The first tenant of Maple Square Center opened a few weeks ago, providing physical therapy to the east side of Sedalia.
SERC Physical Therapy opened Oct. 31 in the new Maple Square Center, 115 W. Broadway Blvd. Clinic Director Brandon Fletcher said his first few weeks have been focused on building relationships in the local health care community.
“We are slowly working on our client load right now,” Fletcher said last week. “It’s always a slow start to begin with and it centers a lot around building relationships with people that have control over how patients find their way in the health care system, as well as just getting to know people. A big part of health care in this day and age is trust. So it takes time to build and develop that trust with people.”
Fletcher said SERC chose to locate to Sedalia to expand the physical therapy offerings in the city.
“There are people who have been here and they offer care and they are fantastic options for people, but there’s nobody on this side of town,” he said. “That’s something that’s exciting to be able to offer patients care on this side of town so they don’t have to travel as far and it’s also exciting to be a part of this side of town, to be part of bringing some more life and energy to this side.”
The Sedalia location has a large open area used for a variety of treatments, as well as a private treatment room for those treatments clients would prefer to not have on public display. Fletcher added that a client’s first treatment at SERC is always in the private room.
SERC offers what Fletcher called “standard treatments,” such as electrical stimulation and ultrasound, plus traditional physical therapy services.
“That includes a lot of generic exercise, just focuses on people’s health and wellness, and then we take that to the next level with offering specific things for people’s lives,” Fletcher said. “For example, somebody that comes in for an ACL recovery is not going to get the same thing as somebody who’s coming in for a total joint replacement. They both might have knee problems, but those people aren’t going to get the same thing as someone who got injured at work for their knee.”
SERC also offers services that focus on muscle function.
“Some things we offer like that are instrument-assisted soft tissue, which is a way of actually using tools to help break down scar tissue, promote healing. We do that with hands-on stuff too but the instruments really provide another way to facilitate the healing,” Fletcher said.
He added that SERC’s services are tailored to the medical needs of patients and the community, so other services may be offered in Sedalia as SERC obtains more clients with specialized needs.
Fletcher is a one-man team at the moment until SERC’s client load increases. The Odessa native received a Bachelor of Arts in athletic training from Graceland University, then attended PT school and received a doctorate in physical therapy. He also has a master’s in business administration. He serves as secretary on the Missouri Physical Therapy Association board.
He said he is “passionate” about teaching and education, as is SERC. The company employs interns from area schools or works with physical therapy students doing clinical rotations. Last week when the Democrat stopped by, Fletcher was working with Troy Kyser, an athletic training intern from the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.
“I’m also really passionate about advocacy and patients in general,” he added. “… “Also just helping patients know there’s alternative options out there, like they need to be working really well with all of their health care providers because some people benefit most from chiropractic care, for example. Some people benefit most from medication, some people from injections or surgery or physical therapy, but what’s important is that they know those options are out there and help them walk through them.”
The other Maple Square Center tenant will be American Family Care. Jorge Guevara, of Guesa USA, the company bringing AFC to Sedalia, said an opening date hasn’t been set for AFC.
“At this time we still haven’t been able to set an opening date for the Urgent Care as we are working to continue our medical doctors hiring process,” Guevara said via email. “We are still in search of doctors which have delayed the process and consequently the opening date. This task has taken more time than originally expected as we are looking to staff our center with the best doctors out there, who care about patients and their rights.”
