Wendy Bloomhuff VP, Slate, Rock Valley Physical Therapy

Transcript:

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My name is Wendy Bloomhuff. I have been with Rock Valley for 19 years, mostly on the operations side. I am a physical therapist. I worked in operations as a therapist, clinic manager, regional manager, and then when Slate came to be about a year and a half ago, I transitioned into that role. So, my current role is as vice president of Slate. And Slate is a company that's wholly owned by Rock Valley.

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We've been asked for many years. Rock Valley's always done billing in-house and we had a lot of private practices approaching us about how, if we could potentially help them with not only with revenue cycle management but other tasks that cause a lot of administrative burden for small private practices. And so we launched that company about a year and a half ago. So currently oversee all of revenue cycle management, prior authorization, verification of benefits and consulting services for not only Rock Valley but for other private practices too.

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I knew I wanted to do something in the medical field. I actually initially went to pre-law and didn't last there very long but I knew I wanted to do something in the medical field and also knew I wouldn't be able to sit behind a desk all day. So, I honestly got more interested once I started taking my grandmother to physical therapy and accompanying her to sessions and just seeing the care she was getting, ironically enough, at a Rock Valley Clinic. And so that's kind of what drew me into it and so just started looking into that further.

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I do still sneak in and see some patients at one of our clinics a couple mornings a week, which is nice. It's good to have that connection within the clinic. And I also think too when you're implementing a new practice management system, it always gives you a little bit more credibility too if you're switching what therapists are doing day in and day out when you're actually doing it yourself, too.

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I feel like where I see the biggest challenge from my seat is just payment. And it rolls into so many different aspects from even being able to hire at a clinic level because students are coming out of physical therapy schools with a high amount of student debt and they cannot afford to accept positions at physical therapy clinics that are not able and can offer these higher salaries that our current payment system just doesn't allow us to do. And so there's just a discrepancy there.

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Another challenge is just again just the amount of administrative burden that blocks us from being able to take great care of our patients. I mean, we all became physical therapists because we just wanted to help people and help our communities. And so, and we certainly didn't want the bulk of our day being completing prior authorization forms and completing documentation. The level of administrative burden continues to limit our access to patients and limits our ability to take care of them the way we want to, fulfilling our mission.

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Partnering with Athelas is going to help us continue to scale more efficiently to be able to do a great job, but also be able to support small private practices and just private practice in general. Those people who went into physical therapy business to stay therapist owned. And so if we can continue to help them out on the administrative side of things, I think that's just a win overall for private practice.

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