Many therapy companies are struggling today in the changing reimbursement arena. With insurance reducing what they are willing to pay for physical, speech and occupational therapy services, it can become a cash flow problem for clinics that are struggling to keep their heads above water. Many clinics have been looking for ways to enhance or supplement their therapy revenues. Some of the ideas we have seen include adding gym and health club memberships for patients that have been discharged. Others have added Pilates and yoga classes before and after clinic hours. But I would offer an alternative as well as a personal story.
An alternative that also seems to mesh with patient care, I would recommend that clinics consider adding a health coaching/weight counseling cash based business. While this might not be obvious on the surface, many patients that therapists treat are coming to the clinics due to health problems caused in part or full by obesity. Being overweight can cause people to have problems with joints, and even though you might treat and discharge them, it is only a matter of time before they will come back with the same or a similar issue caused by the excess weight.
In May 2010, I tipped the scale at 210 pounds. Since I am 5’ 10” tall and 50 years old, I think you can guess that I was not competing for a starting spot in the backfield of some local football team. Even though I was a runner in the summers, once the weather in Iowa turned cold, I stopped running. In the fall of 2009, I stopped running because of swelling in my knees. I knew I needed to do something, so in May of 2010, I joined a local gym and began running, swimming and weight lifting. Eight weeks later, I was eight pounds lighter when a physical therapist approached me about a health coaching program. The idea wasn’t about dieting, although a food plan with a diet was involved. The underlying premise is that a diet alone will not work. It needs to be accompanied by someone to support the person making the change (a health coach) and their lives needed to include an adjustment to incorporate exercise.
The therapist that approached me had been heavy (weighing well over 240 pounds). When he contacted me about the health coaching, he weighed under 200. I decided to go and listen to what this program was all about. After listening to the presentation, I decided to purchase the meal package and waited several weeks to get started. I remember starting the meal plan on a Friday and running the Lisbon, Iowa Kraut Route 5K the very next morning. My running time that morning was 26 minutes and change for 3.1 miles. Not very exciting, but it was as low as my times had been thus far during the 2010 summer running season. One week later, I ran a 5K in Palo, IA. During the week I noticed weight was flying off my body. My weekly running workout hadn’t changed, but the plan was working. That Saturday morning in Palo, I saw first hand how weight can affect the human body’s performance. Eight days after starting the program, I weighed eight pounds lighter and shaved about two minutes off of my 5K time. In July 2007 while running a 5K in Stanwood, IA with my daughter Lauren, I had set a personal record of 23 minutes 40 seconds. In Palo that day, I ran 24 minutes 24 seconds. I was so close and the only change had been with my diet/weight loss.
During the summer of 2011, I have continued running 5K’s and have begun moving toward goals that seemed unattainable when I set them back in 2007. I wanted to eventually run an under 21-minute 5K. With my weight and 5K times drifting higher since 2007, that goal seemed beyond my reach. However, I have been working my plan, losing weight and changing the way I train. This summer I have set a new personal record three times. The first at Hiawatha’s Hog Wild 5K, then the Williamsburg Firecracker 5K and most recently in Lisbon at the Kraut Route. I haven’t just beat my personal record; I have shattered it, from 23 minutes 40 seconds to 22 minutes 11 seconds. Barring some type of injury, I believe that I will go under 22 minutes before the end of the running season (and maybe even 21 minutes).
That is my personal testimony. The question is, will it work for you? After my experience with the product, I related this to one of my clients in Kansas. They weighed 260 pounds and decided they needed to do something about their weight. Since starting in the fall of 2010, they have lost over 60 pounds and have decided to add health coaching into their physical therapy practice. They are now adding clients to their mix and have a cash based business that is paying them a four-figure monthly income for a small amount of their personal time. Things are going well enough that they are now Business Coaches in this program.
If you are interested in trying the product, please contact me. Once you see what it does for you, I believe you will want to help others achieve the same result!
Jim <///><