We recently connected with Krista Covell-Pierson and have shared our conversation below.
Krista, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job?
One of the most important lessons I learned at my previous employer was the value of taking care of your team members. I was blessed with three incredible mentors at my first job after college. They took me under their wings and helped me more than I realized in the moment. One of my supervisors always made a considerable effort to form genuine relationships with her team members. She made me feel supported, cared for and important. I wanted to work hard for her and I was excited to tell her my successes. Her ability to listen to me empowered me as a leader in training. Two of my other colleagues worked as a physical therapist and a speech therapist. They were more seasoned than I was but they took time to teach me the “why” behind why we did things a certain way. This helped me to understand the big picture of a person’s care in a more dynamic way. Some of the lessons my mentors provided me are things I continue to teach to others nearly 20 years later. These early lessons have helped shape me into the leader I am now. I am dedicated to supporting people, making them feel valued, helping them grow from where they are at and taking time to invest in their growth.
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.
As an occupational therapist working in inpatient rehab centers and nursing facilities, I fell in love working with patients. I became extremely invested in their lives, goals, and families. When we would discharge a patient home from our care I believed home care agencies would take the baton from our team and continue to carry their care forward as robustly as we did, but simply at home. As I evolved in my profession, I worked in home care and discovered that due to insurance restrictions and the industry, patient did not receive as many services as I thought they did. I also learned some patients didn’t receive any services at all because they didn’t qualify due to not being “home-bound.” I started working with a neuropsychologist with patients in the home that didn’t fit the normal profile of a home health patient. We worked with patients living with cognitive impairments and these folks often fall through the cracks of our healthcare system. After months passed, I started receiving more referrals for patients needing assessments at home for a variety of reasons. My patient load grew. I became credentialed with insurance and discovered if I set up my business as a private practice, I could still see patients at home but without the red tape of a traditional homecare agency. More and more patients came to me needing things like home assessments, training with activities of daily living, pain management, low vision training and more. I expanded the business to offer additional services such physical and speech therapy, counseling and fitness training. Our mobile outpatient model is not mainstream healthcare yet but we are seeing it more and more all the time. It’s a labor of love for me and I am excited about the future.
Have you ever had to pivot?
As most people experienced during the spring of 2020 when our world experienced a global pandemic, Covell Care had to pivot quickly to accommodate for the changes in the industry and social distancing. We reduced patient care significantly in order to isolate people and reduce the spread of COVID. Our patients are generally medically compromised and when we didn’t understand the virus we were dealing with, we had to ensure they were safe. We also started calling all of our patients to ensure they had food, toiletries and more because many of them can’t leave the house easily and don’t have support. Not only did we reduce care, but that also reduced our income significantly. I had to furlough staff and work quickly to ensure we could stay ahead of the drop in income. Luckily, our national organizations helped therapy services become reimbursable via telehealth which is a silver lining of the pandemic. It will hopefully stay in place as an option for patients because it’s allowed us to help hundreds of patients that can otherwise not receive services. It’s a provision we have worked into our culture now and hopefully can continue to do so.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
In order to build our reputation, my team and I commit to excellence every single day. Not only do we work hard to create great outcomes for patients, but we also lean on our moral compass when making decisi0ns. When the going gets tough. we always do what we think is right–even if that means financially it will make a negative impact. We also practice kindness and patience. We work together with all kinds of people, and we collaborate with them as best we can to mutually serve patients. I believe the secret to building a solid reputation is to not worry about the reputation too much and just do really good work. That stands the test of time, it shows you have what it takes and you practice what you preach.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.covellcare.com
- Instagram: kristacovellpierson
- Facebook: Krista Covell-Pierson or Covell Care and Rehabilitation
- Linkedin: Krista Covell-Pierson, OTR