By Maureen Werther
With 21 years under her belt as owner of Orthopedic and Spine Physical Therapy PC, one of the biggest differences owner Denise Buher sees is how increasingly complicated it has become to spend more time with patients and less time with paperwork.
Despite those challenges, Buher, who is a certified therapist in mechanical diagnosis and therapy of the spine from the McKenie Institute, is still happy with the decision she made more than 20 years ago to go out on her own.
Buher began her career as a senior therapist on the staff of Glens Falls Hospital, where she said people automatically mistook her for a supervisor.
“That’s probably because I always acted like one,” she said.
Buher started out as a solo practitioner, hiring a physical therapy assistant the following year.
Gradually, she added more employees and now she manages a staff of 15, including four full-time and two part-time physical therapists, one full-time and two part-time PT assistants, and six administrative and support staff.
The practice operates out of two locations. One is a state-of-the-art facility located at 3 Hunter Brook Lane in Queensbury and the other. at 1391 Route 9 in Moreau, opened in 2005 and has been completely renovated.
Buher and her team work to assess musculo-skeletal problems by looking at the body’s movement and analyzing pain patterns to determine the cause of the pain. They work with patients suffering from sports and work-related injuries, as well as arthritis and overuse injuries. Many other patients who are recovering from fractures or surgery also get treatment.
The team also works with patients on ways to prevent injuries by assessing workplace ergonomics and identifying patterns that can cause future injuries.
Buher attributes their growth and reputation in the community to the quality of their services.
The success of practice has not been without its share of challenges. But Buher describes herself as a “scrapper.”
“If someone says ‘I can’t do something,’ I go out and prove them wrong.”
Buher opened the practice when her first child, a daughter, was six months old. She and her husband at the time had been feeling financially strapped, and Buher decided that opening her own practice would solve some of their financial problems.
Buher said she worked hard with her motivation being threefold: to be a better employer; to do a better job with her patients; and to make a bigger impact on her environment.
Her next big challenge came three years later when her mother died. Buher was pregnant with her son at the time and looks back upon it as a “very tough year.”
At the time, she was the only therapist and had just one assistant. A divorce followed and Buher was determined to spend more time with her children.
Buher has made it through some difficult personal and professional challenges and said she is the better for it.
Today, she has a thriving practice with two locations. She still has some of the staff who were with her when she first started. And while, at age 56, she has no plans for retiring any time soon, she is eager to begin mentoring others so they will carry on the same legacy of caring for patients and staff the way she has for 21 years.