Constance Cardoza of Living Rehab discusses her best practices
"My productivity for the building jumped from 66% to 70% ... I print out my schedule and I open up (OneStep) and I'm looking at the data already."
Constance Cardoza, PT, Living Rehab
Constance Cardoza is a physical therapist with Living Rehab, a Reliant Rehabilitation service, working inside a senior living community. Her day starts the same way every morning: schedule printed, OneStep open, data first.
A therapist sees a resident only while they're on caseload, and only when they're in the room. A resident who stops her in the hallway to say they had a bad night, or who is quietly walking less than usual, falls between the cracks: there's no session to document, nothing to bill, and often no one watching until something goes wrong.
The first month, Constance admits, she didn't do much with it. What changed was how she thought about it. Remote Therapeutic Monitoring meant the time she spent reviewing a resident's data, or talking with them between sessions, was now care she could capture and bill. So she built it into her routine: every morning she opens the progress view and the dashboard, sees who is improving and who is slipping, and plans her day around it. She runs a walk test at nearly every visit, puts the phone in the resident's pocket the rest of the time, and shows residents their results so they can see their own progress.
Constance Cardoza, PT, on how OneStep changed her mornings:
“Now, being able to really capture declines, and being able to step in before a hospitalization or before a fall.”
Constance Cardoza, PT, Living Rehab
Because she looks at the data daily, Constance sees decline as it starts. When one resident's daily activity and walk score dropped and stayed down, she messaged him through OneStep, then went to his apartment. He went to the hospital and was diagnosed with pneumonia — caught early, and he is now back on her caseload. The same routine changed the numbers she is measured on: after her first full month of RTM billing, her productivity for the building rose from about 66% to about 70%, against a building target of 75%.
The data didn't replace her judgment. It told her where to look.
“I've been pushing OneStep since that light bulb went off in my head. It's an awesome thing. I love it.”
Constance Cardoza, PT, Living Rehab