It is in our nature to expect certain things in our life. We expect traffic when driving home from work. We expect a certain level of service when eating out with family. We expect to wait in the lobby when seeing our doctors. However, I am often astounded by what people expect when they go to a physical therapist.
I often see patients/clients who have been referred to me by past patients that have been seen by "XYZ Physical Therapy" for a dysfunction or pain that has been bothering them for a while. In many cases, The discussion leads me to ask some form of the question "So where have you been going, what have you been doing there and how has treatment been going?" The answers vary to be sure, but an overriding theme to all of the answers is " I am going to XYZ because my insurance is accepted, but I don't seem to be getting better and it seems to be taking forever".
I always apologize for their experience at "XYZ". I hate hearing this senario. Stuck going to a place that either is trapped by needing to see a certain number of patients an hour or limited by a company structure that requires therapists to follow a certain treatment protocol or that passes along responsibility of treatment to a technician or an assistant. Even worse is hearing patients making decisions based entirely on feeling like they have to use their insurance for care. Maybe even worse than that is hearing that patients are not seeing the same therapist for each of their visits and that they have been doing the same exercises since they started which are the same exercises that the patient was giving to do at home and that they are not really that much better than when they initially started therapy .
This is not an expectation that I accept nor is it one that we promote in our facility. You are reaching out because you have pain and can't do the things you want to do whether it be playing competitive soccer or hiking your local trail. Your expectation is that you want to get better and sought out someone to care and help you.
Here is what you can expect when you call me/us. First, I will listen to you before talking and I am going to ask you how can I help. I am going to ask you questions about what is limiting you and what your concerns are about getting treated. I want you to feel like you are being understood and that you are being heard. Second, I am going to ask, if appropriate, what you have been doing so far for treatment and dig deep into what has worked and what has not. I want to know what your experience has been because I want to know and subsequently assure you that your experience with me will be different. Finally, I want to know what time of day and day is best for you to come in for therapy. I try my best to schedule for you and not just me.
You should expect that I am going to do a thorough evaluation that includes the typical measurements and tests, but will involve moment testing and functional assessments that give us the best information to return you to function; and maybe just maybe better than you were before. You should expect that you will receive treatment that is focused on you and your needs and not some cookie cutter recipe "of one size fits all".
You should expect that you will see me and only me during our visits togther and never be handed off to someone else. You should expect that you will be given some thing to do at home so that continuity of care is from me to you and you to me. You should expect that we will set goals and design a treatment plan around you, not me.
You should expect that my goal(s) is your goal(s) and we will work together to meet your goal(s) and possibly get there a bit faster than what you anticipate. You should expect that I will follow up with you and keep you accountable to your goal(s). You should expect that when working with me that I am not going to just use machines and modalities to treat you, but rather combine their use properly with manual therapy techniques and exercise to optimize and accelerate your progress and growth/improvement.
Expect better care. Expect excellence. Expect to progress and expect improvement. Expect different. Most of all expect ElitelevelPT.
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