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Learning to become “Unreasonable”
McDonald Physical Therapy’s Team (MPT) goal is to create an “unreasonable” environment of hospitality in medical care providers’ offices. We plan to do this by treating each of our patients like we believe they want to be treated. How has MPT done this consistently over the last 36 years? We start with a smile and personal greeting for each patient as they walk into our clinic, letting them know we are glad to see them. We continue this approach by personally answering all of our phone calls. As the patient attempts to sit down (since no one waits in our so-called waiting room more than a few minutes), a physical therapy team member comes out to bring this patient in with a smile and often a more personal greeting. We can do this since we spend 45-75 minutes with our patients a few times a week and know what is going on in their lives.
I have often been asked what makes MPT so different? I have also been asked what is real and what is just urban legend.” How could MPT have started in an 815 sq ft basement and become so well thought of and be so widely utilized by so many doctors over the last 36 years? How did MPT get their 5-star reputation, because everyone knows all care is the same? Aren’t we all just like burger competitors, and the burgers are all the same. “
The secret sauce (to use a burger phrase) is trying to develop “unreasonable” requirements and expectations for our entire physical therapy and front office teams. What are “unreasonable” requirements and expectations? We are always looking for ways to outdo one another with the way we care for our patients. We call this legendary care. How do we distinguish what legendary care is and what it is not? It is not helping a patient into their treatment room. It is not answering our phones within two rings. It is not bringing every patient in on time. It is not just getting them better as they are expecting when they come to our clinic.
Legendary care and service is when our team goes above and beyond to show they care for a patient. It is when one of our physical therapists, after finishing the late shift, hears his patient was in the hospital and decides to drive to the hospital to visit him or her on the way home to his wife and four children. Legendary care is noticing someone on Medicaid has holes in their shoes and secretly looking to see the patient’s shoe size and bringing them a new pair on their next visit. Legendary care is seeing a patient for treatment 20 days in a row, including Saturdays and Sundays, to save them from back or neck surgery, Legendary care is calling in a more experienced MPT physical therapist for a second opinion, after the younger physical therapist’s patient was not improving after 3-4 visits and using the veteran therapists’ insights to help get the patient better more quickly. Legendary care is driving to a patient’s home to show them how best to get up out of their chairs, which were just too low for the patient and the husband. The list goes on, and after 36 years in private practice, I could fill too many pages, and you would all stop reading (as I would) if I continued.
McDonald Physical Therapy is not a corporate PT clinic or hospital-based clinic. We do not have the luxury or power of hiring marketing people and insurance people to get MPT in every network possible. Doctors do not own us. The only reason we are still treating patients in our community is because we go the extra mile to get our patients better. Our reputation is all we have. We are blessed that many of the respected doctors in our community know our patient successes and believe our care is exceptionally different in most cases. Our success is and has been consistently better than the averages. Many doctors have asked me what we do to our patients that make them such raving fans when they return for their follow up visits. My answer is that MPT care is unique. All physical therapy providers are not the same. Patients are not burgers!
Patients ask me quite often about doctors. The biggest questions they ask is, “Does my doctor care if I am getting better?” Does my doctor only look at me so he/she can make more money?” My answer over the last 36 years is the same. If the doctors in our community did not care about their patients, MPT would no longer exist. Doctors make no money by sending us their patients. Many doctors have learned how to increase their income. Owning physical therapy is a big money maker, especially if they are surgeons. Corporate venture capitalists have been buying up private practices all over the country. Even physical therapists have learned to find ways to make money quietly working with doctors.
For the record, by my current age of seventy-one, I have been and continue to be approached by venture capitalists, corporate physical therapy companies and hospitals. They are coming after MPT more aggressively than ever before. “What is your exit strategy,” they say? You cannot work forever.” My answer has always been the same: I have been blessed to find my calling in life. I love examining and collaborating with each patient to help them overcome their injuries. I love getting most patients back to where they never knew they could even return to.
Why would I retire? I guess to join a non-profit and start helping others… Why, though, when I do that now, and I know we make a difference. If MPT exists, we will always be pushing for better care for all patients. At MPT, we want to change expectations for medical care in as many patients’ minds as possible. No patient should wait more than 5 minutes before they are seen by their medical professional. Time is our greatest gift and something we cannot regain when it is lost. No patient should be waiting for days to find out the results of their MRI or other specialty test when the medical practitioner can get most results within 24 hours. Waiting can create too much anxiety for the patient.
This is why MPT exists. We are here to have “unreasonable” expectations for how patients should be treated. Is what we are asking from all medical practitioners possible? You bet, if we could all decide to treat all patients like they were a beloved family member.
I hope you are all well and looking forward to spring,
Enjoy the journey,
Fran McDonald President/CEO
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