Practice Consultant, Jeff Hollis, talks about Industrial Rehabilitation – what it is, what the benefits are for this type of program, and how to get started with creating one.
Over the last 25 years, I have been involved with two orthopedic practices that started Industrial Rehabilitation (IR) clinics. In both instances, the programs added a wonderful patient care dimension that had been absent previously. When done correctly, any orthopedic practice should give serious consideration to establishing an IR program as part of their practice.
What Is Industrial Rehab? And How Is It Different From My Existing Physical Therapy Clinic?
First, let’s consider something together. Would an all-star athlete like LeBron James go to the PT clinic down the street if he had an ankle injury? Absolutely not. He would go to a clinic focused on rehabilitating high-profile athletes with similar injuries.
So why do you put your workers’ compensation (WC) patients through the same protocols as your Medicare patients?
Clinically speaking, an IR program is a treatment protocol built around the workers’ job description and physical demands of the job. It is a dynamic approach to treatment with the goal of returning the worker to re-enter the workforce and to meet the demands of the job description.
It takes more into consideration than just the injury itself. What are the lifting restrictions? Is the job considered a medium-duty or heavy-duty? Is there equipment regularly used that produces fatigue?
The overall look and feel of an IR program should be very different from that of your typical outpatient therapy office. As you are preparing the injured worker to return to their job, it should feel like a garage where they work, a manufacturing facility, or even a post office. It should not feel like an outpatient PT department.
What Are Some of The Benefits of An IR Program?
Implementing an IR program in your orthopedic practice can offer several benefits:
- Reduced Costs: Facilitating quicker returns to work means an injured worker is off work for less time, costing the system significantly less overall.
- Comprehensive Care: By focusing on the demands of the job rather than the injury itself, the rate of reinjury drops significantly, improving the lives of patients.
- Increase Practice Revenue and Profitability: Adding this service line can be an excellent addition to the revenue and profitability of any orthopedic practice. In my experience, revenue per physician per year can increase slightly more than $100,000. And unlike traditional outpatient PT, reimbursement is not linked to Medicare rates.
In our current healthcare environment, this type of program is an excellent way to provide focused care while enhancing the bottom line.
Where To Start
The first step is understanding your practice’s gross WC patient volume. Typically, if your WC patient volume is approximately 12% (or higher) of your total patient volume, then the practice is a good candidate to explore the possibility of opening an IR facility.
From there, it’s a matter of being able to establish internal case management and following established protocols to create a successful, sustainable program.
If this seems like a significant step, one of the most relevant perspectives for creating an IR program is that the parts are already within the practice. You just have to arrange them a little differently.
If you’d like to find out more, email me at jeff.hollis@curi.com.
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