Delphine:
Hi Steve and hi Azin, hi Mike. How are you doing today?
Steve Baynai:
Good, thank you.
Delphine:
Wonderful.
Azin Hein:
Good. Thanks for having us on the show.
Delphine:
Awesome. So, could you please introduce yourself Steve and Azin?
Azin Hein:
So my name is Azin Hein and I am the Worker’s Comp and Personal Injury Business Development Manager at Team Rehab Physical Therap.
Delphine:
Steve, could you please introduce yourself?
Steve Baynai:
I’m Steve Baynai, I’m a Physical Therapist and Clinic Director for Team Rehab Physical Therapy. I am the owner of the facility in Elgin, Illinois and I also serve as a regional mentor to some of our other clinic directors.
Delphine:
Thank you. Thank you for being here. And we have here Mike, could you introduce yourself too?
Mike Agruss:
Sure, thanks. My name is Mike Agruss, I’m the managing partner of Mike Agruss Law and we handle personal injury and consumer rights cases.
Delphine:
So could you start with asking Azin a question?
Mike Agruss:
Sure. So how did Team Rehab get started?
Azin Hein:
Team Rehab actually got started 20 years ago and it started with one clinic in Michigan. And it was a group of individuals that came together to help Team Rehab. And at the time, Team Rehab wanted to flourish and open more clinics and now we’re 20 years later, we have over 100 clinics in five different states, so Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan.
Delphine:
Wonderful.
[Vietnamese 00:02:18]
So Illinois, Wisconsin, Georgia, and what else?
Azin Hein:
Indiana.
Delphine:
And Indiana.
Azin Hein:
And Michigan.
Delphine:
And Michigan.
[Vietnamese 00:02:49].
Mike Agruss:
And I think what’s also interesting is how many total offices you have. There’s…
Azin Hein:
In Illinois?
Mike Agruss:
Illinois and then altogether.
Azin Hein:
Yeah, so in Illinois, Steve, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we have 22 clinics?
Steve Baynai:
Sounds right.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:03:24].
Azin Hein:
And then we have over 100 clinics in the five states.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:03:28].
So Steve, I would like to ask your question, So what education and training did you go through to become a physical therapist?
Steve Baynai:
I did four years of undergraduate training at a University, at Loyola University. I got my undergraduate degree in psychology. And then from there, I did three years of full time training at Northwestern University to get a doctorate in physical therapy.
Delphine:
Wonderful.
[Vietnamese 00:04:19].
Thank you.
Mike Agruss:
And Steve, just to follow up on your education and training, do you do continuing education classes. Have you specialized in anything?
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:04:55].
Steve Baynai:
Yeah, After physical therapy school, I went on to specialize in orthopedics. So I’m an orthopedic specialist seeing everything from shoulder to low back pain to knee pain. And I also did some specialized training manual therapy.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:05:26].
Mike Agruss:
So Azin, the next question I want to ask is, If you could describe Team Rehabs core strategies and mission?
Azin Hein:
Yeah so, Team Rehab is unique in the sense we are the largest PT provider that is owned by the staff and by the clinic directors.
Delphine:
Wonderful. [Vietnamese 00:06:12].
So they take a part of the company, right?
Azin Hein:
Yes, absolutely. And treating each individual for the issue that they walk in the door with. So making sure to get them back to what they were doing previously to having that pain.
Delphine:
So for the therapist?
Azin Hein:
Yeah.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:07:04].
Azin Hein:
Yeah.
Mike Agruss:
Oh no, go.
Azin Hein:
And I was just going to state that having each individual therapist on the clinic that they are in gives them the autonomy to treat the patients, they say, “Delphine, you’re coming in,” they treat you as an individual and get to know exactly what you were doing pre having these back pain. “Before you were having back pain, what were you able to do. Let us help you get back to what you were doing before.” And rehabbing them to do that and it gives them the autonomy to do whatever it takes to do that.
Delphine:
Thank you. [Vietnamese 00:08:07].
Mike Agruss:
And I think what’s important about that to follow up Azin seen is, it’s less of a bureaucracy, right? So, each clinic is owned by physical therapists like Steve and it allows you more flexibility in treating patients the way they should be treated, right?
Azin Hein:
Absolutely.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:09:12]. So let me ask you a question. Steve, what areas of physical therapy do you specialize in?
Steve Baynai:
So, we see patients with all different types of diagnoses. We see a lot of patients with a spine injury, whether it’s low back pain or neck pain. We see primarily patients who have orthopedic injuries and that’s an area that I specialize in, strictly in orthopedics. But we see a little bit of everything And I specialize in kind of an approach that’s rooted in hands on manual therapy.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:10:33].
Mike Agruss:
And Steve, just to follow up with the areas that you specialize in, are there different physical therapists in different locations who have different specialties. So for example, if someone comes to your clinic, you may refer them, because you have so many clinics, to neighboring clinic where they can find someone, a physical therapist that have a different specialty.
Steve Baynai:
Yes, we have a lot of different specialties across the region. We have clinicians who specialize in dry needling, we specialize in work conditioning and performing functional capacity evaluation. We have specialties in women’s health and vestibular therapy. So we have a variety of specializations across the region.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:11:27].
So for the woman. What is the specialty for the…
Mike Agruss:
So Steve could you elaborate on the women’s health specialization that you were referring to?
Steve Baynai:
Sure. So the specialization in women’s health is really geared towards treating pelvic floor dysfunction, and the pelvic floor as a series of muscles kind of deep in the abdomen and women’s health specialists will treat anything from incontinence issues to other various injuries and conditions that are related to the pelvic floor.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:13:18].
Mike Agruss:
So Azin, the next thing I wanted to ask you about it’s a lot of clients who come to us in a personal injury case, they’re obviously concerned about their medical bills and who’s going to pay? So at Team Rehab, can you talk to me about what health insurance you guys accept and then also a situation where someone doesn’t have health insurance, but would still like to get therapy?
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:14:16].
Azin Hein:
So, it’s a great question. So I know that a concern of lot of people, they have pains, but a lot of medical bills, obviously, it’s a concern of everyone. So the reason that Team Rehab is set up this model of the ownership piece is, they will work with you. So, there are many insurances that we are in network with. If we aren’t in network with a certain insurance company, we will work with you to figure it out, and of course, if they’re coming from great representation like Agruss Law, we do accept cases on lien. So that way, and Mike you can probably speak to this about how that works, but you are not responsible for the bills until your case settles, so you won’t see those medical bills if you don’t have health insurance and if you do have health insurance then we will work with your health insurance.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:15:52].
Mike Agruss:
And Delphine, what Azin was talking about, which is important that I think the viewers want to know is, if you don’t have health insurance what Team Rehab and other providers can do is basically send us the bill. And then when we settle, for example in the car accident case, when we settle with the at fault driver and get a settlement check in, we can then pay off medical bills. And so, this is important because people need to know that they can get treatment, they don’t have to worry about the bills. And at the end when there’s a settlement, we will then pay Team Rehab for physical therapy.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:17:47].
Mike Agruss:
And for the viewers, it’s also important too for them to know that these are things that they can come to us in the beginning, they can ask my office, they can ask places Azin’s office at Team Rehab to figure these things out in the beginning and people should know that they should not be worried if they’re injured in an accident, a workplace injury. That there are ways to either have bills paid by health insurance or to have is sent to the lawyer and at the end of the case, it will be taken care of.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:19:16].
So Steve, I have a question for you. Do you help people who have been injured on job or involved in a personal case?
Mike Agruss:
On the job or personal injury case?
Steve Baynai:
Yes, we certainly do. We see a lot of patients who’ve had workplace injuries and who have been involved in personal injury cases. We treat them with physical therapy, we also can provide specialized work conditioning to help facilitate a return to work for the injured worker, or in personal injury cases it’s really trying to get that patient back to where they were prior to their accident.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:21:08].
Mike Agruss:
And Steve, one thing I want to jump in and ask you, and I think it’s important for the viewers to know. We all deal with this every day. Can you give us the basics of what exactly physical therapy is?
Delphine:
Steven, could you share with so… Sorry, I speak English, right?
Mike Agruss:
Yeah. It’s okay.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:22:06].
Steve Baynai:
So physical therapy and physical therapist assistants, or sorry, physical therapists are really the experts in human movement. And so physical therapy is all about restoring normal human movements. So we see patients who’ve come in, in pain from some sort of an injury. And the job of the physical therapist is really to try to help decrease their pain and restore their normal mobility.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:22:41].
Steve Baynai:
And I think what makes physical therapy so important right now is, physical therapy is really, we’re becoming the frontline provider for pain injury. So that you can just come to a physical therapist where it’s a very conservative approach to treatment it’s not invasive and we can help resolve the pain and mobility issues even prior to having to go in to see a physician.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:23:36].
Steve Baynai:
And Delphine, I think it’s always helpful for the viewers to have a real world example and to add on to Steve’s explanation as to why physical therapy support and when it involves. About 10 or 15 years ago I was out running, and I stepped off a curb, I thought it was like an inch or two different, and my brain, it didn’t click and I hurt my lower back. I thought it was something minor, and then the next morning when I woke up, I could barely get out of bed.
And so I ended up going to a physical therapist, I’d never been before. And like Steve was just explaining, it was… I think I only had to go for about six weeks. But it was like having a personal trainer who taught me exercises on strengthening my core, strengthening my back. And there are exercises that I use to this day. So to add to Steve’s story about having it be preventative learning exercises and techniques to really take care of yourself. And it’s something that I thought was so minor and it caused me so much pain. I never really appreciated it until that, but it really works. And honestly I do these exercises 10 plus years later after something that happened to me that was so minor.
Delphine:
It was 15 years ago, right?
Steve Baynai:
Yeah.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:25:55].
Steve Baynai:
So Azin, the next thing I wanted to talk to you about is if you could tell us a little bit about Team Rehab’s primary and specialty services that are offered.
Azin Hein:
Yeah, so services that we offer. Obviously, physical therapy. But each of our clinics, as Steve mentioned, they have different specialties. We see personal injury cases, we see workers comp, if you get hurt at your job. There’s different services that we offer for any pain that you’re having.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:27:08].
Azin Hein:
Yeah, so we have clinics that offer aquatic physical therapies, so that’s physical therapy in the water. We have clinics that do dry needling, which is similar to acupuncture, but it’s deeper in the muscle. All of our clinics have different specialties, depending on what hurts, they will evaluate you and be able to help you further in exactly what tools they have to make me feel better.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:28:31].
So look like acupuncture and then the last one is?
Azin Hein:
Aquatic therapy.
Delphine:
Aquatic, yeah, so with water and then…
Azin Hein:
Yeah, so dry needling, and then any… I mean that we have blood flow restriction, we have all different types of services that the physical therapist can recommend once the patient comes in.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:29:18].
Mike Agruss:
I’ve never heard of dry needling. You said it’s similar to acupuncture. What exactly…
Azin Hein:
I’m gonna let Steve, the expert, answer this question.
Mike Agruss:
Tell me more about dry needling.
Steve Baynai:
Dry needling is similar to acupuncture in the sense that they use a similar needle, it’s a very fine gauge needle that’s inserted directly into the muscle that’s a problem. So if you have a knot in a muscle or a restriction in a muscle, that needle can help release that it’s very effective in relieving pain.
Mike Agruss:
Okay.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:30:20].
Mike Agruss:
So Azin, I want to go back to insurance and visits and how that works. Is there a set number of visits that insurance will pay for or does it depend on the injury, the treatment, could you explain a little bit about that?
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:31:02].
Azin Hein:
So every insurance is different. So even if you have a Blue Cross Blue Shield, your neighbor has a Blue Cross Blue Shield, you might have 12 visits a year, your neighbor might have eight visits a year. So every plan is different. We generally, if it’s on a lien basis with someone that works at your office, we generally go based off of what the doctor orders. So doctor says, “12 visits,” we will treat them for that. If it’s on the lien basis for work injury.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:32:09].
So it depends on the doctor, what they [inaudible 00:32:58], what the patient…
Azin Hein:
Absolutely.
Mike Agruss:
Does the insurance company follow what the doctor says or does the insurance… The doctor will write a script and then the insurance company will say “Hey, we understand what your doctor said, we’re only going to pay for X amount.”
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:33:30].
Mike Agruss:
Yeah. So generally the insurance company will approve what the insurance company wants approved, regardless of what the doctor says when you’re dealing with the health insurance. The health insurance has their policies of how many visits they’ll approve in a calendar year.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:33:56].
Mike Agruss:
And Delphine, this is what it’s so important, for example, in a car accident case to hire a lawyer. The reason being is there are typically multiple levels of insurance that will pay for physical therapy. So for example, as Azin mentioned, Blue Cross Blue Shield, your personal private insurance, oftentimes people have medical payment coverage on their auto insurance policy too, which is an extra layer of insurance to pay for treatment.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:34:56].
So question for Steve. What is a soft tissue injury and soft tissue injuries common in car accidents?
Steve Baynai:
So throughout your body you have a number of different types of soft tissue, whether it’s muscles, tendons, ligaments, even your nerves, your blood vessels, it’s all considered soft tissue structures. And soft tissue injury is simply just an injury to one of those structures. Soft tissue injuries are often very common in motor vehicle accidents. And the most common soft tissue injuries are typically injuries to the ligaments in the spine, into the muscles that surround the spine. Even the discs that are located between the vertebrae in the spine are soft tissue structures and can be injured in a car accident.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:37:30].
So my next question is, how does physical therapy help soft tissue injuries?
Steve Baynai:
The physical therapy, in relation to soft tissue injury, really helps to try to improve the mobility of that soft tissue, particularly if it’s a muscle problem, we can help decrease any sort of inflammation that is surrounding the disc in a spine injury. And we work to try to strengthen the muscles around the tissue that’s injured to help return the patient back to their normal mobility.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:38:17].
Mike Agruss:
And Steve, when we’re talking about soft tissue injuries in my practice, it’s usually the insurance company on the other side diminishing someone’s injuries saying, “Oh, this is just a soft tissue injury.: And I was wondering if you could explain the seriousness of the soft tissue injuries compared to someone has a fracture, you can see it on an x-ray and there’s normally a course of action to talk. So if you could talk about the seriousness of soft tissue injuries too.
Steve Baynai:
Absolutely. Soft tissue injuries can be some of the most severe injuries that a person can sustain. We sometimes think that just because the bone’s not broken, and shouldn’t hurt. But there’s various types of soft tissue injury, anything from a mild sprain, to complete tear of a muscle or tendon or ligament. You can have a rupture of a disk or there’s various disparities of soft tissue but they can be very severe. They can linger and they can take quite a while to try to improve.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:40:25].
Mike Agruss:
Azin, my next question’s for you and we talked about this but I’m going to elaborate a little bit on it. I just want to make sure the audience, the people, the viewers watching. All of Team Rehab will take on a patient and treat them on lien, right?
Azin Hein:
Absolutely. So if you contact Team Rehab and tell them that you were in an auto accident, we generally will ask if you’re being represented by a law firm, by Mike Agruss Law, and we will take the case on a lien, especially if you don’t have health insurance. Like I mentioned before, we don’t want you to worry about the bills, we want you to worry about getting back to what you were doing pre car accident.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:42:24].
Mike Agruss:
And Delphine, for the viewers who may not know, because the word lien is of legal term of ours. What it basically means someone will send us the bill. And then when the case settles, we will use the settlement funds to pay back the medical bills.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:44:16].
Mike Agruss:
And I’ll give a quick story because I think it’s always helpful for the viewers to hear a real life story and I think this is really important about Team Rehab willing to treat patients and they’re not worried about, “How are we going to get paid?” They’re worried about following what the doctor say to get treatment. We represent a client was a passenger in a semi truck that rear ended the semi truck in front of him. He’s a passenger and he’s not at fault for the accident. He sustained multiple leg fractures, was in the hospital for three and half weeks. And he was on his way back to Florida and he is looking to get treatment in Florida. He has Medicaid, which is state funded, this case Florida State funded health insurance, and no one will treat him because they’re not going to get paid because there’s not good health insurance like Blue Cross Blue shield.
I’ve reached out to two physical therapy places are saying, “Here are the facts, here’s the case, the at fault driver has a million dollar insurance policy. So there is coverage there.” And I emailed them and said, “Will you treat my client on a lien?? And they wrote back and said, “No.” So what team rehab does is, for the viewers, it’s really important to know that whether you ave health insurance or you don’t, you’re on Medicare or Medicaid, they will treat you. So it’s important what they do.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:47:23]. One million is what?
Mike Agruss:
So the truck company at fault…
Delphine:
So they have the…
Mike Agruss:
Million dollars in insurance.
Delphine:
Insurance so…
Mike Agruss:
My point is, this case is worth a lot of money. And if the physical therapy place would simply send us a bill. So our client could get the treatment that he needs it wouldn’t really help out my client, because he can’t find a place to get treatment.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:48:36].
So Steve, what is the best advice you give to your patients?
Steve Baynai:
That’s a great question. One of the quotes that we have hanging in our clinic says, “Every accomplishment starts first with a decision to try.” To get back to where you were prior to your injury it just requires your decision to try. And just to be patient with yourself during the healing process. For anyone who is in pain, there’s a team of people waiting to help you. So I know Mike Agruss Law is there for you, Team Rehab is there for you, so if you’re in pain, we’re here to help.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:51:18].
Mike Agruss:
As the show comes to a conclusion, my last question for you Azin is, if someone wants to schedule physical therapy and they have a prescription from a doctor or they just want to schedule appointment, what’s the best way for them to do that and to get into to rehab as quickly as possible?
Azin Hein:
Yeah, so I think one of the best ways to go on our website, look at all of the locations that we have, all of our phone numbers are on the website. It’s team-rehab.com. And I see that there’s a hotline number for here so I will also leave the information here for each of our clinics so that if you were to call the hotline, I’ll leave my information here so that hopefully you would be able to give them a phone number to a clinic or at least to our website.
Delphine:
[Vietnamese 00:52:35].
The website, could you repeat it?
Azin Hein:
Absolutely, it’s www…
Delphine:
Www.
Azin Hein:
Dot team
Delphine:
Dot team
Azin Hein:
Hyphen.
Delphine:
[vietnamese 00:53:20].
Azin Hein:
Rehab.
Delphine:
Rehab.
Azin Hein:
Dot com.
Delphine:
Dot com. So www.team-rehab.com. [Vietnamese 00:53:34].
Mike Agruss:
And Delphine, just to add to what Azin said, we have had clients that have gone to Team Rehab, they’ve gone on the website, it’s very easy for them to get in to schedule appointments. And from our perspective, when we’re representing personal injury clients, getting treatment and getting people back to their condition they were in before the accident, like Steve was talking about earlier is so important. And so in my experience with Team Rehab is they get people in quickly, which is good.
Delphine:
Wonderful. [Vietnamese 00:54:08].
Mike Agruss:
Perfect. Thanks Steve and Azin for coming on the show, and Delphine…
Delphine:
Thanks Steve, thanks Azin, thank you Mike.
Azin Hein:
Thank you very much.
Delphine:
