Announcing: PT Works+ 

PT Works+ is an alternative for patients that don't want their insurance company dictating the amount or type of care that they receive. As you may know, many insurance plans restrict the length of treatment, type of treatment, or the number of visits a patient can receive. With insurance companies adding more and more restrictions on health care coverage, the simple fact is this: What a patient wants and needs and what the insurance company will allow is not always the same thing. While we at Physical Therapyworks pledge to remain an in-network provider for patients who need it, an increasing number of patients want an out-of-network option where their insurance providers cannot restrict their care. PT Works+ is that alternative. By choosing this out-of-network or cash-only option, all treatment decisions are made by the patient, their doctor, and their physical therapist, including the length of a session, the amount of time spent one-on-one with the therapist, the number of sessions in a treatment cycle, and the types of treatment provided. 

Physical Therapyworks Bridge Program

Work Smarter. Working Harder is Optional.

At Physical Therapyworks we see movement as medicine. There is no such thing as a good exercise or a bad exercise, rather there are only exercises that are good for you and others that are not good or even bad for you at a certain point in time. A good analogy is to think of a pharmacy. One wouldn’t ask “Is Medicine X a good medicine?” and then take it if the answer was yes. Instead they would ask "Is that a good medicine and if so should I take it and in what dosage". Everyone knows that each medicine is good for some people, at certain times and in the right dosage, ineffective for some, and harmful to others. Exercise is the exact same way, and the Physical Therapists at Physical Therapyworks are skilled and knowledgeable at analyzing your complete body in a biomechanical sense and creating a program that is exactly right for you. Professional athletes have known this for some time and some of them receive this level of attention and care (at great cost). We began the Bridge Program over 10 years ago and we aim to  provide the same, if not better, quality and quantity of analysis and care to everyone - athletes and non-athletes alike- at a markedly reduced cost.  

What is The Bridge Program?

Our Physical Therapists possess a great amount of knowledge about you and your body (either by virtue of you being our patient and/or receiving our Comprehensive Biomechanical Analysis) and with that knowledge they can create the most efficient, effective and safe wellness and performance program that is 100% customized to you and your goals. They can either deliver that program directly to you or you can choose to have it delivered by one of our highly trained Wellness and Performance Coaches. Besides reaching their goals in the most complete and efficient manner possible our clients also gradually learn about their imbalances and asymmetries, which exercises and movements they should be emphasizing, which they should be avoiding, where they need to be careful, and where they have free reign. Gradually the client comes to learn their "do's and don'ts" and learns to safely and effectively perform their self-care independently and/or at a gym, pilates or yoga studio, etc. (although many of our clients continue to work with us on an ongoing basis).

Can you give me an example?

No, not of a complete analysis or program. There is an extensive amount of data gathering; covering everything from static and dynamic alignment, strength, flexibility, joint mobility, balance, movement, coordination, and more, followed by an analysis and assessment of the data, and if you choose to have your program administered by a wellness and performance coach a discussion between the PT and the coach about the data and the program. It take a great deal of knowledge to understand the process and it's lengthy too.  

I can, however, give you a simple and incomplete example of a single piece of data that is collected. Let's discuss your left innominate. Here is a picture of a pelvis with the left innominate highlighted:

Your left innominate may be malaligned in a variety of ways. Let's say we found your left innominate to be rotated anteriorly (or “forward”). You would be prescribed exercises that encouraged it to rotate backward, which might include tightening of your left hamstrings and stretching of your left rectus femoris. In contrast, you would either not stretch the left  hamstring and you would not strengthen the left rectus femoris (or the ratios of each would be skewed to compensate for the imbalances). To work in a balanced manner either maintains or gradually worsens the imbalance, and only by working in an asymmetric manner will the imbalance be corrected or at least decelerated (a complete correction may require manual work including soft tissue and joint mobilization).

This is a very brief and incomplete scenario. In reality we would look at over 100 different data points and analyze them both in and of themselves and in regard to each other. Giving an example from this program is similar to giving an example of how you create a C sharp on a violin and expecting someone to understand how a symphony works. It's far too lengthy and complicated to discuss, and you need a great amount of technical knowledge to understand it, but just like the symphony, once we discuss the findings with you and you experience it, it will all make sense (and hopefully be just as beautiful). A symphony is an apt example in another way, in that we see the body functioning akin to a symphony. It's not just how loud a note is (the strength of a muscle contracting) or how long the note is held (the contraction is held) or the purity of the note (a pure contraction without substitutions) but all of these factors in relation to many many other similar factors (be they notes/contractions) at any point in time, all performed in a certain sequence, in a manner to achieve a certain goal - be it a musical composition or an athletic performance - it's the same concept.

Why a Bridge Program?

The Physical Therapyworks Bridge Program was designed to create a bridge between a patient’s functional status and sense of well-being at their time of discharge from physical therapy and the functional status and sense of well-being they'd like to have and/or maintain. This gap may exist because  a patient's insurance plan only covers care that leads to the return of basic functional activities but not cover treatment that decreases pain or addresses wellness and performance, or it may be that a patient did achieve all of their goals however, either the patient and/or their physical therapist  are not 100% confident that their condition is stable enough to maintain this status when they embark upon a wellness program such as personal training, yoga, pilates or the like. Another common scenario is when clients will come directly to us for performance training or yoga, and they would like their program to be 100% custom tailored to them as The Bridge Program and Comprehensive Biomechanical Analysis allows. The Bridge Program works exceptionally well in all of these scenarios. It also gives the patient the option of achieving their goals at a reduced cost, as working with Wellness and Performance coaches is significantly less expensive than working with physical therapists, but via the Bridge Program the Wellness and Performance coach is privy to important data that allows for a completely customized program.

The Map Is Not the Territory

I knew from deep within me that physical therapy was the right career for me. I knew it was an expression of my ideals and I knew it was a tool I could use to express myself and change people and the world in a way that I desired. I knew that I would “above all, do no harm” be it to a person or the environment. I look back now, to that person that knew all this, and he was right.

He was 14 years old, in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago. I am 52 years old now and I have been a Physical Therapist for 28 years. I have given it everything I have; learned, gathered, created, and worked so much. I’ve collaborated and discussed and argued. I’ve persevered and I’ve perseverated. And I’m going to do my best to share some of that here. But no matter what I write, I will not be able to recreate what happens in our clinic. This is the beginning of a map, but the clinic is the territory. And just like reading a map is no substitute for a true journey of any kind, reading this blog will never recreate what happens in our clinic. Which is often magical. I’ve had hundreds of testimonials, none of them solicited, that have told me so. Many to my ear, as someone pulls me aside to tell me how grateful they are, how we exceeded their wildest expectations. Many in writing (some on our website, which is long overdue for an update in this regard). And we’ve reached out to a few of these people lately and asked if we could interview them, and they agreed to do so, and we’ll post their interviews here.

So you’ll get to read a lot, and see some pictures, and maybe even see some videos. But there is no substitute for experiencing what happens at our clinic. My dream continues to come alive there, and it is meshing with and being modified by and strengthened with the dreams and skills of others, like Alison Hanson, who has been with me for 15 years. Mia Katzel, who has been with me for 9 years. And many others over the years. The point is that there is no substitute for actually coming to the clinic, telling us about yourself and what you need, what you want, what your goals are, having us talk with you, test you, evaluate you and diagnose you, collaborate with you, treat you, and make it happen. Often to a degree that you wouldn’t have thought possible.

But for right here, right now, I’ll write. I’ll add my thoughts on things that don’t happen in the clinic, or don’t happen with every person, every visit, but are part of our DNA, just not expressed with them, because that thought or concept or technique didn’t match their diagnosis or needs or wants. I might discuss politics. Hell, I might quote old song lyrics or simply write about how I’m feeling. But please, don’t think that reading this blog is the same as coming to our clinic. It isn’t. But I think with time it will be worth reading and it will help you understand who we are and what we’re trying to do.