We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kim Garcia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kim, appreciate you joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

I had a patient, who I still communicate with to this day, who had COPD, and blacked out while riding her scooter. The scooter fell on her and crushed her right tibia (just below her knee), and her right ulna (at her elbow). When I met her, she could not even reach the ground to put her right foot down, and hadn’t put weight on her leg since her injury (~4 months) due to weight-bearing precautions from her surgeon. After working with her to get her through some difficult set-backs including blood clots, and infection in her knee, she is now back to living life, gardening without a wheelchair, walking without even a cane, and has even been able to go canoeing. It has been a long journey, and I am proud to have played my part. It warms my heart that she has gotten her life back.

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.

I chose Physical Therapy as my career when I was a senior in high school. I had participated in gymnastics recreationally, and had a patellar tracking issue with my knee that made it painful to walk. With physical therapy, I was able to heal my knee and no longer have that issue. After school, I worked for Baptist Desoto in the acute care setting and then in inpatient rehab, and learned so much about treating patients in the acute phase after injury, but wanted to be able to develop a relationship with my patients and see them progress through the rehab process.

Outpatient therapy has always been my dream, so when the opportunity came to go to work for an outpatient clinic, I jumped on it! Initially I loved it, but soon realized that with declining insurance reimbursement, many clinics require therapists to see 2-4 patients every hour! That did not allow me the chance to treat my patients the way that I felt they deserved and really address the issues that they were there to address, as I was rushing between patients all day.

When I heard about the nationwide movement of therapists who were going out of network with insurance so they could contract directly with their patient and provide the care that the PATIENT needed rather than what the INSURANCE dictated, I knew this was for me and started planning. When COVID shut down the world, I put my plans on hold while I worked in home health. Home health allowed me to develop a relationship with my patients, and spend the whole time with each patient, but I found myself limited in what I could provide due to insurance limitations. This lead to increasing burnout and frustration in my career.

I opened TAG Physical Therapy as a CashPT practice and started treating patients the way THEY want to be treated. Many times I am able to see patients once a week and make the same progress in 1 session per week that I was making in 2-3 sessions per week before. I have noticed that when the patient makes their health a priority and pays their own hard-earned money for their therapy, they are more likely to actually do their home exercises. Therefore, I get much more motivated patients who truly want to improve, rather than people who were only coming to therapy because the doctor sent them and weren’t really invested in the process.

At TAG Physical Therapy, I do not utilize the assistance of technicians, and I am able to be present with my patients throughout their entire treatment session one-on-one. Therefore, if you are not doing an exercise correctly, I will identify it immediately and make sure you are doing it correctly. I typically start with some manual intervention and then progress to adding exercises. I will give you a home exercise program that you can do to manage symptoms or to strengthen your muscles between sessions. Then we can progress it during your next visit. Between sessions, if you have any issues or concerns, you are welcome to call or text and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When my daughter was born in 2018 and I was unable to work >50 hours/week in a traditional outpatient clinic and stay late to finish notes after running around all day with 2-3 patients every hour, I had to make the difficult decision to leave outpatient therapy for a job in home health. Home health provided a better work-life balance and allowed me more flexibility to be able to schedule around family needs. It also allowed me to see my patients one-on-one. My time in home health served me well in learning to motivate a patient who has hit rock bottom to help them through a very difficult time in their life and get them back to functioning.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

If I could go back, I would still choose to be a physical therapist. I LOVE the patient care aspect of my career. However, the paperwork is horrendous and only getting worse! The more insurance dictates, the more paperwork you have to do. Knowing what I know now, I would have started TAG earlier to avoid the burnout and frustrations from my early career.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tagphysicaltherapy.com
• Instagram: Tag_physicaltherapy901
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TAGPhysicalTherapy901

Image Credits
Carlos Garcia