Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Gabbert.
Hi Amy, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started Gabbert Clinic by myself, working as the sole therapist, the medical biller, the receptionist, the marketer, etc. I did everything in the beginning from a very small one-room office. But I found some doctors in the area who needed a certified hand therapist to refer their patients to and my caseload grew very rapidly. I hired a receptionist (who is now our amazing office manager) and another therapist and moved into a larger suite. This all happened within the first year of opening. Now, four years in, we are in an even larger office with 6 therapists, two administrators, and myself.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Building any business is never a smooth road and building an insurance-based healthcare business in this day and age is probably one of the bumpiest roads. One of the biggest struggles was figuring out exactly what each insurance company wants for us in order to get paid. Each insurance company wants things very differently- they want prior-authorization requested through a specific website, they want it requested at a specific time, they want us to bill our services in a specific way, etc. Figuring this all out for each insurance company while also providing top quality treatment and customer service was a lot in the beginning! And it’s honestly still a lot, as insurance companies still change the hoops we must jump through all the time without even telling us! Fortunately now I have an amazing team that helps manage this.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are an occupational therapy clinic and we specialize in hand therapy, which means we treat the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand. We also have one neuro therapist who treats conditions like stroke and concussion, but our bread and butter is hand therapy. There are only about 6000 certified hand therapists in the world. To become a certified hand therapist, you must have a master’s or doctorate degree in occupational or physical therapy, have 4000 hours of direct hand therapy practice, and must pass an exam that has a 50% pass rate. Certified hand therapists truly are the experts in figuring out what is causing someone’s pain or dysfunction and getting real results. We treat each patient as an individual because the right treatment for one patient is not necessary the right treatment for another patient, even if they technically have the same diagnosis. Because truly healing people is not an exact science. We are much more complicated than that, and in my experience, simply following protocols without a deep understanding of how we heal does not yield good results. At Gabbert Clinic, we take great pride in treating our patients with warmth and welcome, which is not always the case in modern healthcare. Our patients feel seen, listened to, and cared about when they walk in our doors. We have an amazing team of very talented and compassionate therapists and administrators who work extremely hard to ensure that every patient gets the absolute best care possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gabbertclinic.com
- Instagram: gabbertclinicvancouverwa
