Announcer: Welcome to FOXcast PT, a podcast for clinicians made by clinicians. It’s brought to you by FOX Rehabilitation. Find out more at foxrehab.org.
Jimmy: Welcome to FOXcast PT here at CSM 2018 in New Orleans, day two of our coverage with 17,000 of our closest friends and colleagues. I’m joined by Dr. Tim Fox. Welcome to your show.
Tim: Thank you. Yeah, it’s good to be on my show.
Jimmy: Covering CSM day two bright and early. We’re in sixth gear as soon as we get out of bed.
Tim: Ten after eight, New Orleans!
Jimmy: You’ve already done an hour talk.
Tim: We did. We were on a panel with Dr. Carole Lewis and some other colleagues. How do we promote? How do we move forward the practice of geriatrics and clinical care of the older adult? We need to get a little more aggressive. Those were some comments that I made to the audience that we promote strongly at FOX. But, we have to do a better job as a profession collectively.
Yeah, PT is very fragmented. We’ve got to come together, and that was one of my messages to the president of the APTA when we were down in D.C. at a CEO Roundtable a couple of months ago.
We have got to come together, collectively pool our resources, and get a good, aggressive PR program going. You know we’re all tweeting the same thing whether in sports medicine, geriatrics, neurology: we’re all worried about our clients’ functional health. One strong message over that area would be highly impactful.
Jimmy: Let’s not be scared to be aggressive in what we’re passionate about because we know what we do. We say, “What we sell here is human movement, human independence.”
Tim: Yeah, there’s been some things floating around the conference now. Our “PT in Motion” magazine: we’re talking about medical marijuana and physical therapy, and I guess this is a trendy topic right now, right?
I looked at this, waiting for my name tag actually, and I’ve never seen a front page cover in “PT in Motion” talking about medical wellness and functional wellness. Like, these aren’t new topics and we need to make those trendy.
Why is functional wellness not on the front cover of “PT in Motion” when it can be a trending topic because it’s popular right now with opioids and etcetera. in our nation. But, you know, why should we have to wait for something to become trendy to start screaming from the roofs?
Jimmy: This is the low hanging fruit. It’s trendy. I get it. You know, it gets you to open it, but let’s do the the important work which is hard. If it were trendy and somebody would have knocked that out years ago. It’s hard, but it’s the important stuff to do.
Tim: Completely. Considering the impact on the population, their functional health and wellness within that community, and slowing down institutionalization: All the good things that physical therapy can do for our older adult clients to keep them thriving, let’s say. Right?
Jimmy: We like to think that we do a very good job at FOX Rehabilitation of promoting, you don’t see a picture leave the practice by social media or anything unless it’s a PT in the picture. We don’t stock image it.
Tim: It’s all our people. That’s what we do at FOX – unlike anything else.
Jimmy: So what’s it going to take? You’re not shy about saying this and getting in people’s faces in a great way.
Tim: You know, this morning it was geared toward students and having the students change the mindset. Alright, I guess we as a society have to say, “Where do we want to be when we’re 100?”
Like Jimmy, how long you want to live for?
And, we’ve got this false impression. How old are you going to be? How long do you want to live until? And what you want to be doing?
That’s what it is.
What do you want to be doing? What’s your vision like? How do you internalize that vision of what it is that you want to be doing?
Jimmy: Yeah, medically well but functionally sick.
Tim: I want to be riding my motocross bike at 106 years old and getting some air. That’s what I want to be doing. With a good FOX PT, we could do that.
Jimmy: I love that, when you get people together and you say, “We’re doing town hall at 6:00 in the morning,” and all those people show up and they say, “Okay, I’m here. Feed me. What do I have to do? Give me some passion,” and then we want that discussion to continue.
That’s really what this show is about is what are we gonna talk about next?
What should we do?
Which direction are we going?
Tim: My dream is that it shouldn’t have to be a FOX clinician that can dose clients properly. But, you know, we’ve got a role to serve society and educate the profession about what our age-based normative values and where should clients be at x y z and age be as they go through the continuum?
Jimmy: Anything else you looking forward to here at CSM?
Tim: The energy is palpable. I’m so proud of my FOX colleagues. The sea of orange that represents excellence and what it is that we do.
I just want to thank everybody that puts a lot of time and effort and energy into pulling this all together because I know it’s not easy, but we’ve got one hell of a good message. It’s strong and it’s good and it’s consistent.
We do great work. I’m pretty proud of that.
Jimmy: I want to congratulate all of those FOX GCSs. You put a lot of time and effort in.
Tim: 22 come on!
Jimmy: That’s a lot.
Tim: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there for the opening ceremonies but I heard there was a massive crowd and waves of orange.
Jimmy: We were “those people” and were cool with that because we knew, all of our colleagues walking across that stage, they put the time and effort in. Let’s be excited about clinical excellence.
Tim: I support that and that’s, you know, they want of this practice: clinical excellence and making sure that we keep the bar high, push each other apply the latest evidence to practice, and make great, great outcomes and results for our clients. That’s a win.
Jimmy: I love that. You’re ready to go.
Tim: I’m ready, totally. It’s 8:10 and we had a whole day to go here.
Jimmy: So we started this tradition started with Dr. Will Dieter. The last question we ask on the show is your FOXtale. So I ask other clinicians, “Why did you start working with FOX? Why do you continue to work with FOX?” But, you started this practice. You started this crazy thing. Why did you do that? What’s your FOXtale? Why did you begin this practice?
Tim: I was frustrated with my clients under the Medicare Part A system, just discharging and having nowhere to discharge them to.
I know they need to go to the local outpatient clinic. I even know that the guy’s name, still, that I’d send them to. And, they would never show up. They would never make it.
So just out of sheer frustration, I stuck my head into a Medicare CMS transmittals back in 1998 and found that we can treat our clients not just in a traditional outpatient clinic, but also in their homes and residences under Medicare Part B: outpatient on wheels house calls. So, we were able to open up a whole new level of access for those clients that couldn’t receive care.
I’m proud of that because as a physical therapist, and you know this, it falls under our code of ethics that we have a moral and social responsibility to meet the unmet needs of society. And, we filled a big hole, and we’re going to continue to fill it with Orange
Jimmy: Love it! Covering CSM 2018. Thank you for stopping by. I know you’re already in 6th gear, up at 5:00 in the morning. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.
Tim: Thank you.
Jimmy: Dr. Tim Fox, everybody.
Thanks for listening to FOXcast PT, a clinically excellent podcast is brought to you by FOX Rehabilitation. Listen to other episodes or read articles and position papers at foxrehab.org.
