Today we’d like to introduce you to Per Larson.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Per. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Movement Rx combines physical and massage therapy, human performance, and self-care education through 1-on-1 visits, workshops, and online programs. Like many innovative companies, we got our start out of frustration with the status quo. In our case, it was exasperation with the limited patient gains and utter lack of real customer service found in traditional high-volume physical therapy and chiropractic clinics.
We started with a mission of helping people get better, faster. To achieve this has required one part mini-revolution in treatment paradigms, one part re-thinking the skills a practitioner should have, and one part client motivation. We are fundamentally driven by the belief that people should be the stewards of their own health, and not any health practitioner or insurance regime. Secondly, we believe that movement is medicine. The simplest way to manifest this is through a commitment to client education and providing useful easy-to-use tools that empower clients to perform basic maintenance on themselves. It also means being courageous enough to try novel and less conservative treatment programs. The results have been extraordinary; our patients achieve in 3-4 visits what takes 12-20 visits to a traditional clinic.
Our success in 1-on-1 treatment settings got us thinking. “How can we get more people better, faster?” Invariably, our patients would ask us to come and present at their gym, their company, or their military unit. Or someone from outside of San Diego would ask how they could access someone who follows our approach in their area.
This prompted the development of our online programs and Organizational Well-being initiatives. We have developed over 450 hours of online programming that we deliver remotely to individuals and organizations. For San Diego companies we augment that onsite with proprietary musculoskeletal assessments, training workshops, and services.
We keep learning from our experiences, layering in new approaches that continually improve our clients’ outcomes. We recently changed our name to reflect that, from Movement Rx Physical Therapy to Movement Rx Integrated Health. If you were to stop by our East Village clinic, you’d see our team applying any combination of mindfulness, down regulation, strength training, tissue and joint work, or movement re-patterning with our clients.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Ha! Small businesses all face similar challenges – cash flow, finding the right talent that ‘fits’ our mission, partners whose interests diverge from ours over time, wearing many hats, etc. Add to that mix the fact that husband and wife run this business…yes there have been many challenges.
The two primary challenges for Movement Rx have been a) deciding what opportunities to NOT chase, and b) unraveling the mystery of sustainably balancing home and business.
The first – not chasing the wrong opportunity – has been an evolution. The demands of marketing a service or product have grown tremendously with the advent of internet search and social media. The multiples of platforms through which our target audience consumes information can vacuum up time like no other. We’ve made choices about adding a service or different means of delivering a service where the time and effort to properly attract customers caused neglect in other parts of the business. We’ve learned (nay – still learning) to improve planning, say ‘no’, and lengthen our launch cycles.
The second primary challenge – determining balance – is far more important. Running the business with a spouse has been a crash course in improving communication, finding the right boundaries, and resetting our expectations of what balance actually means. The recent birth of our first child has actually helped. Time with the little one means less time for other things, which means we have to be more ruthless about what in the business does get our attention.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Movement Rx Integrated Health – what should we know?
At Movement Rx we help people get better, faster. Whether ‘better’ means out of pain or improved human performance, we uniquely combine down regulation and human performance concepts with bodywork to allow anyone to be active at the level they want with far less injury risk than they would otherwise face.
We’ve fixed any level of ‘athlete’ possible: Navy SEALs, pro athletes, top level endurance athletes and top level CrossFitters. But our specialty, and what we’re most proud of, is getting people out of back, shoulder, or knee pain. More specifically, our biggest charge comes from helping people who find us after being frustrated with traditional care and who are losing hope that their back, shoulder, or knee can be fixed. To understand what sets us apart requires understanding the following: The insurance-driven healthcare model is completely broken for musculoskeletal issues. Reimbursement rates force clinics to jam as many patients into a therapist’s schedule as possible. Ask any therapist in a traditional clinic – the 15-30 minutes they are allowed to spend with the patient and the limitations of what insurers will reimburse significantly erodes the potential impact of therapy.
At Movement Rx our clients spend a full hour with their Doctor of Physical Therapy. We watch and fix what we call global movement patterns – something that just doesn’t happen in a traditional clinic but is absolutely necessary to find root cause of an issue. Add to that the quality of our team. The Movement Rx team is held in such high regard that we have been asked to teach day long courses on self-care to fitness trainers and healthcare practitioners on 4 continents.
Finally, we have the advantage of providing clients a full, 52 week online program they can follow beyond the work they do with us in the clinic. Whether their issue is the back, shoulder, or knee, this combination is so very effective.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The mindset of helping people help themselves. Give someone a fish, and you feed him/her for a day. Teach someone to fish, and you feed him/her for a lifetime. That proverb is just as true with musculoskeletal health.
Pricing:
- First time evaluation and treatment: $149 for an hour
- Treatment sessions: $80-$130 per hour depending on the service
- Online programs: $50-$90/month depending on the length of the program
Contact Info:
- Address: 838 G Street
San Diego, CA 92101 - Website: www.movement-rx.com
- Phone: 619-210-0945
- Email: getbetter@movement-rx.com
Image Credit:
James Kao
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