The Physical Therapy and Wellness Institute (PTW) on South Broad Street in Lansdale has been a fixture in the medical community for nearly two decades. They’ve seen tremendous success since their launch in 2002, they’ve treated thousands of residents across the community and they’ve scaled-up to 13 locations across Montgomery County as the need for their services has continually increased.
Then the coronavirus pandemic happened, and like many other locally-owned small businesses, they were forced into an uncertain operational climate where adaptation reigns supreme.
Longtime PTW owner Bob Babb and his partner, Jim Fagnani, quickly found themselves in a unique situation, as Governor Wolf’s shutdown order effectively shuttered the fitness side of their business while deeming the physical therapy side as an essential service. Following the shutdown order, their normal caseload decreased by 40%, forcing them to furlough nearly half of their staff —roughly 40 people — across all of their locations.
“I still struggle to talk about the furloughs. I’ve been with the company for 11 years, and it’s something that we fought to build,” said Fagnani. “There was a good three-day span where we couldn’t talk about anything. We just needed to clear our heads from the emotional toll of having to let go almost half of our staff.”
“This is unlike anything that we’ve ever been through before,” Babb added. “That March 20th date, when we had to furlough our people…those were some of the angriest days for me. It felt like the 18 years of work I had put in had blown up due to something that we could not control.”
During the four weeks that followed, PTW saw decreases in their in-person visits and their long-running business began to bottom out.
“[The coronavirus has] impacted our business. It has impacted us personally and professionally. It has impacted everything,” said Fagnani.
Facing an uncertain future, Fagnani and Babb decided to pivot their business and adapt to the new environment created by the pandemic. The two partners instituted a new focus on telehealth, in-home services and adjusted their facility policies to meet the CDC’s recommendations, including spacing for social distancing, mask requirements for staff and patients and temperature checks upon entering their facilities.
“The general task was converting about 40% of our visits to telehealth, and then recreating policies and procedures for how patients enter the facilities,” Fagnani said.
“We had four weeks where we bottomed out, so we dug in deep and built what we needed to survive,” Babb added.
Their efforts proved to be fruitful, as they survived the four down weeks and have since experienced eight straight weeks of steady growth. Babb said they’ve since been able to bring back roughly a dozen of their furloughed employees, and they hope to bring back more as they continue to adjust and adapt to the new normal.
On the fitness side of the business, PTW has relied on using Facebook Live for daily workouts that are available to the public. Additionally, Babb said they will soon begin providing remote personal training to their clients via Zoom.
“It’s something that we’re building on, and we’re learning from, every single day,” said Babb. “The majority of people on our fitness programs tend to also be part of our physical therapy patient population. Staying connected with them is one of the most important things we could do.”
Despite the challenges that the company has faced during the pandemic, Babb said their have been several silver-linings, including uncovering new opportunities such as telehealth and remote fitness sessions, their new healthy lung program and more.
“Now we’re building foundations in ways that we never would have before,” Babb said.
And in the interim, Fagnani said they have seen an increase in in-person visits as people prepare for the upcoming move into the yellow phase of the state’s reopening plan.
“I do think — and we’ve seen it already —that as consumer awareness and confidence in going out increases, we’ll see more people at our facilities,” Fagnani said.
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