For years, Mindi Irvine had the idea of offering a video-type health care service as part of the Oasis Physical Therapy daily routine.

But it just never happened, thanks to the busy, day-to-day operations of her five clinics in the Tri-Cities and, most recently, in Walla Walla.

“We’d been talking about this for a while,” Irvine said.

And then the coronavirus pandemic hit, along with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order.

“It started around March 23, so we were on that pretty quickly,” she said.

Oasis’ clinics have been open during the lockdown. But telehealth became a priority for patients who couldn’t come to the clinic for traditional services.

“Physical therapy was designated from the beginning as essential,” Irvine said. “Our therapists are six feet from patients, they wear masks. We adhere to all of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines.”

But for those patients with health problems who are concerned about coming into a clinic, “we do telehealth sessions.”

According to Oasis’ website, the option ensures those experiencing pain, injuries, delayed orthopedic surgeries, or haven’t yet completed their full course of care, can directly access a physical therapist.

During the visit, patients can discuss treatments or progress, assess function, review rehabilitation exercises and modify home exercise programs.

To do a telehealth appointment, a patient might need:

• To find enough space to move around;
• Wear comfortable clothes in case the therapist wants them to demonstrate exercises;
• Answering questions from the therapist;
• And open their mind to this new way of physical therapy.

Telehealth is not the same as telemedicine.

According to the website HealthIT.gov, “Telehealth is different from telemedicine because it refers to a broader scope of remote health care services than telemedicine. While telemedicine refers specifically to remote clinical services, telehealth can refer to remote nonclinical services, such as provider training, administrative meetings and continuing medical education, in addition to clinical services.”

Irvine said it is going well.

“Things have generally improved with the (telehealth) product,” she said. “You are relying on what the patient has at home. We’re putting together some products for them, things such as exercise bands. We can help them be creative.”

Irvine said Oasis offers an exercise program that protects patients’ privacy rights, as well as the software.

It began by assigning two therapists to run its first telehealth sessions with clients.

“They’re still able to watch what the clients do,” Irvine said.

By mid-April, 50 to 75 clients were logging in.

“We want people to know there are options,” she said.

Despite being an essential business, the pandemic has affected Oasis too.

“Our numbers (as of mid-April) have us at 40 percent of what we usually do,” Irvine said. “We normally get 1,000 visits a week. We’re down to 400. Once the stay-at-home started, we dropped a ton of visits.”

Meanwhile, Irvine opened a Walla Walla clinic on March 1.

It’s the company’s fifth location. The other four are in the Tri-Cities: one each in Kennewick and Pasco, and two in Richland (George Washington Way and the newest in the Queensgate area).

“It was not good timing at all,” said Irvine about the opening of the Walla Walla clinic. “But we’ve actually seen more patients there. It was always in the plans to have something there. About three years ago, we started talking about it.”

That may be it for a while, though.

“We did have a plan for a sixth clinic in the Tri-Cities, but with everything the way it is, I think we might hunker down and recover before that happens,” Irvine said.

Regardless, Irvine sees physical therapy as a much-needed practice that isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

“Physical therapy is needed because our population is getting older and living longer,” she said. “Our plan by the end of June is extending telehealth across the state. We need to offer clients options.

“But I also think we’ll get back to physical therapy in person.”

So while business maybe down, she’s still staying positive.

“It could be better, but we’re all in this together,” Irvine said. “A lot of people are in worse shape.”