Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris West,Trevor and Darcy Pace.
Pace West Physical Therapy is a successful merger of two previously well known and loved physical therapy practices in Boulder, Colorado. Pace Therapy PC, established in 1996, was owned by Darcy and Trevor Pace. It was a collaboration of state of the art physical therapy treatments and healing arts modalities. For many years Chris West was co-owner of the very well known Coreance Physical Therapy and then in 2009 opened West Therapies LLC in 2009. The magic that is Pace West Physical Therapy began when the three owners joined forces in July of 2011.
Not only did the three owners share a common vision of how best to deliver the highest quality of patient care, they quickly realized that the combination of what each brought to the table was a fortunate blend of complementary skills and personality traits needed to create a seamless transition into building a clinic like no other.
In addition to staying at the forefront of clinical expertise, each of us has taken over different aspects of the day to day operations. Trevor took over the business administration and holds us true to our vision. Darcy took on the human relations role and tends to to a variety of communications and marketing tasks. Chris took over facilities, insurance contracts and clinical staff training.
Chris and Trevor share a similar treatment style utilizing manual therapy, trigger point dry needling and functional corrective exercise. Darcy has a strong background in functional movement and successfully uses her expertise in yoga, Foundation Training, ergonomics and body mechanics to treat her clients. The clinic currently employs seven physical therapists, three massage therapists and an amazing front office staff of three.
Has it been a smooth road?
One struggle we face is working in an insurance-based healthcare system, a system that is essentially broken. This current insurance model promotes and rewards high production and lower quality therapy by generally paying capitated rates. This means that we get paid the same amount no matter what services we provide or who provides them ( skilled or unskilled staff).
Another challenge we faced was the one that came with not being willing to compromise on the quality of care we give. We have the best front office staff a clinic could have, we have the longest treatments one on one with a therapist in town, our staff are filled with compassion and presence on top of their high level of clinical expertise, and the atmosphere our team creates is friendly and inviting enhancing the healing outcome. This means we have a clinic with tighter profit margins but more satisfied patients. We also discovered that by offering valuable and complementary cash-based services we could help to offset the “production loss” of operating with such high standards.
Other struggles have included a lack of business knowledge that I feel all medical providers have. We all went to school for a long time to acquire our expertise. Very little of what we learned had anything to do with running a business. We are consulting with and learning from experts in the business world with respect to running the “numbers” and ensuring that we are not delusional with our understanding of how our business is doing.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Pace West Physical Therapy – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
People often comment on the warm environment we have created at Pace West PT. We hear over and over again from satisfied customers who have not only rehabilitated their injuries successfully and learned a great deal about how to take care of themselves but also have found a new extended family to count on for future needs.
What makes us shine clinically is our one on one treatment philosophy, an experienced and well-trained therapy staff, dedication to cutting edge trends in recovery such as Functional Dry Needling, Blood flow restriction training, classes in Healthy Yoga and Foundations Training, Therapeutic Neuroscience Training for chronic pain conditions all provided in a comfortable, inviting environment. We are known by many in the community as the clinic with the reputation of getting the “harder and more complex” patient better when they have not succeeded with other therapies.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Boulder has, what we consider to be, an ideal population to treat if you are a physical therapist. In general, they are motivated to get better and return to an active lifestyle. We are many times holding our clients back from overdoing their corrective exercises whereas in other communities a big part of the therapist’s job might be motivating the patient to even do their exercises.
The city is growing fast and the population is diversifying. This is very exciting for us at pace West PT. Most therapists in Boulder want to exclusively treat the high level athletes. Of Course we adore our athletes too, but we love the increased diversity we are seeing with more of the tech workers and the aging population. We have to stay on top of our game to keep up with the different approaches to take with all of these different patient populations.
Boulder is an awesome place to live and own a P.T. practice!
Contact Info:
- Address: 1800 30th Street, Suite 215
Boulder, CO
80301 - Website: PaceWestPT.com
- Phone: 303-546-9201
- Email: info@pacewestpt.com
- Instagram: pacewestpt
- Facebook: pacewestpt
- Yelp: pacewestpt
Image Credit:
trevor pace
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