San Mateo County health care providers seeing more patients return

With the vaccine and businesses opening up, more people seem to be more comfortable with coming in but also because they know it’s a safe place, she said. Spicer continues to screen patients who come in.

“A lot of people were truly scared and they didn’t know what they were getting involved with or what was going on. And I was one of the only places that most people ever went to because they all worked from home,” she said.

She works with those with general conditions and chronic issues, including those who have back injuries from lifting something or have an injury from a car accident. She treats a variety of conditions of chiropractic care, as well as ergonomics, soft tissue and exercise.

She opened at the start of the pandemic in May 2020. It was considered essential by San Mateo County, city of San Mateo, and the state of California, which allowed it to continue to work through the pandemic. In the beginning, she tried virtual visits but found that the technology was a hindrance to some people who didn’t have access to the technology to be able to do virtual calls and chats. It also made it more difficult to walk them through exercises where she couldn’t physically address them and treat their injuries, she said.

“I was really not able to help them to the full extent,” she said.

However, at Aero Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine, it found that televisits have been effective.

“If you had asked us two years ago if telemedicine was possible for physical therapy, we would have probably laughed,” said Geoff Lew, co-owner of Aero Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine at the San Mateo location. Its other location is in Burlingame.

It still offers telehealth visits and will likely stay as an option for the patients who want to do remote sessions.

“Us as physical therapists, we’re very much educators. We teach patients about their body, about their injury, their prognosis. That’s something that’s very easily conveyed via telehealth,” he said.

It is a little bit more challenging when it comes to teaching exercises since a therapist can’t physically direct the patients but the positive aspect is being able to see the patient’s current situation through the remote visit and provide advice on how they can do their rehab exercises, Lew said.

A lot of patients dropped off during the pandemic but fortunately, there weren’t many emergency rehab cases. Now many are calling in for appointments and it hopes to return soon to 100% capacity, he said. “Patients are trying to get in. They have a lot of faith in the vaccine, they feel very comfortable,” he said. “When San Mateo moved into the most lenient tier, people were really starting to come back.”

When the pandemic hit in March, it was closed and reopened back in June of 2020 at 25% capacity. The clinic has about three to four physical therapists per day, and it had to space out their patients more, and work fewer days to avoid overlap of employees and patients. Now it is at about 80% capacity, Lew said.

julia@smdailyjournal.com

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