Background
Locally owned and operated by three practicing physical therapists—including co-owner Scott Olson, PT, MOMT, FAAOMPT—MTI Physical Therapy has been providing outpatient physical therapy services to patients in the Seattle area since 1998. Today, MTI has seven locations—four in Seattle proper and three just east of the city (in Bellevue, Kirkland, and Issaquah).
Challenges
When MTI first switched from paper documentation to an EMR, the company went with MacPractice. Because the practice considered itself a “Mac office,” the team thought this solution would be a natural fit. Unfortunately, it was not: “It proved to not be particularly user-friendly or intuitive,” Olson said. “It was actually initially designed for dental practices—something we didn’t learn ’til we were already partnered with them.”
Additionally, the team was feeling more than a little overwhelmed about the increasingly onerous Medicare documentation requirements. According to Olson, the team was burning the candle at both ends trying to ensure their clinics would be fully compliant with all of Medicare’s strict—and often confusing—rules. MTI also was struggling with an influx of cancellations and no-shows—and they were so busy that their front office staff wasn’t able to perform the reminder calls necessary to ensure patients remembered their upcoming appointments.
Solution
When MTI had finally had enough of MacPractice, several EMR companies began courting the company for its business. However, it was WebPT that stood out from the rest: “We reviewed several systems, both on our own as well as with guided demos, and we felt WebPT was far superior, intuitive, and user-friendly than everything we tried,” Olson said. WebPT’s focus on building long-term relationships also appealed to MTI. “The thing that struck us first was from a customer service standpoint: WebPT seemed to [be] more concerned about long-term partnering and growing together than making the sale.” And that focus on partnership lasted well beyond MTI’s implementation of the software: WebPT’s “responsiveness to suggestions for changes that we have had over the years has been very good; it makes us feel as though they are a true partner with us as we move forward,” Olson said.
Furthermore, the practice’s transition from MacPractice to WebPT was seamless. According to Olson, the training was thorough—and they didn’t experience any “slow-downs or halts in the workflow,” despite the fact that all of their clinics went live on the platform simultaneously.
“We’re so glad we switched to WebPT! It has made so many of our transitions easier—switching from another EMR, adding clinics, handling compliance updates, and navigating our way through the ICD-10 event. We couldn’t imagine having to go through these changes with a less robust system. We are raving fans!”
Scott Olson PT, MOMT, FAAOMPT
Co-Owner
Speaking of seamless transitions, MTI also was impressed with the way WebPT handled the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10; it was so “smooth and virtually seamless” that it “became a non-event,” Olson said.
Benefits
One of the things the MTI team loves most about WebPT’s documentation platform is its intuitiveness—something that’s largely the result of the system being designed by a PT, for PTs. That alone makes it “so much more superior to other systems on the market,” Olson said. “As manual therapists, we follow a very strict and well-defined flow of procedure during our evaluations, and WebPT’s system most closely approximates this for us.”
Furthermore, Olson said MTI “couldn’t have asked for a better system” when it comes to outcomes tracking and compliance. “Having an EMR that is smarter than we are has helped us be compliant [as well as] kept our billing clean and our cash flow up.” Specifically, WebPT’s automatic compliance triggers and alerts ensure that MTI therapists can’t finalize their notes unless they’ve satisfied all documentation requirements. This is especially important for the team at MTI because of the company’s therapist compensation structure: “We love the fact that WebPT forces compliance with documentation to ensure our claims go through cleanly,” Olson said. “Our staff is compensated based on accounts receivables, so they are more motivated than most when it comes to ensuring that documentation compliance is satisfied.”
At the company level, WebPT not only improved MTI’s billing by ensuring the practice was submitting clean claims—which “had a significant impact on our bottom line,” Olson explained—but also enabled the team to get a better understanding of what was going on across all of their clinics via a wide array of reporting and tracking features. Olson particularly appreciates the fact that WebPT will alert the leadership team when certain PTs aren’t completing their notes in a timely manner. “With our low-volume [business] model, we don’t have the luxury of being lax on documentation,” Olson said. “For our model to work, everyone needs to be compliant and timely. WebPT assures us this will happen and helps us to identify who we need to coach [to] get them up to speed.”
Additionally, Olson and his team found that WebPT’s automatic appointment reminders “substantially improved [their] efficiency and productivity.” MTI now has a 90% patient attendance rate across all clinics, with some clinics “at or near 98% on a consistent basis.”
