While expanding their rehab space, Clifton Rehab Nursing Center in Somerset, MA saw an unmet need in the marketplace for an aquatic therapy pool. Since installing their SwimEx 1000 T with an integrated treadmill, they’ve seen business increase. This question and answer session with Lori Frechette, Clifton’s rehab director, demonstrates how a hydrotherapy pool can increase your ROI.
Q: How do you use your aquatic therapy pool?
A: For one-on-one PT sessions and some OT on occasion. We bill as individual treatment minutes. Currently about 25% of our overall therapy sessions are pool treatment visits. Our clients come from both our skilled nursing facility and outpatient.
Q: How does hydrotherapy help your patients?
A: Aquatic therapy is a wonderful modality that allows patients to get relief faster. We’re able to see patients who would not be able to tolerate land therapy but they can use the pool. This is especially true if people have a lot of pain that makes a land-based program not possible. One of the major benefits of the pool is that it enables us to access a different patient population.
Q: Why SwimEx?
A: We visited quite a few facilities with other pool brands to assess each one in action. We preferred the smooth and wide current in the SwimEx pool over other pools that use jets. We liked the pool’s multiple treatment stations and how we would be able to accommodate several patients at once. We also liked that SwimEx builds their pools in the USA. After all of our research, the SwimEx 1000 T pool met all of our needs.
Q: How has your SwimEx therapy pool helped from a business standpoint?
A: It allows us to provide a unique form of treatment – there is no one else in our market offering aquatic therapy and there aren’t any other pools in the area that rival the SwimEx. Having the pool has definitely helped our marketing. People are referred here specifically for aquatic therapy. The pool enables us to capture more outpatient therapy cases. This is especially helpful in the current healthcare climate that is compartmentalized with different practices and hospital-based groups. Offering aquatic therapy allows us access to patients we otherwise might not get.
Q: Has your SwimEx helped create additional revenue streams?
A: Yes. For example, a local orthopedic surgeon sends most of his post-op shoulder patients to us for initial physical therapy treatments for their range of motion. He has been very pleased with the outcomes he sees from using the SwimEx. He says his patients do better with the passive ROM when it’s done in the SwimEx. The combination of buoyancy and warm water helps patients relax more. They achieve a better outcome tolerating the necessary postoperative ROM as opposed to being stretched in the clinic setting.
Our SwimEx pool is most definitely a good return on our investment.
Also, see our assistance for helping you design a hydrotherapy room at your facility.
~ Authored by Liz Lecomte
Thinking about adding a pool to your facility?
Use the FREE ROI calculator to measure the return on investment by pool type.
