It was a typical day at the office. A schedule of 15-20 patients over a 10-hour day. Come 5:00 pm I looked around and saw I had four patients in the room under my care. Two teenage athletes, one middle aged working adult, and an older adult post op total knee replacement who also needed a re-evaluation note for their surgical follow-up tomorrow. It was my job to re-evaluate their progress on range of motion, strength, and functional mobility, while also providing manual therapy techniques, progressing functional strength, teaching gait mechanics, correcting exercise form, and promoting postural awareness to the other three individuals in the room.
It became a game of picking and choosing. Who gets my care today? I can’t be in four places at once, so who deserves to be treated? It was the question I had to ask myself every day at the clinic, knowing full well that every individual deserves care. Unfortunately, the quiet, shy, and hardworking individuals were often forgotten about. Left to their own exercises in the corner while the more outspoken patients got the attention. I would try my best to give everyone care, but I left work each day feeling more and more like a failure to my patients. It was impossible to give each patient the care they deserved.
Every year it seems our healthcare system gets more overwhelmed, with providers having less and less time to dedicate to each patient. We’ve all been there. The 3 months wait or longer to see a doctor, followed by a mere 5 minute or less visit where our concerns were less than addressed. Wanting to go into the medical field, I chose physical therapy as they tend to get more time with their patients than most other medical professions. I wanted to help people, to truly help and not simply see the most patients every day to turn a profit.
But as I faced each day at the standard outpatient clinic, I felt mistaken. I was having to do the exact same thing I despised about other doctors. Spending 5 to 10 minutes with each patient before passing them off to some aid, having to see so many patients a day to meet a bottom line. With insurance companies reimbursing less each year for physical therapy services, the productivity rate continues to rise.
Each year being asked to see more and more patients per day. I decided I needed to make a change. Looking around the community, I searched for other jobs. But what I found was the same old story everywhere: chronically overworked therapists seeing upwards of 20 patients a day. So, I decided if I couldn’t find a job, I would have to create one.
January 2023, I started researching and planning. I reached out to old classmates, read books on other successful therapists, found other companies across the nation using a new model of healthcare, cash pay services. A model where every patient was given 1-on-1 treatment. Focused on providing quality care rather than quantity. Where insurance didn’t get to decide for what and for how long patients got care. I finally had my answer on how to give quality care for ALL my patients. It was from this that Evergreen Wellness Company was born.
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