Writer’s block is real. Until about six months ago, blogs came fairly easily and there was a formula. I’d tell a story. Then I would make an analogy. I’d try to conclude in a logical way with some guidance, advice, or even just an observation. Then, for no reason at all, it became really hard to write.
It wasn’t that I had trouble saying what I needed to say. It was that I was having a remarkable amount of trouble saying what I had to say concisely. My thoughts became pages rather than paragraphs. They wandered all over the spectrum. I was trying to say everything, all at once. Sometimes, I found myself trying to justify my point, knowing that it could be hard to swallow coming from the person in charge of reporting the numbers.
I took some time to contemplate why that might be the case. I arrived at the conclusion that in every instance I was trying to communicate my motivation as much as I was trying to communicate my point. For some reason, I didn’t believe that people would understand my “why”. Why would the Director of Business Intelligence write about anything if the intent wasn’t to drive stats? Would people wonder if this was just another swing at improving productivity? I’d like to resolve those questions.
When I first started as a rehab tech at Ingall’s Memorial Hospital in 1994, Physical Therapy was the career of choice for all the reasons. I have watched the profession move from an elite career choice to a calling. I am not exaggerating when I say I have the highest respect for the professionals of today who, as exceptional students, choose a path to a doctoral degree that does not come with the financial rewards or other benefits that the same level of education might have provided in another field. But with a passion for the profession and the ability to impact lives at an extremely tangible level, you chose it. You have my deepest admiration and gratitude for continuing to make Physical Therapy what it is today.
There are millions of people who benefit from the services we provide as therapists. We are the definitive experts in muscles, joints, nerves, and movement (among many other specialties). People need Physical Therapy. It literally improves their lives.
When I think about all the things we measure and why we report on them, I remember this: there are people who have made life-altering choices to provide Physical Therapy to those around their community. There are also people who require Physical Therapy to optimize the life they live. The goal of my work is to help people connect those dots as many times as possible in the best possible way.
In the process of doing this, we measure so many things, and sometimes the impact can get lost. Organizationally, the objective is the same. Regardless of your position, our cumulative work affects the ability of people to efficiently access the care they need.
Eval wait days measure how long someone in pain needs to wait to see someone who can help them not hurt. Drops are a measure of how many times we could have helped someone but didn’t have that chance. Units per Visit help put a number on the comprehensive nature of the care we deliver.
Our services are valuable on both sides of the equation and should be respected as such. Revenue growth supports access growth. The list is endless. The story is the same, but the story does not end in the clinic.
Central Insurance Verification makes sure the people about to receive care will not be unpleasantly surprised later by a non-covered service or provider. The front office helps people negotiate the landscape of insurance as well as working tirelessly to align schedules to connect people with the care they need. Billers make sure that services are billed in a timely way so that the financial component of care does not linger long after the patient is better. IT never sleeps, impacting every part of the daily process.
Teams of individuals in Growth, Marketing, Finance, HR, Accounting, Operations, Compliance, Credentialing, and Legal handle the nuances of their respective departments that are too complex to list here. All of them do what they do so that we can connect people who do Physical Therapy with the people who need Physical Therapy.
This all leads back to my “why”. People doing the work of delivering care deserve clear and timely feedback on how effectively those connections are being made. They deserve metrics on the patient’s experience before, during, and after care so they can make meaningful decisions toward improvement or so that they can celebrate when it’s done in an exceptional way.
If you have your own motivating “why”, please pursue it with passion…and share it. If you don’t? If you feel like somehow the industry has become compressed with too many metrics and has lost its heart? I encourage you to borrow my “why” for a bit. I believe you’ll find your own in short order, but I’m also confident that as you approach your workday, it’s undeniably motivating to know we’re working together to build lasting connections between people who provide this valuable service and the people who need it most.