FAQs
What is Functional Pathways?
Founded in 1995, Functional Pathways is a privately held, therapist-owned organization that has more than two decades of experience delivering physical, occupational and speech therapy services that are effective in enhancing care while ensuring proper documentation and compliance and yielding the best clinical results for those it serves. At Functional Pathways, we have the flexibility to utilize our depth of expertise to help meet the needs of residents at all levels, ultimately creating an active and vibrant community.
Our company is dedicated to helping provide the best therapy care to senior living community residents across our footprint.
When was Functional Pathways established?
Functional Pathways was founded in 1995 by CEO and President Dan Knorr, who has an extensive background in therapy services.
How many therapists does Functional Pathways currently employ?
Functional Pathways employs approximately 1,100 full-time therapists and 80 full-time employees based within its corporate office, located in Knoxville, Tennessee. Its therapists are committed to anticipating clients’ therapy needs, which allows their therapy teams to focus on other priorities.
Our corporate staff maintains functions within the following departments: Operations, Accounting, IT, Human Resources, Recruiting, Compliance, Clinical and Marketing.
What type of continuing education does Functional Pathways provide to its employees?
Functional Pathways recently partnered with MedBridge to provide therapists with an opportunity to learn online and earn CEUs, with material presented by the industry’s top therapy professionals.
We conduct our capstone training to all of our new directors of rehab within 90 days of hire.
We have developed our Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) Academy as our overarching educational initiative, designed to ensure that all levels of our management team are prepared for the PDPM change in reimbursement, effective on October 1, 2019.
What types of communities does Functional Pathways work with?
Functional Pathways provides services to a variety of community settings, including privately held; county-, state- and hospital-owned; faith-based; corporations; chain organizations; veteran homes; and both for- and nonprofit communities.
What does it mean when you say, "provide therapy a better way"?
As a therapist-owned organization with more than two decades of expertise, we continue to focus on three pillars: outcomes, innovations and relationships. We hold ourselves accountable for excellence by helping communities restore functionality to their patients/residents and provide clinical software programs, like RightTrack™, to maximize clinical outcomes and help communities stay compliant through proven, disciplined processes.
You have some exciting news to share about your clinical software platform, RightTrack. Can you tell us about it?
From our decades of experience in therapy services, we know that our industry is constantly evolving. Our clinical team has spent the last seven years developing proprietary software systems and evidence-based clinical protocols that have positioned us to assist our clients in navigating the new PDPM, which will take effect on October 1, 2019.
RightTrack’s predictive analytics provide our therapists with a guide to anticipate an intensity level and duration of therapy by discipline, unique to the patient’s needs, to achieve optimal outcomes. We are able to track outcomes during the course of therapy and adjust clinical needs to meet resident goals. RightTrack reports are available in real time to communicate these outcomes to the patients, their loved ones and the community’s interdisciplinary team. Through integration, RightTrack captures the ICD-10 codes, calculates the Section GG score and displays the associated PDPM clinical category to manage case-mix index.
What else has your company done to prepare for the PDPM?
In addition to reengineering RightTrack, Functional Pathways has developed the PDPM Academy, which is an internal educational initiative designed to ensure that all levels of our management team are prepared for the PDPM model change in reimbursement, effective on October 1, 2019.
Our approach has also focused on Section GG certification; client ICD-10 auditing; quality reporting programs and nursing home five-star ratings; value-based purchasing; restorative program assessment and support; and data analytics.
When is the best time for a community to change therapy providers?
If communities are struggling with compliance, clinical programming, staffing, communication and management oversight, they should evaluate their needs and seek options to replace their current therapy provider as soon as possible.