Physical Therapist

Is Traditional PT Making You Question Your Career?

Outpatient. Skilled nursing. Inpatient rehab.

Wherever you are, if you've started wondering how much longer you can do this, this page is for you.

We know what it feels like to be limited by a system that doesn't work for patients or clinicians.

You know exactly what a patient needs. You have the training, the reasoning, and whatever time the schedule left you. So you document what you're allowed to bill for, you move on to the next one, and you go home knowing you gave them a fraction of what you had.

Do that for a few years and you start wondering whether you picked the wrong profession.

You didn't. You picked the wrong job.

Here's what that means in practice. Every one of these is something you can check on a shadow day.

• Every visit is one-on-one. You're never double booked. You keep your own clients, which means you build a real relationship with someone and see them all the way to the goal they came in for.
• You teach fitness classes. You'll move your own body during the workday, and it breaks up the rhythm of back-to-back one-on-one care.
• Mentoring and learning happen on the clock. Time to develop is built into your normal work week rather than squeezed around it. Weekend CEU courses are still your own, same as anywhere.
• We're cash based. Our clients are choosing to work with us because they trust us to help them reach their goals. It also relieves us of the headaches that come with insurance, and it means the plan of care is set by what the client actually needs rather than an arbitrary number somebody else picked.
• We're a small business, so every voice matters. Raise something on Monday and something is different by Friday. Weekly team meetings and quarterly planning are on your schedule during work hours, because having a say only counts for something if you're given the time to use it.

Our hours are 8:30 to 5:00, Monday through Friday.

Most days you'll teach one or two classes and treat five or six clients, each of them one-one for a full hour. Your total visit count lands between 25 and 30 a week.

You already know what that number is where you work now.

Every week there's an all-staff meeting and a therapist-only meeting for training and support.

And we all walk out the door together at 5:00. Not most days. Not once the notes are done. At 5:00.

You start with an orientation period. After that, for your first 90 days, you have a standing weekly caseload meeting with Erica, our team lead. Your actual clients, your actual reasoning, every week.

That runs alongside our weekly therapy meeting, which the whole team attends and which doesn't stop after 90 days. New topics, case studies, and whatever we're currently arguing about.

Both sit on your schedule during work hours. Neither is something you do on your own time.

Our clients are adults 55 and up, and most of them chose to be here. They pay for their care directly, which means they show up, they do the homework, and they expect you to be worth it.

Some are recovering from an injury or a surgery. Some are in our classes twice a week and have been for years. Some come in for pain that has stopped them doing something they love. What they share is that they intend to stay independent, and they're willing to work for it.

If you've spent your career frustrated by trying to motivate people who don't want to be in therapy, you are sure to be inspired by our community of older adults.

• You're early in your career but already worn down by what traditional PT asks of you
• You see the problems with traditional healthcare, and you want to work somewhere that is trying to change how it…