The vision for Redeem Physical Therapy has greatly evolved over the years. The initial idea was for a traditional, brick and mortar outpatient clinic born out of years of frustration with the corporate health care system. Some of these frustrations were a push from management to double or triple book my schedule regardless of its impact on my ability to treat clients well. There was also pressure to give patients, whose insurance did not pay well, less favorable time slots or even schedule them with another client’s initial evaluation which requires and deserves full attention. I realized that I wasn’t making more money by stretching myself thin by overbooking my schedule and the patients were being charged the same whether they were seen one-on-one or were splitting their time slot with others. The situation wasn’t good for patient or therapist and the idea began to grow.
Then came COVID. We were forced to only see one person at a time in order to cut down on the number of people in the clinic at one time. This proved to be a pivotal time that pushed me to consider branching out on my own because despite seeing a smaller volume of patients, the company still made money! If we can provide more intentional care and avoid overextending clinicians while still making a profit, then why isn’t that the way we operate under normal conditions? It seemed that higher volumes were desired due to multiple levels of management in the corporate setting. In this case, bigger did not seem to be better. Not if it is hurting the people that it is supposed to be helping. So, a smaller clinic model was inspired.
I began to research the idea. The problem I discovered was that a brick and mortar clinic is expensive to get off the ground, and opening one while billing insurance was going to mean high overhead due to a business loan coupled with razor thin margins until the loan was paid off or the clinic grew to add more therapists to the staff. As numbers were crunched and the business model was contemplated, the second major frustration that shaped Redeem came into play – the insurance companies.
There were four major run-ins with various companies that brought into question of whether working through/with insurance was the best path forward. They were:
- A client who was a runner for stress relief and exercise was denied more visits because they could walk and that was “good enough.”
- A client who had a 13 year history of back pain including multiple surgeries was given six visits.
- A high school basketball player was denied visits because he only had pain when jumping and return to sport is not considered a functional need.
- A man three months after a shoulder surgery was not able to lift the 50# required for him to return to work was denied visits because the insurance was not concerned if he returned to work (it was not a worker’s compensation claim).
It became clear that the way to best serve clients and meet all their goals was to operate on a cash-pay basis. After all, if the insurance company is paying for your treatment, your provider is working for them, not for you.
The final realization that sculpted Redeem was that our current healthcare model is reactive instead of proactive. After nearly a decade in the industry, the number of ailments that could be attributed to long-term issues lying dormant and unaddressed grew to be countless. Posture problems that eventually led to headaches. Poor core strength that led to back spasms. Flat feet and weak hips that led to knee arthritis. All these could be prevented if people knew how to fix the root cause at a young enough age for it to matter. The hang up? Insurance does cover preventive treatment!
All this led to our current operating model: cash-pay to avoid insurance restrictions and mobile to reduce overhead. This allows us to best focus on our passion of helping others PREVENT injury and REDEEM, or reclaim, a life without pain!