PTP Blog

I love talking about our culture at PT Professionals and what the company has become.  First of all we treat our team members with respect and I feel that this is reciprocated throughout the entire company.  Our team feels appreciated, and this motivates them to align their thoughts and actions with our mission statement.   We have a great group of individuals working hard for this company and together we are aware that we are leading the way for other physical therapy companies and for our profession.

Our physical therapists are given the opportunity to practice, learn and share their clinical skills and experience with their patients and peers.  Combine this with a positive environment and patient centered philosophy, and good things start to happen.  We recruit individuals who are both passionate and compassionate.  Our patients can feel the energy from our staff and immediately feel confident that we are making our best effort to help them meet personal goals.   We meet regularly to discuss ethics, compliance and current topics in the field of physical therapy.  We track our results and compare ourselves to how the rest of the Country is performing, so our providers get the feedback they desire and can actually say with confidence that we are leading by example.

We are a diverse group and come from different professional backgrounds which helps us in many ways.  

I would say with confidence that our staff knows that we are a good company working hard for our patients.  We have fun with each other, but also are focused and driven to exceed the expectations of our patients.  We love Brevard and this community and will continuously strive to be the best we can be at what we do.

Fall Prevention Spotlight

Falls occur in the home most frequently in the aging population due to various risk factors and account for millions of dollars annually for hospitalization costs.  According to the CDC, 3 million older people are treated in the emergency room each year due to fall related injuries.¹ In addition, at least 300,000 older people each year are hospitalized due to hip fractures with 95% resulting from a fall.¹ Risk factors have been identified that can be modified or changed that may help decrease your risk for falls. 

Removal of throw rugs, using night lights from your bedroom to your bathroom, and installing grab bars in the toilet and shower areas are simple solutions to prevent falls. Also, consider yearly vision screenings and discussing your medications with your medical doctor; especially, if new symptoms of dizziness occur.  You may also be at risk for falls if you suffer from lower extremity weakness and/or poor balance. The CDC indicates that 1 in 5 falls results in a serious injury, such as a broken bone.¹

Recent research suggests the most effective physical therapy approach for the prevention of falls and fractures in older adults is regular exercise with a combination of strength and balance.² In addition, calf strength has been shown to be particular important in improving balance, functional abilities and decreasing risk for falls.³ Ask your medical doctor about physical therapy to see if its right for you.

References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention- Homepage. http://www.cdc.gov. April 2020.
2. Physical Therapy Approaches to Reduce Fall and Fracture Risk Among Older Adults. [Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2010;(6)7:396-407]  
3. A Prospective Cohort Study on the Effect of a Balance Training Program, Including Calf Muscle Strengthening, in Community-Dwelling Older Adults [J Geriatr Phys Ther. 2016;39(3):125-131] 

Daryl, why Is there so much fishing stuff in your offices?

I get asked this a lot, so please let me explain. For those of you who don’t know, I have been passionate about fishing since I can remember. I don’t know why, but it has always been in my blood. I have memories of fishing with my dad that I will cherish forever. I have stories; lots of stories that I will readily share and can bring laughter and humor to any situation. I can spend hours fishing, without catching anything, and still feel fulfilled (my friends will tell you that this happens more than not). As an adult, I began to notice that the more time and effort that I put into fishing, the better my results. I have won fishing tournaments competing against people with boats three times as big as mine, who could literally use my boat as a dingy. I have spent hundreds of hours of time in the garage prepping for fishing trips, trying to make each experience perfect. I tie each knot meticulosly. My knots are researched to ensure maximum breaking strength, and I retie every knot after use and/or travel, even if the rods dont get used.. I take proper care of my tackle and I appreciate what I have. My fishing supplies are neat and organized and meant to mazimize fishing time when on the water. I have all the necessary safety equipment, and I am always well prepared. I enjoy being around other people who love to fish.

Honestly, I do not get to fish nearly as much as I would like. But I have found a way to channel my passion into my work life. The way I care for fishing is much like the way I care for PT Professionals. I have been passionate about the company and its reputation from the start. The more time I invest into it, the better it performs. Our results and patient satisfaction surveys are literally among the best in the world, yet we are such a small operation. I am constantly thinking about how to make PT Professionals better. I am always thinking about the safety of our staff and patients. We are well structured and organized, in an effort to maximize time with each patient. I enjoy being around and working with other people who are as passionate about physical therapy and patient results as I am.

You see it’s the same to me. I get the same satisfaction when PT Professionals is thriving as I get from a great fishing trip. The fishing decor and nautical theme in the room is a reminder of this. Believe it or not, the theme was actually Shauna’s idea. She even went as far as orchestrating the floor color to be like the ocean, and the walls to be like beach sand. She knew that I would be spending a lot of time at work when we first opened, and she felt that the nautical theme would help me to be more relaxed. She was right!!

Interestingly, Shauna is also passionate about fishing. She did not have the same experience with fishing that I had as a child, but introducing her to fishing has ignited a passion in her as well. It also appears that my children have inherited this fishing DNA, and they both can readily throw a “pancake” with a castnet. So here’s to making memories both on the water and in PT Professionals.

There are lots of places to get physical therapy. What makes you different?
I love it when I get asked this question.  To start, we are a physical therapy company owned, created and managed by physical therapists.  We designed PT Professionals to be unlike our competitors, and surprisingly our philosophy is simple.  We hire very smart, motivated individuals who care about the quality of their work and put them in an environment where they can use their skills and help people to the best of their availability.  We believe in physical therapy, we know first-hand how if done correctly it can help people, and simply put we are good at it.  It takes a team approach to create satisfied patients, and we have an amazing group of individuals that work for this company and they know, understand and believe in our philosophy. I would describe our employees as driven, and we are skilled at motivating individuals to do what it takes to achieve their goals. We feel good when our patients feel good, and we also hurt when our patients hurt. Using the team approach we can achieve amazing results. We also feel blessed to be in business for so many years in Brevard County. We feel compelled to give back to our local community, and we can frequently be seen volunteering our time and supporting local charities and businesses. In short, we love what we do and it can clearly be seen in the quality of our work and in our results.

Are you a doctor?

Physical therapists are not medical doctors. During the 2016 Legislative Session, SB 450 passed, giving physical therapists usage of the term “doctor.” With regards to the profession of physical therapy, the prefix “doctor” can be utilized by any person who holds a physical therapy license and a degree of Doctor of Physical Therapy. However, the physical therapist may not use the term “doctor” without clearly informing the public of his or her profession as a physical therapist. SB 450 also clearly stated that it is unlawful for a person to use the letters “DPT” unless the person has a physical therapy license as well as a doctor degree in physical therapy.

Why don’t you have a lot of exercise machines in your clinics?

Over the course of many years, we have acquired our own style of physical therapy. We like to work directly with our patients.   We feel that in many facilities, therapists can utilize machines as sort of an assembly line for patients, where they go from station to station without any specific guidance. In my opinion, this does not give the opportunity for the physical therapist to watch and listen the patient.  Additionally, many of the exercises that we prescribe during a session can be duplicated at home, so the advice is practical and will likely be used as part of a home maintenance program.  Many patients do not have access to a gym and therefore can not reproduce machine based activities outside the office. We also feel that machines can be too specific and limit our ability to work on multiple body systems. We feel that when the patient is ready to progress to gym activity, then they can likely be discharged to a gym. For those of you who prefer machines, yes we do have some and we do use them. However I am quite confident that any of our patients will tell you that they get a significant workout under the direction of our therapists, more than they could get from a line of machines, using our style of treatment. We feel that the more opportunity that a physical therapist has to work directly on and directly supervise a patient, the more likely that patient is to get better.

Do you have fun when you work or are you strictly professional?

Just ask anyone who has been here, we like to have fun when we work.  In fact, as I am writing this blog there is room filling laughter coming from the gym area (before 8:00am on a Friday).  We are ALWAYS focused on our patients, but we have found that our patients will typically relax more if we help them to feel comfortable around us.  We try to create the perfect balance between professionalism and laughter, and you would be surprised at how good we are at it.   As professionals we know when we can joke with patients and when we need to be more serious with our demeanor.  We also have the ability to control where we position patients within the facility so that they are in the right environment that best suits them.   We can treat patients in private rooms or treat them in the open gym area.  In fact, Shauna and I designed our facility around this concept.  The layout of the facility is just another example of how we cater to the individual needs of each patient.  To answer the original question, we love to laugh when we work and we also enjoy making others laugh as they go through the rehab process.

Do you actually read my intake paperwork?

Yes! We are able to learn a lot about each patient before we actually meet them. After looking at paperwork from thousands of patients, we are quickly able to pick up on small details such as hand dominance, pain thresholds or even the severity of the condition. We look through the medical history and look for relevance to the current condition and how the presence of certain conditions can impact the recovery. If a referral is available, we always screen it. The referral should compliment the pain diagram that is included within the patient paperwork. We can also quickly screen medications, which will help us to make sense of what body systems are being treated by a physician. Personally I also look to see how the patient found our office, and if they have been a previous patient of ours.

Are you up to date with Medicare changes?

We sure are. It is a continuous process to stay up to date with Medicare regulations, and rest assured that Medicare compliance is a part of our everyday lives at PT Professionals. We learn about Medicare regulations from a variety of sources. Daryl regularly participates in webinars and blogs regarding the subject of compliance. We also attend face to face compliance meetings throughout the year in order to make sure that we stay current with new mandates and regulations. We regularly read publications and articles from compliance experts. We discuss what we learn monthly at employee staff meetings, and quarterly we have special meetings with the staff that deal with any and all compliance issues. Routine internal chart audits and documentation review are part of our regular lives, and we discuss documentation reviews as a group. Daryl also belongs to small business groups that regularly discuss compliance issues and ethics.

We strive to be community leaders in many aspects of our business. By standing out as compliance leaders, we hope that we can encourage other physical therapy clinics to routinely follow Medicare regulations. This is one way we work to improve the overall image of private practice physical therapy, which is part of our company vision.

How can you treat me without an MRI or other images?

This is a very common question that we hear during our initial evaluations. Its turns out that in the majority of the cases that we see, there is no diagnostic imaging available. In many instances, a referral will read “shoulder pain,” or “knee pain.” This is where the clinical skill of the therapist is paramount, and also why we are so selective with our staff. Our physical therapists must use their evaluation skills and measures to help determine the root cause of the problem. If images are available, we will read them. However we are quite comfortable performing an evaluation without them. Also, patients will often bring us a CD that has images from an MRI or CT scan. What is more helpful to us is to see the interpretation from the radiologist, as it is quite easy for us to read from the report and relay to the patient what it states, in plain language. We do consider diagnostic imaging information useful, but we always perform a thorough evaluation to ensure that we can prioritize issues and to create a plan for resolving dysfunction.