WebPT: Empowering The Rehab Therapy Industry
Ashley Glover joined WebPT as CEO and a board member in November 2021, bringing with her extensive experience in successfully developing, scaling, and operating large SaaS and technology companies. As CEO, she focuses on developing innovative strategies to guide WebPT to the next stage of growth, and continue improving upon the ways in which the company serves its members and the rehab therapy industry at large.
What led you to this industry?
Our family loves horses and we have a small breeding program for Arabians. In late 2020, I fell off a horse that I was considering buying and broke a few bones, which required a careful recovery. Luckily, the doctors that were overseeing my care directed me to physical therapy first instead of surgery. My PT was amazing and helped me get through rehab and back to health fairly quickly. I was riding again within months. My PT played a major role in my recovery, physically and mentally. I continue to work with her today.
Realising the transformative impact of physical therapy on patient’s lives played a huge role in my decision-making process when I received a call about the CEO job opening at WebPT. I’ve been involved in software for my entire career, and was also attracted to the impressive innovation WebPT was bringing to the industry. This, combined with my experience as a patient, made the opportunity seem like a perfect fit. I’m two years in now and couldn’t be happier.
Tell us about WebPT.
WebPT is the leading rehab therapy platform for Practice Experience Management (PXM). WebPT provides robust, end-to-end solutions covering the entire rehab therapy business cycle, including the tools and knowledge necessary to maximise performance, revenue, and patient outcomes. With market-leading retention and a 99.9+% uptime rate across its entire platform, WebPT is the most-trusted and most-reliable solution in the industry, regardless of practice setting, specialty, or size.
What are the company's 2024 plans?
I am thrilled about the prospects of 2024 at WebPT, where numerous transformative projects, cultivated over the past few years, are poised to make a significant impact on our industry. An important focus for 2024 will be to continue to innovate and support the 2023 launch of WebPT’s Practice Experience Management (PXM). PXM is a new category of healthcare technology that we launched to revolutionise the quality and efficiency of practice operations across every clinical, patient, and administrative touchpoint.
One area of innovation is our continued push to seamlessly integrate patient and front-office workflows into the clinical workflow. We've made significant strides with the launch of our Message Manager solution, which not only allows secure and direct communication between healthcare providers and rehab therapy practices, but also automatically kicks off specialised workflows for practice professionals to follow based on the nature of the communication. On the patient side, we are also further enabling digital patient experiences with features like the launch of online payments and integrated online scheduling, culminating in the creation of a digital front door for practices to reduce the administrative burden on the front office.
From a clinical standpoint, we are particularly excited about our emphasis on outcomes. WebPT has collaborated with multiple industry partners to advance the capture of patient outcomes, providing clinics with insights into their relative success in patient treatment. Our unique approach involves seamlessly integrating outcomes tracking into the therapist documentation journey, allowing clinicians to care for patients and monitor outcomes simultaneously.
A major highlight for 2024, building on our efforts in 2023, is our commitment to harnessing the power of data and analytics. Recognising the challenge for smaller practices to access and utilise robust data warehouses, we recently launched a business intelligence solution tailored for smaller market practices. This includes robust dashboards that enable practices to delve into their performance and identify areas for improvement. Additionally, we are developing an industry-leading benchmarking solution, allowing practices to gauge their performance against critical KPIs and compare themselves with peers. In an industry where reimbursements are tight and costs are rising, this data-driven approach becomes crucial for optimization.
Lastly, in 2024, our services teams are geared towards better supporting our mission. Beyond delivering software, we aim to provide consultative insights to practices, assisting them in adopting and leveraging solutions to achieve their business goals and better serve their patients. This holistic approach underscores our commitment to not only supplying tools to run a practice but also fostering an environment where practices can thrive.
Tell us about your 2024 predictions for the industry.
Our industry is at a pivotal juncture, facing the ongoing challenge of diminishing payments per therapy visit by federal and many commercial payers. This trend contradicts both the demonstrated effectiveness of the care provided by physical therapists at a remarkably cost-effective rate compared to other specialties and the actual investment required for the education and training of physical therapy professionals.
I foresee a significant shift this year as our industry unites to amplify its voice, placing the concerns of patients and professionals at the forefront of the discourse on how best to treat musculoskeletal conditions while optimising cost and quality. Without our collective voice, it becomes increasingly challenging for practices to thrive solely on incremental operational improvements. This economic pressure is compelling practices to explore alternative revenue streams, outside of conventional federal and commercial payer agreements.
I believe the industry will forge quicker and deeper collaborations with entities that recognise the value of rehab therapy and are willing to invest in it. We will see continued growth in cash pay practices, reflecting patients' willingness to directly invest in high-quality services. Simultaneously, there will be a greater emphasis on partnering with companies seeking to manage overall healthcare costs for their employees, acknowledging the cost-effectiveness and superior outcomes associated with rehab therapy compared to more invasive medical interventions.
It is an interesting time as we navigate building a collective effort to articulate the value of our profession to traditional stakeholders, and while seeking revenue solutions that ensure the sustained health of practices. At the core of this evolution lies the pivotal role of data. Robust data on the quality of patient outcomes and the overall health trends of practices are indispensable. Recognizing this, we have made substantial investments not only in delivering top-tier clinical documentation solutions but also in understanding how to effectively track and manage outcomes, as well as monitoring the health of practices through advanced data and analytics. This commitment to data-driven insights positions our industry to navigate and thrive amidst the current challenges and uncertainties.
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