How Can Direct Access Help Me?

[Guest Prosoft Admin]

THIS COULD BE YOU....  

Read on.

"Within 2 visits I could put my hand behind my back.”

That's what Lynn recently had to say after completing her PT program for her frozen and painful shoulder.  She'd actually suffered with progressive motion loss and pain for months before that, wondering if it might go away with a little more time.  Maybe a little more rest. 

Have you ever thought that? 

I hear things like that every day. It's really not unreasonable. 

We all have bumps and bruises that hurt for a little while, limits us temporarily, but then soon vanish away. This morning I was in some sort of mindless daze going down the stairs in my socks and thought I was on the last stair for some reason and was suddenly shocked when the floor wasn't there and I fell to the concrete floor....yes, as I mention to patients all the time - it was an America's Funniest Home Videos moment!  But, after lying there wondering if I'd fractured my foot… as the minutes passed the pain subsided and I, at some point, decided I was ok. 

Every time we get hurt we don't need to run to the Doctor, head to Urgent Care, or worse yet - the dreaded Hospital Emergency Room.  The bumps and bruises and minor stresses of life are most often short-lived.  Our bodies do have an incredible capacity to take stress and to heal.  What a blessing! 

BUT, we have all had times that the recovery we expected doesn’t quite ever come.  Lynn had that happen. 

At some point, after continuing to suffer and seeing her daily activity level steadily decline, she decided to do something about it.  She actually first began noticing pain back around June of this year.  Lynn was aware of Peak Performance PT because we had helped her mom after an injury a year or two ago.  Lynn had heard about DIRECT ACCESS and decided she'd had enough with that darn shoulder and that it was time she be proactive about it.  Good thing for her that she called. 

Lynn is almost a perfect "poster child" for DIRECT ACCESS.  This law was enacted back in November of 2006.  She's a great example of how this law benefits New Yorkers. Her problem wasn't a surgical one and wasn't going away on its own.  So many injuries are like that aren’t they? They are "Physical Therapy problems"...something that non-operative approaches are often called for.

Coming directly to Peak Performance ended up saving her time, saving her money, and let her "cut to the chase" in terms of starting her needed PT sooner. For Lynn it meant that her pain began finally reducing and she could get back to her day-to-day activities more comfortably and at a higher level. 

Direct Access allows you to see a PT for up to 10 visits or 30 days, whichever comes first.  After that a physician must be involved in order for care to continue. For Lynn, even though she'd been having troubles for the past 4-5 months before calling us, it took only 2 sessions for her to feel and see a difference. And, she finished just before her allowed first 30 days were even up! 

It was smart thinking on her part to not let it continue to fester. There are absolutely cases of Adhesive Capsulitis (fancy name for the frozen shoulder that she had) that progressively worsen to the point of having major losses of motion. When allowed to go that far I guarantee a 30-day bout of PT won't do the trick. 

The GOOD NEWS is that when you do catch your problem early enough you can usually enjoy a quicker recovery!  That means less suffering with pain, less time away from the things you enjoy, less time away from the things you need to do.  And, in cases where we determine that further medical evaluation is needed right away, then we can help facilitate that for you - either by communicating with your primary care doctor or, if you prefer, by helping you find a specialist from the list of physicians we have worked with throughout the Greater Rochester area.

As a matter of fact, I just had a nice gentleman in last week who looked like he needed to see a surgeon for a possible Rotator Cuff tear rather than start a prolonged PT series. Now he’s going to see a local surgeon for a consult.

A PT friend of mine many years ago said this very wise thing:

"There are patients in here right now who aren't going to get better with PT - they need surgery or something else. If we could find a way to know who they are let's get them on to that other thing (surgery, acupuncture, massage, etc.) now and not waste time.”

There are patients in here who would probably get better without PT -  if we can figure out who those people are we can help them with just a few exercises to address underlying limitations and get them out on their own quickly and not waste their time and money or ours.

There are patients in here right now who absolutely need us and it's a huge benefit to them to be in Physical Therapy...AND,

THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE who aren't in Physical Therapy right now WHO NEED TO BE, WHO WILL ONLY BE HELPED BY PHYSICAL THERAPY. WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHO THOSE PEOPLE ARE AND HELP THEM GET THE CARE THEY NEED!

Are you someone who has a pain or injury or an old problem that needs help but are just waiting for more time to see if it goes away?

Or are you just hoping it’ll disappear somehow?

Do you have a family member or friend in that situation?

You should know that DIRECT ACCESS allows the great majority of you (most insurers honor the DIRECT ACCESS law and do pay for Direct Access PT) to easily get in for an evaluation and necessary non-operative Physical Therapy treatment without long waits and paying extra co-pays to other facilities or providers only to be sent to Physical Therapy a week or two down the road anyway. You can give us a call and usually get seen that same or the next day.

Let us help you get back to Peak Performance! 

Lynn is certainly glad she didn't put things off longer! 

Here's her final comment...

"I would recommend Peak Performance PT to anyone."

Mike Napierala, PT, SCS, CSCS, FAFS