Community Highlights: Meet Kelly Ehlert of Priority Physical Therapy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Ehlert.

Hi Kelly, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Wow. If we back way up – you could say my love for helping started in the athletic training room in high school and taping other athletes ankles (even my competition).
Fastfoward several years, I played volleyball in college at Lipscomb University with some idea of wanting to get into more medicine or sports related care. My junior year I ended up having a stress fracture to my spine and something called a Spondylolysis. I was out for the spring season and did weeks and weeks of PT. I was a challenge for my physical therapist because I was so high level and she needed harder and more difficult challenges for me to do to strengthen my core. After several weeks of her care, I was able to play my senior year and keep my scholarship. I really wanted to be able to do that for other athletes too.
I went to Belmont University for my Doctorate of Physical Therapy with the intention to work with high level athletes and the athletic population. Shortly after graduation, I had my daughter Audrey and realized there were so many things no one talks about with your body after baby. After being a D1 athlete and noticing some of the most embarassing symptoms that at the time it felt it would be impossible to recover. Somehow I sucked it up and had my son 2 years later despite the current issues I “felt.”
I was approached by the lead clinician at the clinic to shift into pelvic health and add the service to our office. That was a scary day. I didn’t know anything about that area of the body besides that “things” happen after you have a baby. That was 2014 – before instagram, facebook and all the conversations we have now and everything that I was being taught was taboo.
I started down the pelvic health path and never looked back. And instead – I then got to blend the orthopedic/sports and pelvic health worlds. I started my own practive in 2018 when I found that the mom/wife/clinician juggle was super hard for another practice. I craved flexibility and freedom to be myself and do what I felt like was in the best interest of the patient. I wanted to do more performance based treatment but insurance didn’t care if they could run a marathon or qualify for Boston.
Priority Physical Therapy was created to allow my family to be my priority. It also allows us to prioritize what our patient feels is important to them – racing, intimacy, throwing a ball with their kid, not searching for a bathroom all the time or being left by their family when they do, box jumps or jumprope without leaking, and of course just move better and have a real conversation with a clinician who care. We are still a very small clinic with the goal of so much more than just Physical Therapy. We offer several services outside of the traditional physical therapy box-type clinic. We are 1:1 and you work with your doctor of physical therapy until your goals are completed. We specialize in pelvic health as stated with a passion for prenatal and postpartum care. We strive to be the providers we wish we would have had after our kiddos. We also of couse offer orthopedic care for knees, hips, backs, necks, ankles, TMJ and all the joints between. We are not your typical PT office and we’d love the chance to share our passion and allow you to experience what we believe true PT is.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth road. lol nope
I worked for a large corporate group which allowed me to complete lots of education and achieve several extra certifications and letters after my name. In one 8 hour work day, my max patient load was 26. I was not happy with how I was treated, how I treated and how exhausted I was at that time. I left that practice for a smaller, private practice and loved it. It gave me more time with patients and I never had to overlap or double or even triple like I did. But, it was good until it wasn’t and I left for a PRN gig with the hopes of starting my own practice.
6 weeks into the 6 month promised schedule, I was told that they were closing the clinic in which I was working. I had to work all over Nashville until 2020 happened and they didn’t let us work at all. That was when I was able to turn on the gas, so to speak, for my practice and I was able to spend all my time within the small office I was subleasing. People at that time didn’t want big offices and they needed help. Being in the medical world, we didn’t have to shut down like the fitness industry did. People wanted connection and I was able to do some zoom talks, workshops and 1:1 visits at the office. I slowly grew and was able to hire help in 2022 for an admin. I have had a couple other PRN/part time providers but I didn’t have enough of a base to fill their 1-2 days a week so I went back to being a solopreneur after a bit of time. This can be exhausting because you are literally pulling up your own bootstraps and pushing solo.
The game of networking, marketing, talking to medical providers and reaching the target audience is tricky. Messaging is tricky when you are talking about issues like pee, poo and sex. Medical offices often refer to offices who are in-network or who accept insurance with which I was not under contract. I knew that when I started practicing, I did not want to have to be confined by the negotiation process of what insurance would pay for my time. I had seen 26 patients in a day and knew what reimbursement was and meant – I never wanted to have to do that again.
The biggest struggle currently is getting the message out there for how my profession can actually help. Treating things like intersticial cystitis, incontinence, infertility, prolapse, diastasis recti, rectal spasms, painful sex or even constipation are hard to discuss on social media. People often don’t even know we are an option and it bothers me to know that PCPs or specialist doctors don’t even let their patients know that there are options out there besides medication and surgery. Orthopedic issues like rotator cuff tears, knee arthritis or meniscus injuries, ankle sprains, back pain and sciatica are also common issues we help treat. I love the opportunity to help spread the word that we are more than just back pain and table exercises.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Priority Physical Therapy is predominantly a practice focusing on women’s health and orthopedics. We can treat men by typically don’t treat for pelvic floor issues at this time (and yes….many do have issues). When we say womens health issues we are talking about anything that affects the pelvis – not just pregnancy or postpartum. We treat conditions like diastasis recti, low bcak pain, SI pain, host-hysterectomy, appendectomy, ostomy or any hernia surgeries, painful bladder syndrome/IC, pelvic pain, incontience (bladder or bowel) or pain with intercourse, pelvic organ prolapse to name a few. We really try to keep the conversation open and comfortable as these topics are pretty sensitive and touchy. That’s why we will keep you with one main Physical Therapist within a private room where your conversation can be in kept confidential.

We do things a little differently with a 3 step approach where we really try to help treat the pain/problem, find the true source or cause and then build resilience and versatility. This can look like many different things from a prenatal patient who wants to be able to squat and pick her 3 year old up and delivery smoothly to a baseball player with wrist pain who wants to throw and hit home runs. We treat quite a few runners too and are specialized in gait analysis to determine the break down here and help improve pain in their movement patterns. You will never share your therapist with another patient during your session. We pride ourselves in giving you our attention fully and really pay attention to the details. We pride ourselves also on education to allow you to know WHY you are doing something, WHY it likely started and HOW to keep it from coming back. The more you understand about the body and name the issue, the more control you have over it.

We provide a number of different services that you may not see in a typical therapy office such as online coaching, extracorporeal shockwave therapy with our StemWave device, dry needling and craniosacral therapy. These all allow us to treat different tissues, different injuries and meet the patient where they are. We are also able to provide in home or office visits which creates more options for care. I have also seen patients at their work or the gym which allows us to make more specific recommendations for that patient and client. We frequently provide in gym workshops too allowing members to stay active without pain, leaking or fear limiting them which allows those gyms to keep their members active.

Any big plans?
BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goal:
I would love to get a bigger, collaborative space. I have entertained the idea of a female based center for all things “mom” related. i have found ladies love being with like minded people and they crave interconnection. Stroller groups for New Moms, mid 40’s groups for perimenopause and 50s+ groups to help ladies overcome different issues we face with decreased lean body mass, osteoporosis and even hormonal issues. I would love to have personal trainers, functional medicine, acupuncture, yoga and mental health offices or relationships to help all aspects of the lifespan.

Right now, I am going to stay small and help people stay active by improving pelvic health and aches/pains without needing meds, injections or surgery.

Pricing:

• Package options reduce prices by 10-20%
• Single visit prices are 225 a session.
• Monthly Coaching/Remote Wellness Training is $300/month

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.iamprioritypt.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prioritypt_and_wellness
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iampriorityPT?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyFpUdBCDq8mpsua2URLFuw