One of my favorite parts of practicing medicine is when I get the opportunity to collaborate with other providers. I have made this an absolute staple in my company because I believe it leads to better outcomes for clients, and only serves to make our providers better, myself included.
The unfortunate truth about how things work in much of the medical system, is that outside of a hospital, there isn’t much collaboration at all between providers. A doctor writes a prescription, the patient hands it to the person at the physical therapy office, and that’s that. With each provider seeing 20+ patients a day, and all the documentation necessary to get insurance reimbursements, the chance of both doctors finding a time to discuss a difficult patient case is next to none.
Lucky for me, when I started this practice I was introduced to another Doctor here in town Dr. Matthew Hernandez and his team at “Ethos Integrative Medicine.” Dr. Hernandez focuses on sports medicine, particularly the regenerative side. He has become a trusted colleague and friend, because through many conversations I know that he too has the patient’s best interest at heart. We have formed a great collaborative team, where I’ve been able to teach him and his staff about the nuances of the PHIX approach we use at DPT, and he has been able to educate myself and my team about regenerative medicine.
Together, we’ve built a rock solid approach to physical medicine. We speak to everyone at our clinic about two different types of diagnosis. The first diagnosis is “WHAT hurts,” and the second diagnosis is “WHY it hurts.” At my clinic we focus on fixing both of these things, and when the “WHAT” has been damaged significantly, Dr. Hernandez’ team can step in and use regenerative therapies to help heal it. We’ve developed an approach that can fix the WHAT and the WHY, and we are constantly working to improve it. It is our belief that this gets us close to a “good as new” situation.
Dr. Hernandez has recently established a residency program at his clinic, where he is teaching the next generation of doctors about our approach. He invited me to come in on a Saturday and spend a few hours with him and his residents, helping them to understand the importance of a collaborative approach.
I love teaching, especially when what I’m teaching has the potential to impact the way medicine is thought of and delivered in a way that will positively impact hundreds if not thousands of people’s lives.
It’s my firm belief that in medicine, ego is the enemy. Meaning that the minute we fail to look outside of ourselves for help with a difficult case, we are letting ourselves and our clients down. Behind the scenes our doctors are communicating with the other providers our clients see, and we’ve been lucky to find those providers who also believe in the value of this collaboration. Too often in medicine, doctors are left with packed schedules with no time to discuss patient cases with each other because the priority is getting patients in the door. Our PT team meets regularly to collaborate and discuss our difficult cases to make sure we’re uncovering the absolute best direction with each patient. Our priority is making sure that every patient who comes through our door receives the best opportunity at achieving their goals, and to do that requires us to meet often and learn from each other.
We are always looking for high quality providers to add to our circle. If you know a provider who you believe may be interested, be sure to give them this newsletter. Thank you for helping us to grow this community and provide access to high standard healthcare to more people.
