Direct Physical Therapy, LLC

Your direct source to wellness in the Tuscarawas County area. No insurance or referral needed!

I’m willing to bet that you or someone you know has had some kind of pain, injury, or physical limitation, which has led to a visit to the physician, urgent care, maybe even the hospital. Perhaps it’s overuse, poor posture, genetics, the aging process...whatever the cause, research has shown that physical therapy can likely improve the condition, and with an overall lower healthcare pricetag if the patient gets quick access to it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with what physical therapists do, in a nutshell, we are the experts in human movement and biomechanics. We are highly trained to detect movement dysfunction and correct it, and the profession has required for well over a decade now that the entry-level degree for a new graduate applying for state licensure is a (clinical) Doctorate degree, or DPT. I obtained mine in 2008 from the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, and a year later, returned with several classmates for a very rigorous week of post-graduate testing to earn a Manual Therapy Certification (MTC). Most, if not all states in the US now (Ohio included) allow for direct access to outpatient physical therapy services, meaning if you wanted to see a PT, you could do so without a physician referral. This was a HUGE WIN for the profession, because it allowed the patient to reach us earlier. The way we would get paid for our services was dependent upon the patient - did they want to pay out of pocket, or use their insurance? Unfortunately, many insurances (Medicare included) have delayed access to outpatient PT by requiring that the patient see a physician first (which means waiting for that appt, paying an office visit or copay, maybe undergoing some imaging - in many cases, unnecessary and very costly diagnostic testing - often in a different facility on a different day), then at times requiring a pre-authorization from their insurance once the physician wrote them a referral for PT...in the meantime, the patient is filling their pain meds at the pharmacy $$$ or maybe googling “best exercises for back pain” or “how to fix vertigo” and possibly worsening their condition....do you see where I’m going with this?? This is not to say that physicians can’t treat musculoskeletal issues - they simply just don’t have the TIME to spend fully assessing each patient’s movement patterns, as the insurance system has forced them to see more patients per day just to pay their bills (reimbursement continues to decline). The problem has trickled down to outpatient PT clinics as well, with clinicians also needing to treat more patients per day, and MANY organizations, to cut costs, have resorted to using PT’s solely to evaluate new patients and then hand them over to a PTA or athletic trainer for the remainder of their treatment sessions, who (depite their skillset) is often instructed by the organization to “run them through their exercises” like an assembly line to keep up productivity, and the PT may do a quick 10-15 min face-to-face “re-assessment” a few weeks in to decide whether to discharge or update a few goals and continue care. As a PT, I wanted more contact with my patients. Over my 12 years of experience as a clinician (about half of which was managerial viewing the breakdown of reimbursement, reducing staff to accommodate and approaching burnout myself), I realized that the in-network medical “system” of getting patients TO me for treatment and their insurance “managing their care” telling me what tests to perform (many of which had no relevance whatsoever to their problem) in order to ensure reimbursement for their therapy care, was NOT the environment I wanted to continue to work in for the remainder of my career. I could not continue to check their boxes and omit care that I KNEW the patient needed, just because their insurance capped their care. Ethically, it just was not sitting well with me because I felt in order to keep up productivity and keep the insurances happy, I had to give mediocre or non-specific “blanket treatment care.” Well guess what, none of our bodies move the same, and the state of Ohio does not require a referral to see a PT, so I am done dealing with insurances. (That said, my treatment sessions may be reimbursable should you choose to submit my bill to your insurance under your out-of-network benefits, and if your physician does give you a referral for PT, I would communicate your progress with him/her along the way). I would be more than happy to provide you with some care and tools to help you move better, with less pain, less need for medications, avoid or at least be able to postpone surgeries or injections, and increase your quality of life. I will not tell you to do 30 reps of the same exercise you did in your last session while I walk across the gym and treat another patient. Your care is 1:1. Always. No 2 sessions will be the same, I can promise that. And, no, you don’t have to schedule 2-3 times per week for a month. Virtual appts are also available, or maybe you’d prefer a combination of the 2. Together, we can decide what’s best for you. Come see me!

Dr. Cindy Lycans, DPT, MTC

Owner, Direct Physical Therapy, LLC