WBE Feature – Women’s Month & Stress Awareness: On-Site Physical Therapy

Intro: [00:00:11] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion, brought to you by WBEC West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women in Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we have Dr. Christine McCallum with McCallum Physical Therapy,P.C. Welcome.

Christine McCallum: [00:00:53] Hi. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How you serving folks?

Christine McCallum: [00:01:00] So my company provides physical therapy and injury prevention services at company locations. So we set up a clinic so their workers have easy access to care and services.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Christine McCallum: [00:01:18] Well, I was kind of tired of the insurance model in which you have to prove over and over to get paid less and less, essentially, and treat more and more patients to match your bottom line. And so I stumbled upon a clinic that served an employer, uh, alcohol, uh, producer. And so I went to work for their, uh, for them. And then I branched out on my own.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:48] And then did you find that certain companies or industries are more open to this?

Christine McCallum: [00:01:56] Yeah, definitely. So, not exclusively, but companies that have a lot of manual labor, uh, companies that do production and fabrication where the employees really are stuck to their job, they can’t leave for an hour appointment. They’re working hard, and might be in an underserved community, like, socioeconomically. It’s really a great place to provide these services.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:27] So how does it work when you meet with the company and you explain this to them, is it something that they’ve heard of before, or is this a new thing when you start working with a company?

Christine McCallum: [00:02:40] Well, it’s not new. The military has proven this model since the Vietnam War, and BTS are in every unit in the military. So,it seems unusual, I think, to companies in the main sector. So companies that are self-funded, meaning they pay for their own insurance claims, they’re very interested in trying to keep their bottom line down for health care costs. And so, I can promote injury prevention services, I can promote decreased portables, decreased worker’s comp claims, but also improved employee health and awareness of their health. And so those are the kind of the cost, uh, items that I mentioned. And I work directly with the employers, so we don’t go through any insurance, there’s no insurance reimbursement. We just talk about how many hours they might need on site. And that’s what we contract for.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:39] And then is it something that they know that. Okay, Chris and her team are there every Tuesday and Thursday, or they come on a regular rhythm.

Christine McCallum: [00:03:48] Yes, exactly. We usually have a regular rhythm because the employees, it helps them to see you there on a regular basis. There’s a little bit of a learning curve, usually for the employees, but once they figure out what physical therapy can do for them, which is just not an acre of pain, but help them get the care they needed. You’re pretty busy most of the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] Now, can you explain? I mean, physical therapy? I guess people hear that word and maybe they are unclear on what it means. Like what does it mean in this context?

Christine McCallum: [00:04:22] So physical therapists are educated at a doctoral level, and we are positioned to be the first provider for any pain issues, minor health issues and musculoskeletal issues. And that’s just discounting any of the injury prevention and ergonomics. So a physical therapist, if you have a headache, a physical therapist is appropriate to screen you for something that might be more serious and they would refer you out, or to determine if it’s a tension headache or coming from your jaw or something like that. So,if you think about going to a primary care physician, usually they’re going to refer you out without much actual care. And a physical therapist can provide you with some care. And if you need to be referred out, we we know when that is.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:15] And can you also, like give me homework, like if I have like a lower back pain, can you say, you know, what do these stretches every evening before you go to bed or something like that as well.

Christine McCallum: [00:05:28] Yes. Great question. Ultimately, physical therapists, we want you to walk away with tools to manage your own condition. And we are movement specialists. So we’re going to help determine why you are not moving well, why you don’t feel well. And we’re going to get we’re going to help you do the right things and send you off independently, so that you don’t need us over and over.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:54] And now, is there a story you can share? Maybe that kind of maybe an anecdote? Obviously don’t name the person, but can you explain like a reason that they came to you and then some things that you recommended that helped them get on a better track?

Christine McCallum: [00:06:11] Sure. Yeah, absolutely. A very dramatic story is someone that I knew from the workplace. I had seen them walking around and interacted with them, and they were going on vacation the next day, and they had a pain in one of their muscles in their back. And so, we talked about that, the person they started mentioning some other symptoms, like. A little bit of blurred vision and some other things. Found out that they had had a ski crash eight weeks prior with a helmet on. As it turned out, the issue that this person needed help with was they had a small bleed in their brain. So but their the fact that they could come to me because they had this rib pain or this muscle pain, and then I found this other thing might have saved their life. And so we got them the care they needed. They’re doing fine. They’re back to work. But if they had not had access to health care at their work site, they probably would have ignored it. And it could have been a very bad outcome.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:14] And that’s really where the value of this. I would think the value comes in a couple of fronts. One is you’re going to share information to help them be proactive with their health. Number one, but also you can triage these things that in real life, if this wasn’t there, like you said, they’d ignore it or they’d push it off to, oh, well, you know, I go every year to a doctor, so I’ll wait till then to mention it. And, and they could be missing out in an opportunity to really improve their health. If they kind of dealt with it sooner than later.

Christine McCallum: [00:07:47] Yes, absolutely. On both fronts. You know, sometimes a musculoskeletal issue, it just takes one session and a stretch or two to get somebody feeling better and moving better to avoid something that you classify as an injury. And on that same front, people can’t leave their job if they’re on a some kind of production line. And if they do leave their job for a medical appointment, they are not getting paid. So then the company loses money, the employee loses money, so they just don’t go. And so having that access, telling them you need to go see a doctor because I think it’s this or I can help you come today, come tomorrow, and you’ll feel better, you know, in a few days. So.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:31] This must be such a rewarding work because you see the results, because you’re there all the time of your work pretty quickly, where a lot of people are in your field, you know they treat someone. They may never see them again.

Christine McCallum: [00:08:43] Oh yeah. Totally. I mean, I have patients that I have employee friends I would say that I’ve saw years ago, and I see them and their kids are in high school now, and it’s so awesome. One to help people to, to really know their whole, um, social structure and to have a relationship with them. It’s super rewarding.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:04] Now, recently you published a book. Can you talk a little bit about your book, the on site physical therapist direct to employer care?

Christine McCallum: [00:09:12] Yeah, absolutely. The reason I published this book, wrote and published this book is. During the pandemic. I really understood how underserved our essential workers are, because I was in some of those places where people were working, or 15 or 18 hours a day. And I really wanted more BTS to understand that this is a viable practice model. Most recently, I learned that the average career for a physical therapist once they graduate from school is five years because they get burnt out, and that burnout comes from super high patient volumes. They might have to see 15 patients a day. And then the pay scale is certainly not going up at the rate that they would expect. Insurance reimbursement is going down. So, you have to see more patients to make your clinic profitable. And none of those things are relevant when you’re providing direct to employer care. Every patients can see a physical therapist in every state of in the US without a physician prescription. So there’s no barrier there. The reason you have to get a prescription when you use insurance is because the insurance requires it. Well that’s silly. Your primary care doctor is not going to help you with a biceps strain, and you’ve just wasted time and money. So we’re direct to employer care really takes away all of those barriers. And I really want to know that this works well and it’s super rewarding. It’s a bit more lucrative than working in a clinic. Everybody wins.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:58] Now, what was the process like writing a book that seems pretty overwhelming, especially, you know, you have a full time job running a company. So how did you how did you make that happen? Can you share a little bit about that for the folks who might be considering writing their own book?

Christine McCallum: [00:11:13] Sure. Yeah. It would not be written if I hadn’t hired a book coach. And I happen to have a friend who is a book coach. And so she told me what she could do for me. And essentially, we had multiple conversations about what this book was about, what my goals were. And she we developed an outline together. And so she kept that process moving. And so then I went to self publishing, and I chose a company where you can select what you need. Do I need editing? No. Do I need proofreading? Yes. And then they work. They provide the distribution services for you, and I get to keep all the rights to the book, which was important to me. When you go through a standard publisher, you don’t. Your royalties are pretty low. But the bigger thing is you don’t get to keep your content. So get a book coach, do a lot of research, and I would utilize self publishing. That’d be my recommendation. But do it. It was fun.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:19] Now, what was the like time commitment? Like, how much time were you spending on this every day? Is it something that you were like, okay, every morning I’m going to spend an hour writing, or how did you fit into your schedule?

Christine McCallum: [00:12:32] Well, I think I think the book coach helped with that. I because I’m my own boss and I have two, two clinics, two different companies. I could ask one of the employees to work another day or another half day a week, and then that would give me time at home to do some writing. But, you know, there’s a lot of nighttime and weekend writing as well. So but being your own boss is kind of nice to have that, uh, schedule flexibility.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:59] So you just fit it in when you could fit it in. But your coach was holding you accountable to so much production over a certain period of time.

Christine McCallum: [00:13:06] Yeah, yeah, it was a little looser than that. But every now and then I’d get, get a, you know, an email. How’s chapter three going? I got you know, so.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:16] So now in your business, is there any, uh, events or anything coming up that you’d like to talk about?

Christine McCallum: [00:13:25] Wwell, I’ll be at the Webbank conference in two weeks. Super excited about that. Get to see all my lady wives. I don’t have anything else coming up. We just finished the National Conference for Physical Therapy that was in Boston, and we did some book promo there and lots of networking with people in direct to employer care and occupational health, which is occupational health, is what we would what we call working with employees. It’s not just workers comp, but it aligns well with total worker health. So, I have an employee going on a paternity leave, so I’ll be doing some extra clinic work, which is great because I love being in the clinic, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:10] Now, can you, uh, share with our listeners why it was important to you to get involved with WBEC West? And how has that organization helped you?

Christine McCallum: [00:14:20] Well, it was important to me, on a couple of different fronts. When I first started this business eight years ago, I really needed some mentorship and I needed a community. And I certainly got that from some of the local courses that I took with wBEC West. One being, how to become a platinum supplier and working on procurement and understanding that, but we ended up with a little, I’ll just call it a little posse. And so we reach out to each other if we had a question and, you know, all different industries, but we were all in it together because we’d taken these courses. Supplier diversity is very important to me. And, and I’m understanding now how important it is to a lot of companies. And so to be able to get into that pipeline and make some great connections to help business has been invaluable as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:18] Now, can you talk a little bit about your ideal customer who would be a good fit? A perfect fit for you as a client?

Christine McCallum: [00:15:29] The company would be a company that really cares about employee health. It’s not just something that they write on a piece of paper and has employees that are less likely to seek care or to seek help and, and need some education on what good health and what feeling good and what working good is. The company might have some problems with presenteeism or some higher worker’s comp costs related to musculoskeletal issues. And again, it could be, you know, it could be anything in production or warehousing or transportation or manual labor construction. Those are all very viable places that I might seek out.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] Now, is it are some symptoms that an organization might want to have a conversation with you? Uh, like if a lot of workman’s comp issues are coming up or they have some absenteeism, uh, are those kind of symptoms that, hey, maybe we ought to have somebody come in here and be on site.

Christine McCallum: [00:16:39] Yes, yes for sure. So people that have aches and pains that they don’t know why they have them. A lot of retention issues. Presenteeism. I think probably more than absenteeism and presenteeism being that their productivity just isn’t great and the morale is kind of trickling down from someone that’s not happy. They might might be unhappy because they don’t feel well or because they don’t feel cared for. And being on site allows, allows them to feel cared for, and then they understand that the company is on their side.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:17] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What is the best way to get a hold of you?

Christine McCallum: [00:17:27] Two ways. My website is MacCallumpt.com. Or they can email me directly at chris@maccallum.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:40] And MacCallum is MacCallumpt.com.

Christine McCallum: [00:17:46] You got it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:47] Well Chris thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Christine McCallum: [00:17:53] Thank you. I love doing the work and I’m super happy you asked me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:57] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.