Simply stated, you may hire a PT or you can contract one, either directly or through a staffing agency model such as ours. Contracting is the backbone of healthcare, from the provider's relationship with the insurance payers, to hospitals, to home health. Our business revolves around contracting. There are no Stark or kickback implications. The physician is the provider and has no direct relationship with any PT. We only contract the licensed care piece as a “staffing agency”. As a physician would you rather have an overpaid and, many times under productive employee, or a private practice therapist who understands productivity yet still demands excellence? 

The premise is simple - a PT is a licensed extension of the physician, just like a PA or LCN, and does not require credentialing. The physician is the provider and the PT, PA or nurse do not appear on their claims. In all of those cases the physician does not need to be present to treat and bill for services under his/her provider number; just like a PT does not have to be present for the PTA. The term "direct supervision" only applies to unlicensed personnel with the exception of Medicare patients. So our model may be used in-house OR at a remote site such as the office of a private practice PT. NOTE - If we cannot meet the physician supervision standard for offsite contracts, Medicare patients are excluded from those contracts unless we send staff to you, or you send a MD/PA to our site to a specially designated area just for you. The physician has no financial interest or control in any PT's clinic as we is only contracting the staff much as a staffing agency. Whether the PT goes on a home health visit, hospital contract, physician office visit, etc., he/she is only reimbursed for the codes of service being billed; the licensed care piece only. Again, the concept is very simple but the details to make this happen are many. That's what we do.

A top national healthcare attorney says, “Although statutes use the phrases “personal supervision” and “directly supervised,” the regulators have interpreted both of these to mean supervised to the extent otherwise required by law in a private practice setting. For example, a physical therapist in private practice does not require an on premises physician for the services to be covered, so “direct supervision,” does not actually require that a physician be in the office unless the staff member is not licensed.”

Comparative Examples - I went to see my PCP but he was in France on vacation, so I saw his PA. According to the EOB, I saw the physician. Later I got a flu shot from the nurse and never saw the physician or the PA, yet the EOB said I saw the physician. That is because PAs and LCNs are licensed extensions of the physician’s care and may be billed under his provider number without him being present. In another case my wife had a blood test at her PCP’s office and then blood was sent to a lab. The EOB said that the PCP did the blood test. In this scenario, we are the lab. The PT does not appear on the claim because the physician is the provider. Finally, closer to home, my 93 year old mother-in-law died in January of 2010 and we received EOBs for three unrelated physicians for services, from three different cities, where we never went for care. In fact we never met nor heard of the physicians until we saw the EOB. Their nurses did the work, first at the hospital and then in our home, under the physician's provider number as a legal extension of their care.

Can You Do Better on Your Own? No!!
And here’s what happens when you go it alone, as told to me by a physician who considered our model, tried it on their own, and then came back to us - A group of 23 family practice physicians, through us, had the option to use a large existing PT facility and pay a percentage of collections after they received payment from insurance. Instead they felt they could make more money by opening their own place, buying equipment and hiring a staff. After nine months they closed their doors and came back to our model. In the nine months they were open they spent $419,000 in out of pocket expenses and made only $14,000, split between 23 physicians. Under our model they would have made over $170,000 in profit for the same nine months with no up front expense.

To recap - The physician has the right to hire or contract licensed staff. Contracting is the backbone and standard of our industry as everyone has contracts. He is ONLY contracting for licensed care, much like a staffing agency, and he doesn’t pay us until he collects from insurance, also our industry standard. The program works because the physician does what they do, and we/PT do what we do, so neither side has any duplicate responsibilities or expenses. 

This is truly one of the only opportunities in business where two parties can be raised to the next level financially by simply doing together what they each do separately every day. Please follow the directions below and contact me at your earliest convenience so we can get together and walk through your possible scenarios. With hundreds of transactions completed in 48 states I’m very sure we have a model that fits you perfectly. Thanks in advance for your time and interest.