Our Story
SIMIO Health & Wellness was founded in 2008 by Craig E. Stasio (PT, MSPT, PRC™) and his business partner, Rick Paulin, as a private practice Restorative Physical Therapy Center serving Zeeland, Holland, Hudsonville, Jenison, and surrounding areas of West Michigan. In 2019, we were awarded the distinction as Michigan’s first Certified Postural Restoration Center™.
SIMIO was established to offer a different physical therapy experience to patients and physical therapists. We maintain core patient care values that are quickly disappearing in this industry. In the ever-expanding corporately managed healthcare and health insurance system, there are changes that de-value patients and staff physical therapists. The industry is spending less time with patients in exchange for more visits per day. This causes patients to receive less care and require more visits to achieve an outcome. This also causes a significant amount of therapist burnout. There is also a diversion from customized care to standardized care that diminishes the specialization of a therapist and decreases their autonomy on the treatment service they provide based solely on what the insurance will pay for. These decisions are made by health insurance and agency administrators that likely do not have physical therapy education and are driven by cost savings instead of health outcomes.
Frustrated with these changes and in an effort to maintain autonomy over the care of patients, SIMIO has committed to furthering our staff’s post-graduate education in specialized human movement and recovery services. We study patterned human asymmetry, compensation patterns, overuse syndromes, and conditions that create pain. When one recognizes that patterns of movement dysfunction also includes balance, ground sense, respiration, and neurology, an orthopedic approach is seldom sufficient to create lasting change. This is why patients that experience care at traditional orthopedic physical therapy clinics will report that their symptoms return after discontinuing their physical therapy exercise. There is a reason that recurrent problems reoccur.
The SIMIO difference is clear to those that experience it first hand. This is why we offer free consultation. It allows us to demonstrate our specialties and determine if our skillsets and training will optimize a patients recovery.
Our Approach
We treat the body and its asymmetry as a wholistic system rather than its individual parts.
We are a patient-centered, results-oriented wellness center that also offers health coaching, community education, injury prevention, sports performance, personal training and corporate wellness. Whether you are looking for education, consultation, or treatment of low back pain, pelvic tilt, scoliosis, postural asymmetry, neck pain, tension, headaches, or even sleep apnea or snoring, look to the clinic that treats the body and its asymmetry as a wholistic system rather than its individual parts.
“Patient-centered” at SIMIO means we take the time to get to know our patients and their unique situation and needs as we develop our plan of care. Each treatment session is one patient with one therapist and never double booked at the same time with another patients.
“Results-oriented” means we test and retest to make sure our interventions have the desired effect. SIMIO therapists remain committed to re-evaluating and changing the patients program each session to ensure that progress is being made and the plan of care is directed accordingly. This ensures the fastest recovery in the least number of visits necessary to make desired improvements.
A results-oriented approach makes use of objective tests for measurable progress, performed at the beginning and end of each session. This allows the therapist to target a limitation, perform a treatment, instruct an exercise, and retest the patient in the same session to ensure that there has been immediate results. There are many benefits to the patient: the patient can see and feel progress in the same session, and they become connected to the outcome of specific exercises because they can see and feel results.
Our restorative services draw patient from across the entire state for Postural Restoration® (PRI), postural-dental and postural-vision integration. In addition to PRI therapy, we also provide certified McKenzie Method Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy® (MDT), Positional Preference Testing and Neuro-Reflexive Muscular Facilitation Technique™ (NMFT).
The distinction between neuro-reflexive techniques and traditional physical therapy stretch and strength exercises can be made in seconds! Our delivery of facilitation techniques is immediately followed up with re-patterning activity and techniques you take home to produce a lasting result. This marriage of postural repositioning, muscular facilitation and endurance exercise will reinforce gains in postural control, spine and pelvic alignment, shoulder posture, joint stability, gait, range of motion, and functional form for any activity.
Our Team
Our team is composed of a dedicated group of licensed physical therapists and personal trainers. Click our images to learn more about us.
Frequently Asked Questions
WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT ON MY FIRST VISIT?
Thank you for selecting us to help you find solutions on your wellness journey. When you arrive for your first physical therapy visit, you will meet with a licensed physical therapist that is a specialist in human movement, gait, respiration, and mechanical diagnosis and treatment. On the first session, your therapist will spend some time getting to know you, your questions, and your goals. It is important to know what you would like to accomplish and what makes you unique. This way we can tailor your treatment to your needs. You can expect to have the therapist prioritize tests and measurements that will assist them in providing you and education based on your clinical presentation as well as provide reporting to your referring physician if needed. You will be provided with hands-on treatment, exercise and therapeutic activity, along with a home exercise program that will consist of the most efficient ways to progress your care in subsequent visits.
DO I NEED A PHYSICIAN’S REFERRAL/PRESCRIPTION TO ATTEND PHYSICAL THERAPY?
The state of Michigan does not require a physicians referral for the first three weeks of care for rehabilitation of pain or injury, however, many health insurance companies will require the referral on the first day to have those visits applied and covered on the health benefit plan that you have selected. We recommend that you check with your insurance for your individual requirements for insurance coverage. Of course, there is no referral requirement or limits on services that we provide related to wellness, injury prevention, respiration, and sports performance.
WILL MY INSURANCE COVER PHYSICAL THERAPY?
We provide insurance billing with most commercial insurers. Please call our office to confirm our in-network or out-of-network status with your specific insurance. Specific insurance coverage is very individual and is based on the plan that you select or are offered annually. Your insurance carrier will be able to provide specific information that is unique to your plan. We recommend that you contact your insurance company for these details. If you have an insurance benefit, we would be happy to submit claims on your behalf for the regional physical therapy services that you receive from us.
Currently, insurance companies and the health care system in general are willing to provide coverage only after injury and health decline is present. While we hope that our health care system and insurance companies will soon acknowledge the value and cost savings in wellness care and preserving health, currently restorative, wellness, injury-prevention, respiration, and massage therapy services are considered non-covered services by all insurance companies and are out of pocket.
If you have a Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for your health needs, funding sources from these accounts may be used for all services rendered by SIMIIO Health & Wellness. Substantiation of these services may be required by your funding administrators and SIMIO will be happy to provide statements or invoice documentation for dates of services upon request.
IS POSTURAL RESTORATION (PRI) CONSIDERED PHYSICAL THERAPY?
SIMIO Health & Wellness is Michigans only Certified Postural Restoration Center™, and has the only practicing clinically certified Postural Restoration Institute® provider in the state. In order to be registered as a Postural Restoration Center™, SIMIO has to maintain that all licensed providers in the building are actively enrolled in Postural Restoration Institute coursework under the direction and supervision of a PRC credentialed therapist.
This means that all physical therapy that is offered at SIMIO will have Postural Restoration concepts applied as needed. Regional physical therapy is often in response to pain, injury or surgery. Restorative physical therapy addresses whole body mechanics as it pertains to movement, gait, respiration, and balance. Your consultation with a SIMIO provider is designed to establish whether you would benefit from a regional or a restorative approach to maximize your benefit and efficiency in attaining your personal goals for therapy.
WHAT CAN PHYSICAL THERAPISTS HELP ME ACCOMPLISH?
Not all physical therapy is the same, and not all physical therapists are specialists in the same areas of service. What SIMIO strives to do is place each patient in the care of a uniquely specialized therapist. As licensed providers of healthcare, we are tested on safety rather than effectiveness. The true test of care comes in its effectiveness and the lasting results of your time spent with your provider.
Our providers have nearly over 40 combined years of clinical experience in assessment and treatment of traditional physical therapy diagnoses which include:
– Low back pain
– Neck pain
– Shoulder pain
– Persistent neck tension
– Elbow pain
– Hip pain
– Knee Pain
– Foot and ankle pain
– Headache
– Sciatica
– Sacroiliac (SI) Joint dysfunction
– Plantar Fasciitis
– Achilles Tendonitis
– Radiculopathy
– Patellofemoral syndrome
In addition to traditional physical therapy diagnoses, our specialists are uniquely trained in:
– Sports performance/sports respiration
– Running and walking gait assessment and retraining
– Asthma and work of breathing
– Postural assessment and correction
– Airway clearance
– Snoring/Sleep Apnea
– Respiration and perfusion
– Bruxism (clenching/grinding of teeth)
– Body mechanics and dominant body patterning for work or sports
– Chronic or recurrent pain that has not responded to traditional orthopedic methods
– Natural management of stress, anxiety, and nutrition
SIMIO experts are trained in isolating human movement into testable positions that mimic any direction of motion for any sport or occupation. With this data, we objectify a patients ability to move, breathe, and balance. Any alteration in ability in these positions will create a workable roadmap for success. This pertains to every foot and every shoulder in stance phase and swing on an inhale or an exhale. It is an exacting science that takes years to master. Join us for a consultation to learn where your body has created strong but unfavorable habits.
What Our Clients Say About Us
