A small, therapist-owned physical rehabilitation practice that started in South Carolina has taken root in Chattanooga, opening its third location here in under three years.
“The growth speaks to how we treat patients, and how the experience is different overall,” said Dr. Jeremy Shook, who worked with longtime friend and fellow physical therapist Dr. David Bright to bring Excel Rehab and Sports to the Chattanooga market in 2017.
Excel had its first office on the North Shore, expanded to Hixson, and opened an office this week in East Brainerd. The practice began 14 years ago in Clemson, South Carolina, when Bright opened an office there. Excel has three locations in South Carolina, but the idea of bringing the practice to Chattanooga began with a conversation between Bright and Shook, who attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga together.
Before he launched Excel in Chattanooga, Shook had been feeling frustrated with the mounting pressure in large, corporate-owned practices to see more patients and grow the bottom line rather than focus primarily on patient care, he said.
“Over time, I got to the point where I wasn’t able to treat patients the way I wanted to treat them,” said Shook, who has been practicing for 18 years. “The patient-first mission at Excel lined up with my core values, and I decided this is how I want to continue my career – in a small, private practice setting where we put the patients first.”
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Jeremy Shook, physical therapist and president and chief of therapy with Excel Rehab & Sports, works with patient Leslie Grey. Excel Rehab & Sports Physical and Upper Extremity Therapy recently opened a branch in East Brainerd in addition to locations on the North Shore and in Hixson.Leslie Grey showed up in the Hixson office of Excel a few months ago in tears and on crutches after she aggravated a troublesome hip during a long hike.
“My physician referred me here, and it’s the best thing they ever did for me,” she said. “They structure the treatment to your specific problem. I was off my crutches in a couple of weeks.”
Excel is owned by four physical therapists who make every decision – from what equipment to buy to how to structure appointments – with the quality of care as their first priority, Shook said. For Grey, the level of hand-on therapy and customization of treatment made a difference, she said.
“I’m getting better quicker, and I’m learning a lot,” she said.
In many practices, having the time and the latitude to focus on patient care above anything else become something of a luxury, Shook said.
“We’ve seen an influx of private equity organizations and big corporations buying out small private practices,” he said. “While there’s nothing wrong with corporations or private equity, per se, when you’re dealing with patient care and you’re focused on the quality of care, there can be conflicts of interest there.”
Contact Mary Fortune at mfortune@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow her on Twitter at @maryfortune.