They say that time flies, and in our case, it sure feels like it. This month, we are celebrating our 10th anniversary.
In 1999, we began with one small New York City office, and two employees. Now we have twelve offices spanning the NYC metro area, with more than 45 physical therapists.
Anniversaries are a time to look back – at the choices we’ve made and reflect on the good decisions and the mistakes. It is also time to plan for the future.
If you look back to the beginning, why Recovery Physical Therapy even came into business, you’ll see the first good decision in a long line of great choices. RPT started on the premise that this would be a company owned and managed by physical therapists. Each Director has ownership in their facility which means that decisions are made from a clinical perspective and not by an accountant crunching numbers in a back office.
Additionally, our President and CEO, practiced physical therapy in NYC for more than 20 years and understood that when patients are treated by licensed physical therapists patients heal faster with better overall outcomes. He made the decision that licensed physical therapists would treat our patients. Quality of care comes first.
When I first came to work for RPT in 2003, our CFO took me on a tour of all six of our facilities. As the day wore on, I started to panic, thinking I had made a big mistake. Each office was only treating a few patients at a time. In my mind, clearly RPT was not doing well. You see, I had previously worked at a competitor and physical therapists were constantly being pushed to see more patients in an hour, so I was used to offices loaded with patients. But not RPT. It was quiet and calm in each office, one patient per physical therapist at a time. It was just a different way of doing business.
We’ve also expanded with the same, “take our time” approach. Each of our offices is strategically placed, based upon physician and patient feedback, as well as extensive research. Instead of just blanketing the metro area with offices in order to “grow”, we’ve made decisions that make sense – such as, opening our Wall St office at 6 AM to accommodate our financial district patients to offering weekend hours at many of our “neighborhood” facilities.
Have there been missteps along the way? Absolutely. We’ve made some wrong hiring decisions, opened an office in an area that didn’t work out, and had to deal with our share of growing pains. Are their downsides to our philosophy? In terms of volume, sure. There are some insurance plans that we can’t participate with in-network simply because we can’t handle the number of patients that could potentially come our way. All in all though, the good far outweighs the bad. We are blessed with a great leader, fabulous people, and loyal patients.
Jim Cardone, our President and CEO, brings not only experience and expertise to the table; he has integrity and is an amazing leader. He gives people what they need to succeed; he’s open to new ideas and supports our staff in all ways.
Our physical therapists are the best. They are not only highly skilled practitioners, but they care about their patients’ recovery and treat them with highest level of attention.
Our front desk staff greets our patients with a smile while untangling ever-changing insurance coverage and issues. Kudos too, to our corporate staff who keep it all together behind the scenes.
Most of all, we are most grateful to all of our patients who have become like family to us. We’ve watched many of you go on to achieve amazing things, like running a marathon after a debilitating injury or climbing to Mt Everest’s base camp. Thank you for coming back again and again and for referring your friends and family to us.
And to our physician partners, we look forward to continuing to provide the highest level of care that you’ve come to expect from us. Thank you for believing in us.
As we look ahead to the future, there will be bumps and bruises along the way but as long as we stay true to our core values, the future is limitless.
