Physical Therapy

A physical therapist is a highly educated movement specialist, often obtaining a Masters or Doctorate degree and has passed a national licensing exam in order to legally practice.  We are able to diagnose and treat movement and postural dysfunctions related to injuries that are affecting your daily activities.

We use techniques that help the body heal along it’s designed path instead of using pharmaceuticals, surgery, injections or invasive procedures. 

Some of the techniques that we use include soft tissue mobilization (fancy word for getting tissue moving properly), joint mobilization, postural correction, muscle movement retraining, and prescribed homework to help facilitate and expedite your healing process. 

Furthermore we are very preventative in our philosophy.  We do not ONLY want you to heal from your injury but hope you’ll understand what you need to do to avoid a future injury.

We come to you:  As a concierge based physical therapy we come to your home and bring the equipment you need with us.  This allows us to treat you in the comfort of your own home and tailor the treatment plan to fit your needs.  Many people wonder if they do not go into a clinic if they’ll miss out on the use of the equipment, however most of the equipment is not necessary and in fact you cannot bring the equipment home with you between treatments.  It is important that you have everything you need at home so you can engage in the home program.  We’ll find clever ways to use what you have or recommend cost prohibitive solutions to ensure your plan can be properly executed at home.

Hands On:  There are very few cases that do not require some degree of targeted hands on treatment.  This could include soft tissue work, joint mobilization, postural correction, motor retraining and many other tactile based treatments (see treatment technique explanations for details on these). 

The Time You Deserve:  Our treatments are one on one and you will not be passed off to an aide or another therapist.  Our initial visits and follow up visits are 60 minutes.  While many clinics offer 40-60 minute treatments, many times the therapist is balancing their time between multiple patients or will need to pass you off to an aid to manage getting all of the treatments completed.  We do not have that pressure and therefore can spend a lot more time listening to your needs and giving you the treatment you deserve.  Ultimately this can lead to fewer treatments needed and a faster recovery saving you time and money.      

First Appointment (Initial Evaluation): The initial visit will involve a thorough evaluation where we’ll have a lot of time to discuss the nature of the injury and what areas of your life are being most impacted.  We’ll learn more about your medical history and any other factors that may be influencing the healing process.  Then we’ll dig in and perform a hands on assessment along with diagnostic tests to determine where your pain is coming from and any related dysfunctions that might be near or even far away from the site of pain. 

We’ll use the information gleaned from the evaluation to start straight away with treatment and discuss what home activities you’ll need to do between sessions (don’t worry we’ll give you written instructions)

We’ll be able to discuss your prognosis (rate of success that PT is going to help) and answer any other questions you may have.   

Follow Up Visits:  Follow up visits will involve continued treatment techniques as needed to restore joint and tissue health and an update to your home plan.  Ideally each visit you’ll be able to progress closer to your desired goals!  

The number of follow up visits can vary depending on the severity of your injury, your health and numerous other factors.  

Soft Tissue Mobilization: This is a HANDS ON technique that involves getting your muscles, connective tissue, tendons and nerves moving the way they should.  Sometimes we’ll use our hands, sometimes we’ll use special tools but the end goal is the same, restore movements and tissue health. 

Joint Mobilization: Sometimes connective tissue around a joint and the joint surface itself can change after injury or immobilization (such as after wearing a cast, or prolonged rest).  We use targeted HANDS ON stretching of these tissues to help restore their normal movements. 

Motor Retraining: Also described as neuromuscular re-education, this is a process by which we try to retrain natural motor programs that you’re body requires for activities of daily life.  Many times after injury we can develop habits and faulty muscle patterns we don’t even realize we’re doing.  We use hands on tactile feedback to retrain these vital motor programs.  Many times there is a proper progression to facilitate the retraining process, otherwise it can be very challenging to delete a faulty motor program. 

Gait Training: Or walking training.  This is a close cousin to motor retraining listed above.  Sometimes your injury will require walking differently while things heal.  There are proper ways to do this to avoid injuring other parts of your body.  Also, as your body heals there will be an appropriate time to start retraining normal walking without the use of aides such as crutches, walkers, canes and the like, but timing is key and feedback is important to ensure you do not create a faulty motor programs or bad habit.

Postural Correction: Your grandma was right!  Sit up straight!  Your posture has a major influence on the way you move, the health of your joints and tissues and aiding in the healing process after an injury.  Posture can change slowly over time based on daily habits and life routines.  Many times people are not aware of the impact it’s having on their body and how it might be setting them up for an injury, or delaying the healing process.  Physical Therapists have a trained eye and keen hands for detecting these changes in posture and rerouting the healing process or staving off injury altogether. 

Therapeutic Exercise: We commonly find muscles that are weak, too active, tight, not tight enough, poor circulation or just lots of metabolic buildup (crud) that needs to be addressed.  The exercises and stretches we provide are geared towards addressing these issues and are commonly given as homework on the days when you’re not coming in for therapy.  Many times people will compensate and cheat their exercises to avoid discomfort or make them easier.  We are really good at watching and making sure you’re doing them right so that you get better faster!

Functional Movement Training: Or ergonomics training.  This is where all the work of the above treatment techniques plays out into what matters most to you, how you move!  If you have poor soft tissue mobility, joint mobility, postural control, strength and motor control you’re not going to be able to move well without some kind of compensation.  This is where we put all those nuts and bolts together and start creating beautifully honed motor programs that will facilitate healing and reduce possible re-injury.  

Just a taste:  This is just a quick taste of some of the more commonly used treatment techniques.  

Out of Network: Solid Rock Physical Therapy does not participate with any insurance plans.  This DOES NOT mean that you cannot still receive reimbursement for your medical expenses from your insurance company, it simply means that the services we provide will be considered out of network.  We can provide a super-bill of our services that you can submit to your insurance and receive reimbursement or credit towards your deductible.   

Why Out of Network: There are a number of reasons why we’ve decided not to participate with insurance.  I’ll try to break down the reasons below, but in a nutshell it means we can provide better care at lower cost to you. 

1. Quality of Care: Treating out of network means that we do not have to deal with the red tape that insurance often imposes.  We can treat what we need to treat without having to jump through hoops.  This means we can give you the treatment you need faster and get you back to living pain free sooner!  
2. Lower Cost to You:  This one often puzzles people because it’s not intuitive to NOT use your in-network benefits.  The truth is many insurance plans have high deductibles and co-payments that need to be met and paid for physical therapy services.  So even when you’re in-network you’re going to be paying the bill until the deductible is met and even after it’s met there still can be high co-payments.  The in network cost for an evaluation can be several hundred dollars and that does not include treatment.  Follow up visits can be a couple hundred dollars.  Compound that with the fact that you get less time with your therapist and it simply means you’re going to need more visits to get the job done.  That is going to require more time and more money to get the results you need.  Many times we’re able to see patients one time per week where in the clinic “in-network” model we would need two visits per week to get the same amount of care delivered.  Lower cost treatments+less visits needed=healthcare savings for you!   
3. Overhead: One thing many patients do not realize is the high cost with collecting from insurance companies.  Insurance companies play a game of denying claims even when all of the information is there, meaning that the therapists have to spend extra time collecting or the service needs to be farmed out.  This extra cost in time means there needs to be more treatments per day to make ends meet.  We do not have to worry about that pressure!

No high deductible plan: Even if you do not have a high deductible plan your insurance still may reimburse you for out of network services (sometimes up to 80%).  This means it still may be cheaper to pay for out of network services at Solid Rock.    

Summary: By remaining out of network we have set ourselves up to offer the best possible care without having to feel rushed through the treatment.  The more time we’re able to spend helping you develop a plan means we’re going to need fewer visits to get the job done and it’s going to cost you less money!

If you have any questions please contact us so we can help!

Washington is a direct access state for physical therapists.  This means that legally you DO NOT need to have a physician referral in order to see a licensed physical therapist.  

However some insurance companies may require a physician referral in order for you to receive reimbursement or credit towards your deductible.

Contact your insurance company to find out what they require.  If you’d like we can also help you look into it, just give us a call! 

At Solid Rock there are no hidden fees or surprise medical bills that you’ll receive 3 months after care has finished.  You simply pay as services are delivered.  Check out why we’re a cash pay, out of network practice, in the “Do you accept my insurance” tab above and how that means we can provide better care for you!

Payment: We appreciate cash or check however we DO accept all major forms of payment including cash, check, credit cards, FSA and HSA cards. 

We request that payments are made at each appointment and we will provide an invoice of the services delivered for your records and for you to submit to your insurance company if desired.   

Pricing:

• Initial Evaluation (60-75 minutes): $225.00 
• Follow Up Visit (60 minutes): $180.00
• (For more information on what is included in these services see “The Solid Rock Experience” above)

You can contact us at (253)987-6251 or click here to send us an email message with some of your information.  We’ll get in touch with you quickly, so we can learn more about your specific concerns, answer your questions and setup your initial appointment!