By Angela Wilson Pennisi, PT, MS, OCS
Having returned from the Federal Advocacy Forum in the spring (see Claire Mysliwy’s article on APTA Core Values in Action), and then attending a community meeting where my Congressman spoke a few weeks later, I was reflecting on characteristics of successful advocacy. Compared with everything else I do every week or month, the brain power required to participate in regular advocacy ranks at about the level of changing the paper towel roll in the clinic washroom. In keeping with that level of mental effort, I decided that my approach to building relationships with my legislators could be summed up with “Pennisi’s 4 P’s”:
By Lynn Steffes, PT, DPT
Choosing physical therapy to treat pain or mobility problems is a commitment to taking time to heal and to learn self-management. With that investment of time and money—there must be a strong perceived benefit!
Ask yourself: Does everyone in your practice know how to talk about the real benefits of physical therapy and address what consumers might perceive as drawbacks?
“It is one of the beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
By Terence C. Brown, PT, DPT, COMT
We are all looking for innovative ways to get our name out to the public. If you have been in practice for many years like me, you may have tried signs, newspaper ads, high school banners, pens, backpacks, stress balls, billboards, lunches, and many other things. Does this marketing work? Is the public more aware of who you are and what your practice represents through these single dimension advertising venues? Who knows? It is difficult to objectively measure the impact of advertising this way. My experience tells me that they work minimally, if at all.
Taking, Organizing, and Using Effective Notes
By Tannus Quatre, PT, MBA
Everyone takes notes, but making them useful requires a process that is efficient and organized. Whether for team meetings, phone calls, interviews, or more, capturing information for later retrieval is key to the successful use of your time. While anyone can jot down notes on a piece of paper, making those notes useful to your practice requires organization and planning.
Narrow networks return with promise of cost control—and backlash.
By Jerome Connolly, PT, CAE
July 7, 2014
Provider networks are anything but a new phenomenon in the insurance industry. Payers have been engaging preferred providers for decades dating back to the managed care era. Consumers have had to factor in provider availability and coverage when selecting a health plan if they were involved in such a selection process. This process of consumer choice has been magnified by the adoption of the individual mandate included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Likewise, once the initial choice is made, patients must make decisions at the time a health care need emerges—do I stay in network and pay less or choose to incur higher out-of-pocket expenses by accessing an out-of-network provider? Often, this is when they discover their provider of choice is not in the insurer’s network.
