SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — For most, starting a business during a pandemic is not ideal but for local physical therapist Jason Collin, this was the perfect time to pursue his dream.

Collin, who has been a physical therapist for over 20 years and South Lake Tahoe’s mayor until the election, got his start in Hawaii. He then moved to Southern California where he started his first practice.

After five years, he sold that practice and moved to the mountains. It was at that time that the idea for PT Revolution took seed in his brain but it wasn’t the right time. So he spent the next decade working at Barton where he said he had, “a good career.”

Then, Collin decided he wanted to go out on his own again and he knew several of his former teammates were also looking for a change.

“They were looking for a change already and then COVID hit and alot of healthcare services were going virtual,” Collin said. “They were really realizing how important that the human connection piece is, especially in healing and rehabbing from injuries.”

This summer, Collin, along with his team members Ian Anderson, Justin Dorn, Angie Hagenah and Blanca Geilenfedlt opened PT Revolution.

While PT Revolution offers traditional physical therapy, there are several things that make it unique, the first being team-based care.

“All the therapists, we all work together and are really focused on optimizing the outcome for the patient,” Collin said.

Each therapist has their own specialty; Collin’s is shoulders. One therapist will be in charge of a patient’s care but the patient can be helped by other therapists based on their needs.

“It’s easy to see things from how you understand them or what your experience is and where it comes from, so having the team based care approach allows us to ask each other, ‘hey, have you thought of this? Did you see that?,’” Collin said. “It’s not about which one of us can get [the patient better], it’s about how we can best serve patients in the fastest possible time.”

The other thing that makes PT Revolution unique is the response time. If a patient requests a consultation, they are guaranteed to be seen within 48 hours.

“One of our beliefs is that even though rehabilitation may not be an emergency physically speaking, there’s that psychological and emotional side of getting started and getting moving again and helping people decrease their pain and improve mobility,” Collin said.

Once the pandemic is over, Collin wants to pair some patients together who might have similar rehabilitation needs so they can give each other support and hold each other accountable.

“If you have patients that build relationships and are going through this difficult time together, because once you get injured and you can’t do what you want to do, there’s trauma there,” Collin said. “When you have other people that you can lean on, not just the therapist, when you start building those relationships, that can be really powerful.”

So, what’s it like to start a business during a pandemic? For Collin, it was basically like when he started his business before.

“In healthcare, there’s a lot of consideration around cleanliness and hygiene, so we’re used to that,” Collin said. “Obviously, that’s stepped up quite a bit so there’s just more precautions and more compliance pieces we have to have in place.”

Collin added that it was helpful for the business to have a slower ramp up time.

PT Revolution accepts most insurance.

For more information, visit http://www.ptrevolution.com.