We were lucky to catch up with Kaitlin Hartley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kaitlin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

After graduating PT school and starting my first job in a large outpatient orthopedic clinic, I quickly realized I wasn’t able to provide the quality of care that I desired as a new physical therapist. I also became increasingly interested in the process of trying to conceive, pregnancy, and postpartum recovery as my husband and I began to think about starting a family. This led me to seek out more training in helping the pregnant and postpartum population.

After COVID and having my first son, I knew I wanted the flexibility of owning my own business so that I could spend more time with him and my family. So, I started my own practice (Restore Physical Therapy, LLC) and found a local gym in Gahanna where I could rent space from to treat patients (Worthy Total Fitness). The owners, Mark and Murray Caraway, have built an amazing community there and I feel very lucky to treat patients out of their gym space. This has allowed me to grow my practice and patient population over the last few years. It has been very challenging and rewarding at the same time! I truly love educating and helping women through all stages of motherhood and starting my own practice has allowed me to focus on this niche population that I am very passionate about! I now also have more training in the pelvic floor and pelvic health, which has allowed me to expand my services to being able to provide internal pelvic floor muscle assessments and treatments to better serve this population.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Dr. Kaitlin Hartley and I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy that specializes in pelvic health and prenatal/postpartum rehab. I offer in-person and virtual physical therapy services as well as a fully online, self-paced prenatal core and pelvic floor program. As a cash-based practice, this allows me to provide high quality, 1:1, individualized care to all of my patients. My patients always receive 1:1 care with me as their physical therapist for a full 60 minutes each session. This allows us to better get to the root cause of their symptoms, perform necessary treatments and exercise progressions, and ultimately leads to less visits needed overall compared to using your insurance.

Some of the common things that I treat in my clinic include prenatal wellness/prevention, pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy or postpartum, pelvic floor tension, low back or hip/glute pain, neck/mid back pain, urinary incontinence (stress or urge), constipation or issues with bowel movements, painful intercourse, urinary frequency/urgency, pelvic organ prolapse (symptoms of heaviness/pressure), pelvic pain, postpartum return to exercise, diastasis recti, and more!

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think what is most helpful is to be passionate about helping people get better, no matter what it takes! Sometimes that mean referring to another provider who might be able to help them better than you can! I think it’s important to always have your patient’s best interest at the forefront and connecting them with other local providers that can also help them get better is key! A team approach is often needed and best in the population I work with and I love that we have such a community of providers here in Columbus that help the pregnant and postpartum population.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

I think the most effective strategy for growing my clientele has been networking with other local providers that also care for pregnant and postpartum women! This. has included local chiropractors, massage therapists, physicians, OB-GYNs and midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, yoga and fitness instructors, gym owners, local moms groups, and more!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.restorephysicaltherapy614.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/restore.physicaltherapy614/?hl=en
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/restore.physicaltherapy614
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdTQ1rbxyyIL82ppmxKDKgg

Image Credits
Photos By Emma Low Photography!