Connie Hauser, PT, DPT, ATC

WQP: Connie Hauser, PT, DPT, ATC

Locally owned and operated, PT Pros Physical Therapy and Sports Center was founded in Barbourville, KY in 1980 by Connie Hauser, PT, DPT, ATC. Over the next 22 years, the company (then operating as Kentucky Physical Therapy) grew to include additional sites in Southeastern Kentucky and then expanded into western North Carolina, prompting the name change to PT Pros. PT Pros currently operates seven clinical sites and has over sixty full-time employees.

PT Pros has been a WorkWell (WW) Provider for over 20 years.  Presently, eleven members of the clinical staff, all of whom are doctoral level physical therapists, are WW trained in Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCE).  Four of these therapists are also trained in Functional Job Analysis (FJA) and Prework Screening (PWS).  All seven of the PT Pros clinics offer WW FCEs and Work Conditioning (WC)/Work Hardening (WH) programs.

In the early 1990’s, PT Pros clinicians had the honor of helping write Kentucky’s first WC/WH guidelines based on their WW training and the outcomes gathered from their programs.  These guidelines are still being used today.

Throughout the years, PT Pros has partnered with a variety of industries offering them numerous Industrial Services.  “In addition to FCEs and WC/WH programs, we have successfully provided post offer Prework Screens, customized employee education programs, early intervention physical therapy and overall case management of the aging and/or injured worker,” reports Holly Johnson, PT, DPT.  “We have utilized WW programs with industries we serve, some of them for over 20 years.  These include the coal mining industry, healthcare, furniture manufacturing, food preparation and delivery service providers.  Such long standing relationships have provided opportunity to objectively assess the benefits of our WW based industrial services over time as well as witness first-hand the challenges faced by many of our industry partners.  Factors such as large-scale workforce reductions and the challenges of an aging workforce have had a significant impact on the coal mining and furniture manufacturing sectors.  As a result of the changing local employer landscape, WW programs now significantly impact our efforts to successfully manage the unique concerns of aging workers and to assist employers in safely transitioning displaced employees into alternative work.  To this end, use of FJA to examine high risk work areas, to better match the worker to the work and to educate employers has been very valuable.”