show us, “Which wheelchairs have the least service failures by diagnosis group? Is there a chair type that’s more effective for spinal cord injuries? Are we seeing better outcomes or efficacy with certain approaches?”
As an industry, we’ve never really had the collective power to focus on outcomes like this or to analyze how different elements connect. We can now ask, “Does specific seating help with wound care? Can we link certain seating functions to reduced dependency on particular medications?” Technology allows us to connect these dots in ways we couldn’t before, and this will help differentiate CRT from DME.
It also gives us an objective basis for demonstrating better outcomes, allowing us to make a stronger case to payers and Congress. We’ll be able to show potential savings for taxpayers, highlight efficiencies, and provide data-driven evidence that supports our work. In the coming years, this capability is only going to grow.
What excites you most about the future of the CRT industry?
The technology is really exciting, and I love that, but for me, the most exciting part is seeing this new generation coming in. I’ve been in the industry a long time, and when I first started, if you weren’t running it out of your garage, you were running it out of a strip mall or a small location. You were cobbling things together, and it was hard to explain to people what we actually did. There’s been an evolution.
At our commercial growth summit in Denver in August, I remember standing on stage, about to address the crowd, and thinking, “Holy cow.” It was incredible to see the diversity in the audience. There were also so many young people fresh out of all these different programs, and people who came through our service-to-seating tech career pathway. They were excited about being here.
That’s really cool to see, and these younger generations are genuinely passionate about making their communities and the world a better place. This is a business where that resonates. We’re not producing widgets or mining data—we’re providing meaningful solutions to real-world problems. We’re helping people get back to work, return to parenting, or pursue whatever they’re passionate about.
I think younger generations connect with that deeply, which has become even more inspiring to me. It gives me energy, and I love to see it.
Finish this sentence: “In the mobility space, 2025 will be defined by…”
…service.
Editor’s note: This article has been edited for length and clarity.
Numotion is the nation’s largest and leading provider of products and services to help individuals with mobility limitations maximize their health, personal independence, and actively participate in everyday life. Through our collection of brands, we provide those living with disabilities greater independence. To learn more visit www.numotion.com
The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact sales@agingmedia.com.