Nomination: 2014 Election
Voting will take place at the 2014 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Colorado Springs, Colorado, starting on Thursday, November 6, 2014 ending on Friday, November 7, 2014 at 2:30 pm (MT).
Members unable to attend the Annual Conference may request, in writing, an absentee ballot. Send written requests via email to pps@letsmeet.net or by fax to 877‐332‐5186. To be counted, absentee ballots must be received 14 days (October 23, 2014) before the annual business meeting (Bylaws Ref: Article X, Election Procedure). Join us at the swearing‐in ceremony taking place on Saturday, November 8, 2014 at the Plenary Keynote and Networking Breakfast starting at 8:00 AM (MT).
Candidates:
President
Terence Brown, PT, DPT
It is with passion and great enthusiasm that I accept the nomination for President of the Private Practice Section of the APTA (PPS). Serving as president would be a natural progression in my leadership path. My experience as a practice owner, administrator, and clinician provides me with all the tools to make the mission of the section a practical and real beacon for others in private practice. I have served in various leadership positions in the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) at both the national and local levels, providing for a rich history of involvement that enhances my understanding of the association’s policies and provides a context from which to lead the section effectively.For 25 years, I have practiced in Frankfort, Kentucky, initially as a staff therapist gradually assuming a management and strategic business development role at ProActive Therapy. I am a partner and chief operating officer, and continue to maintain a clinical presence, seeing patients three days a week. This experience provides me a front row seat for all decisions that impact the practice. Firsthand, every day, I am working through the challenges and finding solutions to be successful in our private practice. My working knowledge and practical experience provides me the wisdom to lead this section for the next three years.
My goal, as your president, will be to increase the public’s awareness of physical therapy from the perspective of the private practitioner, to effectuate the mission of PPS, and to champion the success of physical therapist owned businesses. Primarily, this would be accomplished through the section’s strategic plan having a laser-like focus on marketing, public relations and professional development, and creating tangible and practical opportunities for physical therapists in private practice to engage in the various service delivery models evolving around us.
I have served on the PPS Board for eight years. As your vice president for the past six years, I have led the section’s strategic planning process. I know how this process works and can provide the leadership to assure the section’s efforts in this regard have a tangible impact on what we do day in and day out in our practices. All aspects of the section’s efforts in education, advocacy, governance, and leadership development need to have reachable goals geared toward taking our message to the public with our commitment to be the best provider for their needs.
Demand by the public for care that meets their needs can drive policy that impacts access and payment. By creating effective vehicles, PPS can help our members tell their story to as many people in as many ways as possible so that the value we provide is understood, leveraged, and even envied across this country. PPS needs to drive our message of being the right provider at the right time for the right reason through every advocacy initiative, every educational opportunity, and every clinical strategy developed and promoted.
Under my leadership, PPS will take an active vocal role in educating the public about who we are, what we do, and how we can make a positive impact on lives. Together we will build on our success and carve bold new initiatives for PPS. I look forward to speaking to you about my ideas on how this can be accomplished, and how each PPS member will benefit from this effort.
I promise you my deep commitment to lead PPS’s efforts to empower members to achieve management excellence and financial success through increasing public awareness and their access to physical therapy services as provided by the physical therapists in private practice. I respectfully ask for your vote.
Sandra Norby, PT
It is an honor to be slated for the position of President for the Private Practice Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (PPS). My passion and ability to serve you in this role is a cumulative data base of leadership and communication skills, strategic strengths elevating the status of the entrepreneurial physical therapist, encouragement from peers, and support from my family.Throughout my life, I have served as president, director, chair, and member on committees within and outside of our profession. As a business owner and entrepreneur, I seek out knowledge from a multitude of sources to process decisions for my company. As a leader, I actively engage members of the group to share their ideas and guide versus direct the outcome of the topic.
HomeTown Physical Therapy is our company, as each of our clinics are named after their hometown. Our Iowa-based company currently serves four communities with the projected addition of two locations this year. My role is to mentor therapists to be successful PTPPs and to build a franchise model for physical therapy clinics utilizing systems, processes, and shared expenditures. Check out our website www.htpt.biz. The “our” in ownership is my husband Kim, who is a Health IT expert and chief executive officer in leadership in his own field. HomeTown Physical Therapy offers options of ownership from partner model to buy-in-over-time. Our success is based on a results driven model and innovative practice. Strategic partnerships have been solidified with a flair for the style of each clinic location. I split my time between 20 percent patient care and 80 percent for administration, marketing, and volunteering to be your PPS President.
Why should you vote for me? I am a leader. It’s in my blood. Especially for private practice physical therapy. Why? As a graduate student in physical therapy at the University of Iowa, I chose to take a business startup class. So, in 1989, I wrote the business plan for Siouxland Physical Therapy. In 2005, the business plan for LeMars Physical Therapy was embraced by a local banker. In the 16 years prior to my startup, I worked for a PTPP in which I was promised partnership that never materialized and went to the dark side and directed a clinic in a POPTS. It was at the PPS Annual Conference in 2004 that I knew my destiny was to be a PTPP and such is history, starting my private practice paralleled with my involvement in PPS. I served on the payment policy committee, subsequently becoming chair and am currently serving my second term as your director. I am a long time leader in our state chapter (District Director, Payment Policy Committee Chair) and have been appointed to APTA’s Public Policy and Advocacy Committee in which I am currently a member.
Key Issues:
- Payment by Third Party Payers. Proving our value and setting fees accordingly are key. All PTPPs must provide functional outcome data and push for fees that more than support our future.
- Direct Access. I am fortunate to practice in a state with unlimited direct access. This is key for our clients to access our care first. We are the experts of movement. Be aggressive in our message.
- Sustainability of the PTPP. We are entrepreneurs; PPS must support you in your business efforts. We must bind together and be proactive versus reactive. There is enough business for all of us, let’s collaborate and gain the musculoskeletal market share away from the chiropractors, massage therapists, orthopedic surgeons, and every other surgical specialty that ignores the benefits of physical therapy!
Vice President
Dan Mills, PT
I am the sole owner of Performance Rehab Clinics in Salt Lake City. My clinics treat workers compensation patients. I have opened a single therapist general outpatient clinic in the last two years. My responsibilities include patient care, administrative responsibilities, and marketing. I have been in business for 14 years.I have served on the board of directors as the treasurer since 2009. I have served as a member of the finance committee since 2005. During this time, the financial strength of PPS has progressed to among the healthiest of nonprofits. Member benefits have expanded. A lobbyist has been hired. Metrics for measuring the financial stability of the section have been developed. Two new committees have been developed and funded to enhance public relations and marketing and to provide state-of-the-art educational resources for private practitioners. Funding for local battles that have national implications has been expanded in the areas of Payment Policy and Legislative Action. The quality and experience at the PPS Annual Conference has been improved. I oversaw the negotiation of two separate management contracts with APTA to the financial benefit of PPS. This has occurred with a dues structure that has not increased in more than five years. These experiences have given me an exceptional vantage point for the section. I believe my vision of the future, tied with my understanding of the financial realities of the section, uniquely qualify me.
I have represented PPS on the CSM review committee that determines the future of that meeting. This includes advocating for current and future PPS members and their interests in this meeting. I am a member of the APTA Finance Committee. I sit on the board of a charitable organization that has provided 600,000 wheelchairs in the developing world. I have shepherded the process of implementing the World Health Organization (WHO) for wheelchair programs with this organization. I have assisted in curriculum development and assisted the WHO implementation process of this new curriculum. I have also pushed for a physical therapy evaluation for every wheelchair recipient.
First and foremost, PPS must ensure the survival of private practice. This includes providing our members with tools needed to adapt to a changing marketplace. The next issue is to help consumers realize that their private practice physical therapist is their best, underutilized resource.
During my tenure on the board, PPS has gained an unprecedented voice in the political arena. This voice needs to expand. We must demonstrate why we belong at the table when determining the future of health care both in terms of policy and legislative action. These efforts must expand on the state and federal level.
The fiscal responsibility of the PPS Finance Committee has provided the resources and the tools for the board and PPS members to turn and pivot in response to changing market forces. This process needs to expand to make private practice viable despite massive market consolidation forces. I believe I am the best qualified candidate to lead this effort.
Amanda Somers, PT, DPT
I am Dr. Amanda Somers, PT, and I am asking for your vote for vice president. During my four years serving on the BOD, I have had the opportunity to meet and work with you. For those who I haven’t had the same opportunity I wanted to give you my background in addition to issues I believe are important to the section. I graduated from the Medical University of SC in 1993 and completed my doctorate in 2010 through EIM. I treat patients part-time in my 12-year-old practice in addition to serving as human resources director, chief financial officer, and director of marketing. I have an incredible equal business partner–Darlene Pope, PT. SSI consists of two clinics, one which encompasses a 500 member health club. I teach the Business Aspects of Private Practice at the University of South Carolina Doctorate PT Program. I serve on multiple community boards and have held several positions in the South Carolina Physical Therapy Association (SCAPTA). My practice model is similar to the majority of your practices and it is important that small 100 percent therapist-owned practices are represented and have a strong voice on our board.Along with passion, I bring several key leadership strengths as defined by Buckingham’s book Strength Finders—Winning Others Over (WOO), strategic thinking, and positivity. My number one strength—WOO—has made me an effective and extremely active political advocate on both state and national levels. Notable successes include defeating POPTS and continually defending the statute that keeps South Carolina a state where referral for profit is illegal. I also advocate for small business issues including excessive regulation and taxation and have had the pleasure of representing my community as chairman of the chamber of commerce and as a candidate for state senator.
My additional strengths, strategic thinking and positivity, are essential skills for our section’s vice president who is responsible for leading annual strategic planning. If elected, not only am I excited to lead strategic planning, but I also hope to continue to be the board liaison to the marketing and public relations committee. It has grown our media corps to 122 members across the U.S. who are available to provide content to national reporters and distribute “hot topic” monthly press releases to their local media outlets. It is important for us as practice owners to have the tools to be able to continuously educate the public regarding physical therapy and why to choose your local private practice. I believe that the board of directors needs to continue to dedicate resources and remain focused on helping you “get the message out” and create a private practice brand that consumers understand.
Finally, I strongly believe that we must continue to grow and strengthen our influence on Capitol Hill. The development of grassroots for private practice must continue to remain a primary focus. Collaboration with APTA is essential, but we must also push forward with issues that are unique to private practice. We must continue the fight to protect our practices from additional payment cuts, to call for eliminating the in-office ancillary loophole, and to aggressively push for inclusion in future health care legislation and regulation. If elected, I will continue to strongly support and push for aggressive, smart, and effective legislative initiatives while increasing members’ involvement.
Director (vote for one)
Stacey Alberts, PT, MS, OCS, CSCS
My name is Stacey Alberts and I am running for the position of Director on the Board of Directors of the Private Practice Section of the APTA (PPS). I grew up in Minnesota with three brothers on a busy dairy operation with several Quarter Horses. College took me to Iowa where I met my husband and currently reside with our two boys. I obtained my orthopedic clinical specialization and opened Total Rehab in 2005 where I am the president and 100 percent owner of the small two-clinic practice. Total Rehab primarily deals with an outpatient orthopedic population in which my main role within the clinic is 60 percent administrative and 40 percent clinical.PPS’s 2014 Annual Conference marks my third year as chairperson of the Annual Conference Program Work Group. In this role, I have had the opportunity to interact with PPS staff, the PPS board, most of the PPS committees and task force chairs, and numerous members and non members. Related involvement includes being past president for our state Special Interest Group, organization of the Midwest Therapy Network where I am a director, 2014 APTA Federal Advocacy Forum, previous State Policy and Payment Reform Forums, state reimbursement committee and government affairs, and am the current Iowa Physical Therapy Association Treasurer.
I have a very strong leadership background both within the clinic and outside the clinical setting. Current leadership positions outside the clinic include: Church Foundation President, Board of Director’s for First State Bank, President of TR Enterprises, LLC, Real Estate, and Head Varsity Softball Coach-Lynnville Sully High School. Athletics have been a large part of my life as I played college softball on a very successful team and continue to coach and lead young women to leadership opportunities. I have been mentored by three Hall of Fame coaches along the way (two in softball and one in football).
The most critical issues affecting members of PPS are health care consolidation and restructuring of the payment system. Generally, health care consolidation poses a risk to small business in that referral networks and the pressure for cost containment can restrict outside services such as physical therapy in an effort to control the spend on a consumer. There has already been much groundwork in restructuring the payment system from members of PPS. We continue to see more and more reduction in insurance payments with the multiple procedure reductions. I believe in the coming years there will be a greater movement to per diem payments, bundled payments, and cash pay services. Establishing a value for our practices and professional services will be necessary to thrive in the coming years.
Thank you for your time and consideration, I would greatly appreciate your vote this fall for the position of Director on the Board of Directors of the Private Practice Section.
Jeff Ostrowski, PT (Incumbent)
I have been a private practice owner for over 24 years. Three years ago that practice merged with another physical therapist owned practice. I now have five business partners. We presently have 21 clinics in the Philadelphia area. Early on in my career, I spent my time treating patients. As the company grew, I moved into management. I am managing partner of the practice, being responsible for recruiting, training, clinic operations, and business development. I have great partners who fully support my involvement in PPS leadership.Because of my long career as a founder and practice owner, I understand the demands on new owners growing a business. I have great admiration for those owners because it is more difficult today. I presently manage a larger, mature practice and have experience with those unique challenges. In order to serve best, I believe it is necessary for PPS leaders to have perspective and experience on all the different types, sizes, and ages of practices represented in our membership. I have that experience.
Presently, I serve on the board of directors, having been elected in 2011. I have been board liaison to Impact magazine, the education committee, and the Business Model Task Force. I have been appointed liaison to the newly formed Business Model Board Task Force. Prior to my election as director, I served PPS on the Impact magazine editorial board and as managing editor from 2008 through 2011.
Through my PPS service, I have learned about the worries, successful strategies, challenges, and opportunities that PPS members deal with. I’ve met many people and made many friends. I can be a voice for members who may not always be heard from. I am proud to be a physical therapist entrepreneur and small business owner. I want to help private practice owners achieve their goals.
Payment and Payment Reform Payment and payment reform are two of the most critical issues PPS faces. Physical therapists need to be appropriately compensated for the value we contribute to society. We are continually micro-managed by payers with ever increasing documentation requirements. The APTA’s payment reform model, the Physical Therapy Classification and Payment System, is scheduled to be implemented in 2016. This will have profound effects on our businesses. We need to make sure payment reform is done right, with our input. With over 4,000 members, we should be a leader in payment and regulatory reform, not a follower. I will work to make sure we exert substantial influence in this process. Health Care Reform Many of us share concerns about the impending effects of ACOs, bundled payments, and the vertical integration of health care systems, including the scourge of HOPTS and POPTS. I will advocate for real health care reform where value solutions are aggressively promoted to payors and policy makers, and, most importantly, accessible to the public. “Best Practice”How can I get new patients? How can I attract, retain, and develop the best staff? How can I grow my business? How can I compete against HOPTS and POPTS? How can I manage the administrative and regulatory burdens that constantly change? How can I maintain or improve my profit margin? How can I achieve my goals? These questions and others unite all of us in PPS, regardless of the size, type, or age of our business. Answers are available. I will continue to work on enhancing the educational offerings of PPS to help members find the answers they need to be successful.
Angela Wilson Pennisi, PT, MS, OCS
Thank you for your consideration for Director of PPS. I am the founder and sole owner of Lakeshore Sports Physical Therapy, PC, in Chicago. Lakeshore Sports employs four full-time physical therapists, collaborates with an independent associate, and we recently opened a second location. I currently divide my time among practice management, staff development, and patient care, treating 15-20 hours each week. I founded my practice in 2000 after becoming disillusioned as a newly employed clinician, seeking more time with my patients to apply the skills I was developing in examination, manual therapy, and movement re-education. Like many of you, I decided that opening my own practice was my path to a fulfilling career as a physical therapist.My engagement with PPS began with joining the Impact magazine Editorial Board in 2003. I served on the Finance Committee of PPS from 2010 to 2011, and I am currently the managing editor of Impact magazine. Previously, I was also president of our state private practice group, the Illinois Network of Independent Physical Therapists, and I currently chair the network’s task force, with our members collecting outcomes in preparation for working with payers.
PPS faces one critical issue in the near future: Preserving the path to private practice for physical therapists. All else is secondary. Current practice owners continue to require support and assistance to navigate the changes our profession is experiencing, and we need to be ready to serve the new professionals who may become disenfranchised by their roles in a consolidated health care environment. While PPS also has much to offer the profession as a whole, including developing tomorrow’s leaders and providing resources to administrators, directors, and managers, these functions are secondary to our core mission of championing the success of physical therapist business owners.
PPS can best support this aim through targeted and strategic advocacy. When our children were younger, we took them to the climbing wall for Family Climb. The instructor told us to make sure we focused on pushing with our feet more than pulling with our hands in our quest to reach the top. Following health care reform, we must reach with our hands to find the best new opportunities to grasp. However, our feet must be firmly planted in the places our hands have already been, advocating to protect our practices and our patients of today. I have had several opportunities to support these issues through state and federal advocacy on the therapy cap, in-office ancillary service exception, and locum tenens, as well as participate in payor relations meetings in Illinois. However, at the same time we are securing our footing on these issues, we need to be reaching up and advocating for policies that position our profession as the provider of choice for musculoskeletal problems for the future.
At some point when you are climbing, you will be tired or scared or both. You need someone to belay the rope, locking it into place and supporting your weight so you can rest. PPS needs to belay the rope for our members so they can find their next handhold by sharing collaborative care models that are working, assisting in transitions to alternative payment systems and navigating health information technology, promoting cash-based practice opportunities by supporting direct access efforts and Medicare opt-out, and providing resources to assist practices in creating leverage with payors and consolidated systems.
When you are on the climbing wall, you commonly see stickers and arrows to indicate the best way up the wall. PPS must anticipate the multiple paths up the rock face and place markers for our members to reach their business success.
Nominating Committee (vote for one)
Stephen Albanese, PT, DPT, CSCS
Since 2003, I have been in private practice and a partner of Access Physical Therapy & Wellness along with my brother, my wife and sister-in-law. Together we have 19 locations in four states with five other partners. We also have a practice management and billing company based out of Campbell Hall, New York. My current responsibilities lie in strategy, marketing and business development. For the past two years, I have served on the Board of Directors of a local hospital system and more recently as the chairman of that system’s Quality Committee. I am also a Board member of a New York-based managed Medicaid program. These opportunities have given me a unique perspective into how to best work with and provide value to these systems and all those they serve. Physical therapists provide enormous value to the health care system and we must continue to promote this to all those at “the table” making decision on how the system will work. My first PPS Annual Conference was at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs in 2004. Ever since then I have been increasingly impressed with the caliber of people part of and leading this section. We have all faced many challenges and persevered and will continue to face them in the future. Three critical issues in particular that I see are:- Payment. The way we currently get paid and the amount we are paid in certain areas of the country are increasingly concerning. We need to increase advocacy and effectively communicate the tremendous value we bring to the health care system.
- The therapy cap and other arbitrary constraints. In order to decrease downstream health care costs for appropriate conditions, more dollars will need to be spent on physical therapy. Total cost of care, including downstream health care costs need to be addressed and not just the dollars spent on physical therapy.
- Where and how to fit in and flourish in the continuum of care of physical therapy. This is a huge opportunity and also can be a great obstacle and we must understand how private practice physical therapists can be part of a more integrated health care system.
I am continually amazed at the level of talent in this organization. It will be part of my job to find those people that are best suited to provide value to the section and facilitate them in being an active participant to ensure the success of private practice physical therapy.
Stacy Menz, PT, DPT, PCS
I am the sole owner of a multi-disciplinary pediatric practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide physical and occupational therapy to clients from birth to 22 years of age through a variety of funding sources such as early start programs, educationally based services, insurance, and cash pay. This allows us to see clients not only in the clinic but in their schools and natural environments as well. My responsibilities vary depending on staffing and census. However, I still see clients as well as oversee the administrative side of the business.As a practice owner of a niche practice, I have jumped at the chance to get involved in PPS, as well as to encourage other niche practice owners to become involved. I have been lucky enough to be on the editorial board of Impact magazine as well as on the CSM program work group for PPS. Both of these positions have allowed me to introduce topics that can be relevant to other niche practices. If elected to the nominating committee, I hope to continue to support this section’s growth and membership involvement from other practice areas that may be less represented.
One of the issues that I feel we are continuing to face in the upcoming years is managing risk and evolving our practices in a changing world. If elected to the nominating committee, my plan is to continue to encourage increased involvement from practice owners who think outside the box when it comes to growing their businesses. In relation to changing reimbursement, they can provide ideas and know-how for looking at other sources of funding for services rather than the traditional use of insurance for reimbursement. Another way I would contribute is to look outside of health care for successful entrepreneurs to offer their insights in growing businesses in an environment of change. I feel that everyone in PPS has the spirit of an entrepreneur and all it takes is an idea heard at the right time to develop new ways of looking at ongoing challenges. I am a believer in the collaboration and sharing of ideas so that physical therapy as a profession and as a business can continue to thrive and support our communities.
Rob Worth, PT, DPT, MS, ATC/L, OCS
I am the president, chief executive officer, and co-owner of Advanced Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine. Established in 1998, we have grown to six clinics in northeast Wisconsin, also providing on-site physical therapy services at several industrial companies, YMCAs, universities, and at local free clinics for the underserved. My role in our practice is daily clinical patient care, program development, and administrative leadership, in addition to teaching at three universities and being actively involved in our clinic’s orthopedic clinical residency program, which was established in 2000 in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin. In 2013, our practice implemented an innovative and inclusive progressive ownership model that provides an ownership opportunity tract for all eligible physical therapists within our practice. This exciting model is designed to foster and grow the private practice mentality for the benefit of our practice and our profession.My Private Practice Section (PPS) background and involvement includes—PPS membership since 1998 and attended nearly every PPS Annual Conference; past University Initiative Task Force member; Education Committee 2012-present; Awards Committee 2013-present; Board of Directors Strategic Planning 2012 (invited guest participant); PPS Regional Media Corp Spokesperson 2012-present; Graham Sessions invited speaker in 2012 and participant 2012-2014; and invited to be a member of the Innovation Task Force in 2014.
National level APTA activities includes—current Wisconsin delegate to the APTA House of Delegates; member of Private Practice, Research, Education, Health Policy and Administration, Orthopedic Section and Occupational Health SIG member; and invited speaker/panelist at 2013 nationally broadcasted APTA Innovation Summit on Collaborative Care.
State level APTA activities include—Immediate Past President of the Wisconsin Physical Therapy Association; current Federal Government Affairs Liaison; and Nominating Committee member.
Awards for professional involvement include—2014 Wisconsin Physical Therapy Association Outstanding Service; 2014 Small Business of the Year (Fox Valley region Chamber of Commerce); 2013 PPS Jayne L. Snyder Private Practice of the Year; 2005 IndUS International Award for cross-cultural contributions in health care; 2004 Fox Cities Community Clinic Volunteer of the Year Award; and 2000 Wisconsin Physical Therapy Association Physical Therapist of the Year Honorable Mention.
The culmination of my activities within APTA allows me to have access to an extensive network of individuals, matching their talents and interests to the opportunities that exist within PPS to be slated to serve in elected positions.
The most critical issues that PPS has to deal with over the next three years are as follows:- Reimbursement. Payment is the lifeblood of our practices. We need to have a multi-pronged approach to improve payment for our services that optimizes reimbursement under the current model but also takes the necessary actions now to ensure that we receive reasonable payment for our services under new models of payment, such as severity and intensity models, payment per episode of care, bundled payment models, etc.
- Innovation and collaboration. Within PPS we need to facilitate innovation in practice as well as innovation in how we let the public and legislators know the value that physical therapy can bring to this new era of health care. Collaboration with other health care professionals, health care systems, insurers, and the business world will be key.
- The next generation. It is incumbent upon us to identify, mentor, and grow the next generation of private practitioners within our own practices and in the leadership of our association.
For this reason, I am running for PPS Nominating Committee and I ask for your vote!