FOX physical therapist Jesse Heiden, PT, DPT was on the verge of leaving her career in healthcare completely before she began working with FOX. On the premiere episode of The FOX Five, Jesse explains how FOX is different from other practices she's worked with. She cites FOX's strong culture where colleagues are sincerely appreciated, a clinically minded leadership team, and our mission of abolishing ageism as some of the reasons that make the private practice stand out from other organizations.

Jim: Hello everybody, welcome to the FOX Five—the series that explores the world of FOX Rehabilitation through an original list created by a FOX colleague. Today I am joined by FOX physical therapist, Jesse Heiden. Jesse, welcome.

Jesse: Hello, thank you.

Jim: I've got to tell you—we talked about this off camera, but there was a recent FOX team event in Minnesota and some of our leadership attended and they were raving about your story. You've got a good story, and your story kind of plays into your list today.

Jesse: Yeah, it's a story that really could have been a tragedy, but it turned out with a happy ending, so far, I think.

Jim: You were thinking about leaving healthcare completely?

Jesse: Yes, it's true. In my first four years of being out from grad school, I went through four different employers and was just not pleased with what I was seeing from those rehab companies, and so finally I took a job with FOX—feeling quite cynical and prepared to like, make a sad exit and move on to a different career, but I'm still here.

Jim: And that's the story!

Jesse: That is the story. FOX really changed my mind.

Jim: Jesse, today what is your FOX Five?

Jesse: My FOX Five is “Five Reasons Why FOX is Different.”

Jim: Alright, yes, hopefully, these are the five reasons why you stayed in the world of healthcare?

Jesse: Indeed they are.

Jim: So let's begin with Number 1.

Jesse: Yes, number one is that FOX “walks the talk,” —and this is something that I really didn't see with a lot of other employers. Especially as a new grad, there's a lot of marketing that goes into trying to attract people to companies, particularly with things like, “oh, we offer mentorships or sponsorships,” or “we'll have somebody really show you the ropes,” — and time after time again, I just never felt that support, and then, bam! You get to FOX, and there's like a gazillion people that are reaching out to you every day asking "what do you need? I'm here for you." And take that down the line to the mentorship. I am now a mentor.

Jim: Whoa!

Jesse: Right now so we just got done with a morning of me shadowing her and talking through everything from like the nitty gritty of documentation and stuff to just—you know—what does it mean to be a FOX clinician and to provide really great care? I love that they follow through on those promises.

Jim: So now you are “walking to talk.”

Jesse: Yes I am, and it feels good.

Jim: So what's number two on your FOX Five?

Jesse: Number two is that the management team has "been there", so I love that most of the senior management is clinical staff as well, or they have been in the past. Something I ran into with a lot of my previous employers was either schedulers or billing folks or even my boss hadn't ever been a clinical employee so a lot of the productivity standards and documentation protocols that they were trying to implement did not make sense to me as a clinician, and that was a really tough disconnect where I just felt like we were bringing concerns as a clinical team to our management and they weren't really empathizing with us. That's something that I don't get at all at FOX. I mean my regional director is out here in the field treating and I think that's awesome that we just have a very strong empathetic connection.

Jim: Between our founder, our CEO—I think of most of our leadership team were clinicians.

Jesse: Yes, which you know you don't ever forget about those clinical experiences and that's going to inform the decisions that they use to build and design the company and I appreciate that.

Jim: Jesse that brings us to number 3.

Jesse: Appreciation. Colleagues are appreciated. The first time that I went out for one of our team get-togethers, I was fully prepared to eat beforehand, because I've never ever been to a rehab outing where the company paid for anything.

Jim: Really?

Jesse: In fact, the biggest Christmas party that I ever attended at work was literally on my 30-minute lunch break and my boss just had her parents come in and dress up as Santa Claus for us. That was our party. We had to bring our own lunches and everything. That was a nice gesture and I'm not saying that I need to be showered with gifts or anything like that, but you want to feel appreciated. [FOX] took us out and we went axe throwing. When I first started working here, I got a FOX thermos and I use that thing every day. So little things that just make the staff feel like, “hey, yeah, we care about you and we're occasionally going to throw you a couple tokens of appreciation” feels really good.

Jim: You bring up a great point. I used to work at a cemetery, and this was after I got out of grad school. I was making $5.35 an hour, and I would have stayed longer but they never appreciated me—they never gave me a pat on the back and I said, you know what—I’m leaving.

Jesse: And that comes down to like—aside from the physical tokens of appreciation—just the thank you’s. I feel like I've gotten so many more verbal thank you’s and call outs for being appreciated in my time here, and they feel authentic, which is a huge thing too—because you can definitely give pretty shallow acts of appreciation, but they feel real.

Jim: And you'll get another one after completion of this video! We're up to number 4 on your FOX Five.

Jesse: This one gets a little more existential in terms of healthcare. I think FOX really cares about prevention versus reaction. FOX is starting to shift the perspective of healthcare from one of reacting—waiting for disease and disability to happen—to prevention, specifically in their push for doing functional screens in communities and community education. The fact that we encourage our clinicians to do things like in-services for staff and for community, and really just demonstrating the value that the rehab world has in not rehabilitating but “prehabilitating.” I didn't come up with that, I stole that from someone else, but I like that.

Jim: That brings us to number five on your FOX Five.

Jesse: Number 5 is—this comes back to the whole mission—but ageism does not live here at FOX. So I really like how we’re building a team of really fitness-forward clinicians who are not only trying to abolish ageism out with their own patients, but we kind of turn it back on ourselves and question what do we believe about aging and how to do that well. If the clinicians themselves can truly feel like we are excited to age and we're not scared of it, then we can bring that to our patients, too. Just the culture in general, I mean this really loops back into number one, we “walk the talk,” so we don’t treat people with an ageist mentality, and we don't move through the world with an ageist mentality.

Jim: You just took your FOX Five and you created a circle—full circle!

Jesse: Always great when that happens.

Jim: Well, thank you for joining us on the FOX Five. That was a fantastic five!

Jesse: I hope it was a good way to start, I'm excited for more to come.