Founder Letter: How the Patient Experience Shaped WebPT’s Product Roadmap

Ever since its inception, WebPT has been in a constant state of motion—and I hope that never changes. WebPTers work tirelessly to design, iterate, release, and support new products that assist our Members in new ways, while always scouting ahead for the next ground-breaking innovation. 

Since our inception, we’ve understood that while great innovations help our Members, our best innovations help our Members and their patients. After all, happy patients lead to better outcomes, better clinic metrics, and increased clinic revenue generation—transforming our Members into raving fans. And so our product roadmap is shaped by our vision of a better patient experience. WebPT has come a long way since it began in the back of a coffee shop (we are celebrating our 14-year anniversary this month!), and I wanted to take a moment to look at how far we’ve come and—with the big Clinicient acquisition announcement—where we’re headed in the future. 

The Road Behind

Over the years, WebPT has made so many changes, updates, and additions—both acquired and organic—to our product suite that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. However, all of our biggest (and most recent) changes have emphasized putting patients front and center. 

WebPT Reach

In 2017, WebPT teamed up with a scrappy, innovative company called Strive Labs, and together we released WebPT Reach: software that helps rehab therapy clinics promote themselves on Google (WebPT Local), communicate more regularly (and effortlessly) with their patients, and gauge their patients’ loyalty levels through NPS scoring. Feedback from our Members has centered around how these features help them spread the word about their clinics, increase patient volume, improve patient retention, decrease cancellations and no-show rates, and improve HEP compliance. 

The popularity of this product is directly tied to how it helps patients have a better clinic experience by helping patients exercise their right to direct access, improving communication between patients and their providers through automated email outreach, and giving patients a voice to influence change in clinics through Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) feedback. 

Local

Eventually, we added WebPT Local to the Reach platform. Local helps clinics monitor their online listings and unify them—a task that improves search ranking and clinic visibility. This helps patients find their local therapy clinics, enabling them to choose a provider who meets their needs. That’s what direct access is all about: empowering patients to have more autonomy in their health care pathway. And while assisting patients with direct access may not be the single silver-bullet solution to the 90% problem (where 90% of patients who could benefit from physical therapy never receive it), it’s certainly a step in the right direction. 

HEP 

HEP (WebPT’s home exercise program) was another exciting addition to the Reach product, in part because it directly interfaces with patients. Through WebPT HEP (and its mobile app), patients can easily access and review their HEP program in more than 20 different languages from their preferred digital device. Not only can they view their therapist’s notes and pictures of their exercises, but they can also watch professionally recorded video demonstrations of the prescribed exercises on demand. Our team felt that it was deeply important to add this level of accessibility to the HEP platform to improve compliance and mitigate communication barriers that may prevent patients from completing their plans of care.

We also want patients to feel represented and seen in the healthcare space, which is why our team is currently working to film and add more videos with a diverse selection of models that better represent the patients therapists treat each and every day. 

WebPT EMR

WebPT was founded on the idea of building a better, more efficient documentation experience for rehab therapists—and that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve spent the last 12-plus years adding features and tools (like Analytics and Scheduling) to our base system, and we recently gave our SOAP notes a much-needed refresh, creating a sleeker, faster, and more customizable experience for therapists. All of these benefits trickle down to patients, too. Rehab therapists are spending less time on administrative tasks including documentation, and more time meaningfully connecting with patients.  

Outcomes 

In 2014 (wow, has it already been that long?) WebPT joined forces with WebOutcomes—a  company ahead of its time that provided an intuitive digital outcomes testing and analytics dashboard for PTs and OTs. Since then, we’ve incorporated WebPT Outcomes into the EMR itself, expanded the number of tests offered, and connected it to our MIPS reporting and compliance feature (which is powered by Healthmonix).

The patient-visible benefits of improving outcomes are pretty clear. Outcomes testing is the bread and butter of effective evidence-based therapeutic treatment, and by weaving it into the EMR, we made it easier for therapists to collect and store that information—thus making it easier for them to review and tweak treatment as dictated by an individual patient’s progress. Using collected patient data, clinic leaders can provide their therapists with feedback about their patient outcomes and visit utilization, all in service of the goal of improving patient care delivery. 

Digital Patient Intake 

Digital Patient Intake (DPI) feature is yet another patient-centric addition to our suite of solutions. All things considered, it’s a pretty straightforward feature: Therapists can now send virtual intake paperwork to patients, which patients can then fill out from their own digital device. This is a huge convenience factor for patients as they don’t always have the time to sit down and spend 15 minutes filling out forms before their first appointment. With DPI, though, patients can fill out information before they step foot in the clinic. And since this information migrates directly to the patient chart, it saves time for the front office and allows therapists to walk into an initial evaluation fully equipped with the information they need to offer above-and-beyond care. 

Electronic Benefits Verification

And finally, we come to Electronic Benefit Verification (or eBV for short): our newest feature that automatically verifies patient benefits in two minutes or less. eBV helps patients navigate the quagmire of health insurance by telling the front office—almost instantly—what kind of rehab therapy coverage a patient can expect for their first appointment. If the front office staff makes a point to communicate this information with patients, those patients can come to their first appointment feeling secure in their coverage and like the front office staff is looking out for them. 

Beyond that, eBV cuts down on the number of 15-minute phone calls that front office workers make to verify insurance plans. This frees up their time, which they can spend cultivating meaningful interactions with patients. 

The Road Ahead

Even with all of those aforementioned product releases, WebPT is not going to rest on its laurels. Our team is always looking forward, prioritizing innovation and searching for new ways to help therapists and patients alike.  

Upcoming Products and Features

One of WebPT’s main goals in 2022 is to produce WebPT Billing: a billing solution that can help therapy organizations of all sizes cut back on the burden of billing. This ultimately will give back to patients by virtue of fewer claim denials and faster bill processing.

This quarter, we’re also rolling out a beta test of gender identity and pronoun indicators in the WebPT EMR. By putting chosen pronouns in a visible location in the patient chart, we’re helping our Members facilitate inclusivity—and giving patients a better experience in the clinic. 

Clinicient Acquisition

As you may have heard, WebPT recently acquired one of the biggest rehab therapy software companies on the market: Clinicient. This is an exciting moment for us because Clinicient has been a tour de force in our space for so many years. They’re staffed with many bright, innovative people who are incredibly dedicated to improving the rehab therapy clinical experience—just as we are. Joining forces with them and adding their experience and knowledge to our repertoire opens countless doors for us—and more importantly, our Members and their patients. Although this is a big change, our dedication to rehab therapists and their patients remains WebPT’s and Clincient’s highest priority—and I’m excited to see how we put our heads together and continue to improve the patient experience. 

WebPT has changed a lot over the years, but I simply cannot wait to see where we go from here. The future is bright, and I have tremendous hope that we can vastly improve the patient experience in the days to come.