Posted with permission from John Brinkman CPO
Mark:
The focus that I have begun to take on this general issue is that we are not
able to demonstrate in any way but the most subjective, that our devices and
services effect significant positive changes in functional outcome.
We, and many of the people we work with,
know intuitively that what we do effects tremendous change, but we are
increasingly being subjected to a much higher standard than intuition.
We should welcome that higher standard as an opportunity to demonstrate more
objectively what we do. Instead, we curse case
managers and those in managed care in general as evil incarnate.
I applaud Srivatsa for the practical advice regarding the biomechanical
analysis form.
A place to start for average practitioners like me, who don’t have gait
analysis labs and other sophisticated equipment, is to document some very
basic parameters of evaluation and care.
With time, we should be able to put that data together with basic outcome
data, and have something more objective, however simplistic, on which to base
our decisions and justify our existence.
In business you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
Increasinly in OP
you don’t get what you think you deserve because your Dad and others in
previous generations
got it – you get what you can prove is effective.
John T. Brinkmann, CPO
> I have been trying to use the biomechanical analysis form given in the Atlas
> of Orthotics. I request you and others share your experiences using the
> form. Though we have advanced technologically with more options for
> components, and more methods of measuring and fabrication, we are still in
the physicians
> or
> therapists shadow. We depend on them for prescriptions and approval of our
> products.
>
> Srivatsa
