Looking Forward to the Next WebPT Chapter— and Getting Back to Basics

Change is tough but oftentimes necessary. To quote Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” And even though we intuitively understand that change is an inevitable part of life and that it can lead to growth and improvement, even small changes can evoke a certain amount of anxiety. 

One of my favorite books recommended to me as a young professional was “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson. The key personal takeaway from the book was that when change happens—whether in my career, industry, or personal life—I can’t ignore it or hope things will go back to the way they were. I must adapt and move forward. 

Another big lesson that helped me become more adaptive and resilient to change was learned both as a PT treating patients for 15 years and in building software for close to 20 years now. (Yikes— time flies!) We develop software and create patient care plans in an iterative fashion—meaning that we are constantly reevaluating, changing, or altering the plan as we review progress, or the lack thereof, to make sure we are still on course toward accomplishing the ultimate goal. Without adaptation to new information, unforeseen challenges, changes in the market, or our patients’ goals, we become vulnerable to stagnation that can lead to irrelevance and failure—and that is simply not an option.

I’m proud to say that WebPT is celebrating its 16th year as the market leader and most trusted rehab therapy-specific EMR used by PTs, OTs, SLPs, and DCs—and much of that success has come down to leadership driving toward a common purpose with fierce determination. The rehab therapy market is a very unique part of healthcare and requires a deep understanding of the ins and outs of the businesses, workflows, compliance factors, market demands, and provider types within our ecosystem.  

We have been extremely blessed to have had leaders over the years like Nancy Ham and Ashley Glover, who have been, in their words, “infected with passion and affection” for our profession as well as the culture and mission of WebPT. We thank Ashley for her relentless work ethic, dedication to the team, and company growth over the past three years. We all wish her well as she courageously steps away from WebPT to spend some much-needed time with her family. 

Welcome to our new CEO, Andrea Facini!

With Ashley’s decision, WebPT had to adapt. Fortunately, because we’ve emphasized practicing good business hygiene, succession planning has been in the background of our executive leadership hiring decisions.  We were in a great place to pivot quickly with minimal disruption to our day-to-day operations. I’m thrilled to be working with our new CEO, Andrea Facini—who previously held the role of WebPT’s President and Go-To-Market officer—as we navigate the next chapter of WebPT. He should already be known to many of you, so for those who have been fortunate enough to connect with him in person or via Zoom, you know of his deep knowledge, business experience, collaborativeness, and dynamic energy that he brings to this new role. 

If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting with Andrea yet, the first thing you will notice, of course, is his very suave Italian accent. But, beyond his international roots, his experience has been far-reaching. Andrea has served as the President at Active Network, LLC, and has worked in a variety of marketing and product leadership roles at companies like Monster Worldwide, Warner Bros. Discovery, and CNN.  More importantly, his leadership ethos is in alignment with WebPT’s core values, and he believes strongly in the importance of WebPT’s company culture and raving fan service levels as a foundation for the business. Please help me welcome Andrea as our new CEO—or should I say, benvenuto!  And for those of you making it to National Harbor, MD, for PPS, we hope to see you there for an in-person greeting from Andrea and myself. 

WebPT is getting back to fundamentals in alignment with our North Star. 

This change in leadership coincides with an important strategic decision that we’ve been working on, which I would sum up as a return to the fundamentals for WebPT. As Ashley noted just a couple of months ago in her Leadership Letter, we’ve gotten too wrapped up in the “what” and the “how” and we’ve lost sight of the “why” or, more accurately, the “who”—as in who we serve and how mission-critical WebPT is for their practices. From day one, our goal has been to empower rehab therapists to achieve greatness in clinical and business practice, but as we grew in both size and scope, our North Star got a little dim.

Getting back on track requires a “F’up, Own up” moment. This leadership team recognizes what has not gone well and is committed to focusing on the areas that matter the most to our Members. This realignment is where our strength in leadership comes in, with Andrea leading our team of passionate, caring, experienced, and wicked smart people. To bring about the needed changes, our determined focus is returning to elevate the trust, industry knowledge, accountability, partnership, and ruthless discipline to stay true to these values and get back to creating raving fans out of all of our Members. After stepping back from operations over the last few years, I have committed to jumping back in to help get that North Star back in focus and to align our strategic goals with the intention of helping our Members grow and optimize their therapy businesses and their teams. As you might have seen in a previous email, Andrea outlined that narrowed focus to three areas: 

1. Stabilizing our platform
2. Optimizing your revenue, and
3. Elevating our service levels.

I’m proud of the innovative features and products we’ve built and acquired over the years to create a comprehensive platform that helps clinic owners, therapists, and staff in every part of the practice. However, in this increasingly difficult healthcare landscape, optimizing our system to enable compliant and efficient documentation and allow for faster, accurate payment for services remains our North Star. That means making sure our platform is available, optimized to capture patient revenue, and efficiently integrated for patient registration, eligibility verification, prior authorizations, and clean claims. We know that every dollar is vital to your practice, and we’re going to make sure we help you collect every last one. 

We are addressing these key areas head-on with some additional firepower on our leadership team.  We are proud to announce the addition of Uday Devalla to our executive team as our interim CTO. Uday brings tremendous experience to the organization that will allow for improved system stability, increased development velocity, and capacity to enhance both the provider and patient experience.   

We recognize that our service levels have not been commensurate with our previously high bar of excellence that served as our differentiator, and frankly, that is unacceptable. Our teams know they can do and want to do better!  With improved training tools, streamlined access to our knowledge base, and a reinvigorated Success team, I have full confidence that your experience with WebPT will be drastically different in the coming months and even weeks.  

We have also aligned these service level expectations with our technology and service partners;  when it comes to communication, connectivity, and reliability, they will be held to the same high level of accountability as our own teams. Getting back to being the gold standard for service in the industry is going to require commitment on the part of each and every WebPTer, but I know we have the right dedicated people in place to make it happen.  

We appreciate your patience and loyalty as we regain our foothold and focus on our strengths, which have allowed you to trust us with your businesses. We are listening and have heard you loud and clear! We are committed to getting back to the core of what makes WebPT exceptional: a best-in-class EMR and integrated billing platform paired with exemplary, caring, and helpful support services. 

We also understand that actions speak louder than words and that the integrity of our words matters now more than ever—especially at a time when we’re earning back the trust of our Members.  If we’re going to hold onto our pole position as the most beloved technology partner in the rehab therapy industry, we need to say what we mean and do what we say. With that being said, in a time in our country when words matter more than ever, I would like to leave you with a reminder of WebPT’s Mission Statement and our commitment to you as our Members: 

“WebPT empowers rehab therapists to achieve greatness in practice by providing innovative and easy-to-use software, expert services, and stellar educational resources – all of which help them get back to what matters: treating their patients.”

Those words have guided our actions and our decisions from the earliest days of WebPT, and they still ring true for the next chapter in our journey as the premier EMR and practice experience management platform. The WebPT leadership team is confident that our focused efforts will allow us to deliver on our promise to help you achieve greatness in practice. Thank you for being part of the WebPT family and a Member of our community. We are grateful for your continued trust and support as we work through these exciting changes.

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