Case Studies on Embodia: Lorena, the Solo Pelvic Health Physical Therapist
By: Nataliya Zlotnikov MSc, HBSc
By: Nataliya Zlotnikov MSc, HBSc
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Meet Lorena
Lorena, a pelvic floor physical therapist, is getting ready to start her own solo practice. She is in the market for a comprehensive practice management system that can do it all: billing, online booking, charting, waitlist management, HEP and telerehab. She won’t have a clinic admin so she really needs a simple, all-in-one system.
Lorena also loves to travel but doesn’t want to stop doing what she loves just to travel. She wants to continue to earn an income and recently took a business course which encouraged students to build a passive income stream. This wasn’t something she thought she would be able to achieve as a physiotherapist, but the idea of passive income (as well as multiple revenue streams) is intriguing!
Doing some initial research on Google, Lorena came up with a wide range of practice management systems and felt overwhelmed by the choices and variation of costs.
She checked a few Facebook groups for recommendations and came up with a short list of systems to do a demo with.
Here are the features that stood out to her during the demo she did with Embodia:
Pelvic library of exercises
As a pelvic floor physical therapist, it is important for Lorena to be able to easily share high-quality pelvic exercises with her patients.
Embodia's large library of pelvic exercise videos with voiceovers, including content from Pelvic Health Solutions, Susan Clinton, Shelly Prosko, and Carolyn Vandyken was just what she needed.
She also loved that she can customize instructions, monitor progress, and access print-friendly versions of the video content.
And the most important part? Her patients love it!
Home exercise programs
She also got access to all the other non-pelvic exercise videos in the Embodia library, including orthopaedic and seniors' health exercises.
The simple tools to create her own library of exercises means she no longer needs to send her patients to YouTube. Finally, she loved that she has the option to record her patients performing their own exercises and share these videos privately with them. Being able to provide her patients with a professional dashboard of exercises that can all be tracked, monitored, and measured will be immensely helpful in improving outcomes!
The education library
Lorena knows that adherence to exercise programs and patient education go hand in hand. Being able to share educational content with patients via Embodia is an invaluable tool she will make use of. By sharing supportive educational content with her patients, she will reinforce what she taught in session.
Lorena especially loved the free pain science resource packages from Carolyn Vandyken that have a ton of sharable patient education, Resource Package - Pain Education for Patients, et en français: Trousse de Ressources - Éducation à la Douleur pour les Patients.
There were a few times she couldn't find the education items that she wanted to share, but that didn't stop her because Embodia gives her the ability to create her own education library, including text handouts and video tutorials.
Charting
Lorena dreaded charting (as most do!) and didn’t like how long charting used to take her. She noticed that Embodia's charting system is convenient and easy to use. She is able to customize her charts with pre-built chart items (e.g., SOAP notes, pelvic diagrams, repeated movement charts, and many more! , She can also build her own chart items.
The ability to ‘view responses from other entries’ means she can quickly and easily see what she wrote in her previous chart entries without the need to open additional browser pages or charts. She can also copy and paste past entries into her current chart, or duplicate entire chart notes.
The snippet feature creates shortcuts that let her automatically fill in long text by simply typing a few characters, like typing #lum to populate a fillable lumbar repeated movement chart.
Online booking
Without a clinic admin, it is crucial for Lorena to have a streamlined online booking system. Using Embodia’s online booking feature, Lorena is able to reduce the time she spends setting up appointments, boost her online presence, and increase new patient bookings.
Setting up her branding, including logo and colors, took only a few minutes and makes her online booking page professional and personalized to her brand.
She also chose to use the ‘Booking request feature’, which allows patients and potential patients to complete a simple form if they can’t find what they are looking for. She is notified when there are new booking requests and she can easily book interested patients or reach out for more information.
Flexibility in online booking
The flexibility in Embodia’s online booking system is a huge plus. Lorena customized her online bookings so that existing patients can book follow-up appointments; however, new patients have to contact her either by booking request or by calling.
She also chose to set up classes on Embodia. For these bookings, she selected to make it required to have payment information on booking. Plus, she set up a few package and membership options for her classes that patients can purchase right from her online booking page.
Questionnaires
Lorena saves a ton of time with Embodia's pre-built questionnaire templates including outcome measures, intake and consent forms. She built chose to build her d intake forms from a template by customizing the available templates and also makes her own questionnaires with Embodia's easy-to-follow, step-by-step help articles!
Embodia also has automatic scoring, so it is easy for both Lorena and her patients to keep track of change over time.
Here are some of the questionnaire templates on Embodia that Lorena uses regularly:
Digital diaries
Lorena discovered that Embodia offers digital bladder and fibre diaries, as well as the ability to build her own custom diaries!
She loves that she no longer has to ask her patients to carry a piece of paper with them to the bathroom or around with them all day!
The digital bladder diaries made this experience much more pleasant (and hygienic) for both Lorena and her patients.
Lorena uses custom diaries to create sleep diaries and stress diaries for her patients.
Simple billing
Lorena set up her billing and payment methods in just a few minutes. She chose to collect credit card payments directly on Embodia (via the Stripe integration) as well as email money transfer, cash, and cheque.
Superbills
Lorena is a cash-based physical therapist and therefore being able to generate Superbills was a must-have feature. She was able to quickly set up her default procedure codes for her services to save time on billing.
Telerehab
Lorena told us that she went to Tokyo and Beijing a month after signing up for Embodia and was able to see her patients while there!
Amazing!
Embodia offers 3 telerehab options:
Clinic Academy
Before starting her practice, Lorena has been teaching pre- and post-natal classes for some time. She’s had requests from pregnant people abroad who wanted to take her classes but couldn’t make the travel. With Clinic Academy, she is able to create both on-demand and live classes to broaden her reach, serve a greater population with her expertise, and earn a passive income.
Reporting feature
Embodia's reporting feature has been helping Lorena figure out what is working and where she can improve in her practice.
A few of the reports she has found most helpful include:
- Clients who haven't rebooked
- Account receivable
- Revenue
- Booked appointments
- Clinical cases stats
- Patient charts stats
- Patient properties
The patient portal
Last but not least, the Embodia patient portal where Lorena's patients are able to easily access everything she shares with them including exercises, education, diaries, invoices, and questionnaires.
Her patients can also pay their invoices from their secure portal.
Embodia's patient app allows for reminders and gathers feedback. Her patients feel motivated to adhere to their program and they love that they can track how much they are doing, how they feel, and where they’re getting stuck. Lorena can easily respond to notes and messages from patients, improving outcomes and their PT experience!
“Recovering from multiple pelvic fractures was a painful, slow process. The Embodia app made it less lonely. The friendly exercise time reminders and progress tracker helped me feel linked to my physiotherapist. It was encouraging.”
-Heather Miller, Patient
Where you can learn more about Embodia's Practice Management System
Ultimately Lorena chose Embodia’s Practice Management System because it offers everything she is looking for, along with a few unexpected extras including opportunities for passive income.
To learn more about Embodia’s practice management system, visit this page. If you’d like to schedule a time to meet with us for a demo, click here.