Focus on prevention

My 16-year-old daughter wants to become a physical therapist just like me. Ten years ago, I would have said, "That is a great choice. You will be able to help people, be compensated well, have flexibility and be respected as a medical professional. Your hard work, dedication and education will pay off." But events of today script a different story of her future in this field. She may find the rigid requirements of practicing this type of medicine to be too restrictive, and frankly frustrating, as I did. Patty Abrigo For most of my career, I was not only a clinical provider but also had roles in management and administration. I understand that health care is a business. It is, however, also a system that is not putting patients first. It does not allow those of us who are making clinical decisions to execute the best care possible for our patients. It creates a frustrating cycle for patients and caregivers alike. Out of a growing need for a different approach to care in our community, I left a job as a lead physical therapist where I was paid an excellent salary, had great benefits, only commuted 10 minutes per day and took a leap of faith to open Integrative Therapeutic Healing in 2018. My vision was a mobile, cash-based physical therapy practice where I could work collaboratively with other local wellness providers to help people realize their health and wellness goals. I began working with yoga instructors, Keelie Webb at Mindful Asana in Norwalk and Kimberly Ott-Chaban at Y3 Studio in Milan, and we started serving clients across the Huron and Erie counties, providing a meaningful, safe and effective experience. Without many resources, I relied heavily on my social media network to not only find like-minded practitioners who could help guide me in this new endeavor, but to also advertise this new service and build my business. Facebook Groups, including Uncaged Clinician, Cash Based Physical Therapy and Non-Clinical Rehab Professionals connected us to people, resources and inspiration, and I quickly saw the value of using Facebook as a content marketing platform. The results have been inspiring. We have been able to continue to help people with pain and mobility issues far beyond the care they received in traditional physical therapy and other more costly interventions. Through collaborative efforts with other local small businesses and practitioners who are passionate about their arts, I am living out my dreams to change the delivery of health care, starting with my community. This year, Medicare made additional cuts in payments for therapy services, resulting in significantly less medically necessary care being provided. This has devastating effects: patients left with minimal to no relief of their pain, continued difficulty with mobility, and very little guidance in further steps to take to feel better. They end up back in the hospital or receiving expensive procedures that could have been avoided with more skilled care and continued education of patients and caregivers. I have witnessed this vicious cycle time and time again and the result is one glaring fact: health care costs only go up. Our health care system needs to be transformed into a system of health from a system of disease management. Funding and incentivizing businesses, like mine, that focus on prevention through education and safe, alternative and more holistic practices, will help to achieve this much needed change to decrease overall costs of health care and save everyone money in the long run. It is critically important that we start to look at treatment plans and health care in general through a lens of wellness and prevention vs. treating the symptoms. Oftentimes, once a patient has symptoms that need to be treated, it is much harder to reverse symptoms than it would have been to prevent them in the first place. I don't want to stop my daughter from entering the health care field — but there are problems with the way it operates. Let's make meaningful changes to propel our system toward a preventative, patient focused framework, one that will attract — not deter — young people like my daughter to join the field. I will continue to advocate for these changes at our state and federal level and I encourage you to join me on this path. * Abrigo, who has a master's degree in physical therapy and is a licensed physical therapist, founded Integrated Therapeutic Healing in 2018. She can be reached at 419-677-0922.