Description
Kitsap Physical Therapy was founded in January 1979 by Mike and Barb Danford. Mike specialized in orthopedics and sports injury management while Barb specialized in pediatrics. From the beginning, we were committed to accelerated skill development for ourselves and our staff so that we could provide highly skilled treatment programs for our patients.
We began at the North Kitsap Medical Center in Poulsbo and then opened a Bainbridge Island office in 1983 without any intention for expanding further. In the 90's, “managed care” became a focus in health care and “managed care” penalized providers that had a smaller footprint.
In order to survive, we added offices in Kingston, Poulsbo Village, Silverdale & Bremerton. In 1992, Dave Damon crossed over from being a staff physical therapist to becoming a partner. Dave played a valuable role in our being able to add these additional locations. Over the years, there have been a lot of changes in health care as well as changes in Kitsap County that have created challenges for us. We have learned a lot from our experiences and have used that experience to adapt and become better at what we are doing.
As a business, we have always realized that our staff are a very important part of our identity — essentially they are “us” . Because of this, we have worked hard to find and keep excellent staff so that we can provide the best services possible to our customers. As a result, we have been fortunate that many staff have chosen to stay with us for extended lengths of time and many have made working with us a career decision. The continuity and commitment level that occurred as a result of having physical therapists that have made career commitments to us has enabled us to evolve into a group practice.
We are proud that we now have 21 partners that share ownership in our business. This allows us to have at least one (but as many as 4) partners at each office. This high percentage of ownership in our business by physical therapists that are actively involved in the day-to-day providing of services and involvement in our communities, has helped to re-define us as a business.
All of our partners are committed to helping KPT to be the best provider of care possible, as well as being responsive to the needs of our customers and being involved in the communities where we operate.