MISSOULA — If you have been injured or are experiencing chronic pain your first instinct may be to go to the doctor and get treatment or get a prescription for pain medicine.
However, the people of Alpine Physical Therapy in Missoula thought of a new way to address pain and it might save you a lot of money.
Medical debt is one of the leading causes of financial trouble in the country and with that issue in mind, Sam Schmidt and the other owners of Alpine Physical Therapy started a walk-in clinic as an alternative to diagnosing and addressing pain.
“We tried to figure out how we could do something different and get patients in faster so that they could understand about their pain and what they could do about it,” Schmidt said. “And that led us to this walk-in model that we’re offering at Alpine now.”
Schmidt says the walk-in clinic is like urgent care for physical therapy, where patients can get an initial diagnosis for their pain, then practice at-home exercises while they wait for their next appointment.
This was the case for Kara Holloway, who without this walk-in program would’ve waited around a month for a physical therapy appointment or received surgery to repair a herniated disk in her back. The surgery would have been significantly more expensive than the physical therapy treatments so she opted for the Walk-in.
“Knowing that I could get in at a walk-in availability instead of waiting for weeks, ‘cause like the idea of waiting in that excruciating pain was a little more than I wanted to bear,” Holloway said. “And the fact that they and Sam [Schmidt] could get me in so quickly and give me exercises to help manage it I would recommend to anybody because waiting when you’re in pain is the worst.”
Even with successful results for patients, Schmidt is still realistic that this walk-in clinic will not heal everyone’s pain.
“We’re not gonna get everyone from avoiding surgery there’s a time and place for that for sure but if we can help somebody get started and get their pain reduced right away in a way they can understand they can understand their pain and do something about it then we are going to help reduce total cost care.”
The walk-in clinic is located at 1510 South Reserve Street and is open between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.
