On Fridays, the entire staff finishes with their appointments by 3pm, so the they close early. For a change of scenery, I was behind the front desk for the entirety of the morning after watching therapy done on the upper back. Lori Glass gave me a tour of the space, which consists of a small cubicle and vault in the back part, and a desk facing the lobby in the front. In the administration, I was shown exactly how the scheduling works: checking in and out, inputting and cancelling appointments, and blocking out the therapists’ schedules. The system they use is RevFlow, which easily allows them to do all of their scheduling and keeping track of payments. A fun fact that I learned is that Breakthrough Physical Therapy is one branch of many under a national company called Confluent Health, which owns many different PT companies throughout the nation. Something that I’ve had to get used to while working over the past couple of days is the no-phone policy. We aren’t allowed to have our phones out in the central gym area and lobby to maintain professionalism, so instead of keeping it in my pocket throughout the day, I leave it in the PT office and only check it during breaks. This is definitely something that is practiced in a wide variety of offices and workplaces, so it’s been a good experience to have to get used to because it’s different than usual. The administrators had quite a bit of work to do wrapping up and completing a stats deadline since it is the last day of the month. However, they had no problem with this because they distribute their workload throughout the month. They have an established system worked out for patient check-in by placing a sticker on a personal card for each therapist and delivering it when a patient is arrived and ready. This change in view has allowed for me to observe and note a lot of the front desk’s interaction with the patients–greeting, casual conversation, and customer service. The customer service is very notable here at the front; Lori told me that she never answers a call when she is talking to a customer face-to-face, and doesn’t put a call on hold when she gets another incoming call. She says she also makes sure to greet each customer on their way in and out. Since they were running low on business cards for some of the doctors, she had to order more so she showed me how she designed and sent out the proofs. I also learned a lot about insurance: it plays a big role in healthcare facilities. There is a lot of paperwork and computerized inputting involved with getting people’s insurances approved. The two admin at work take alternating lunch breaks so that there is always someone available at the desk. They are constantly being given new tasks to complete on top of what they are already doing which can be very overwhelming, and it can be easy to get behind on certain tasks that need to be completed. For this reason, they complete tasks as soon as they receive them so that they can complete everything fully and accurately. They are definitely very busy people and don’t have nearly any down time aside from their one lunch break, which is why I believe that they are pretty much the powerhouse of the Breakthrough Cary functions to keep everything running smoothly. In the afternoon, I observed massage and exercise guidance done on people with shoulder and hip injuries. I was able to get supplies for the therapists as well as make an ice pack.