In just five weeks, a Dallas-based health-care provider called Matrix Rehabilitation Inc. quietly has become a force in the Spokane physical therapy market. In that time, it has bought one physical therapy business here, started up five clinics of its own, and opened a billing office in downtown Spokane.


Eventually, the company plans to consider additional start-up or acquisition opportunities in the Spokane area, as well as in North Idaho and the Tri-Cities, but for now it is working to expand the types of rehabilitation services it offers here.


Despite the companys bold entry into this market, Don Labourr, Matrixs Seattle-based vice president for the West Coast region, says that Matrix doesnt believe in coming into an area and dominating it. Our emphasis is to blend into the communities we enter. We arent actively seeking acquisitions. People come looking for us, he asserts.


Labourr is a physical therapist himself and formerly worked as a regional vice president for HealthSouth Corp., another big health-care provider that has entered the Spokane market and has grown rapidly here. He says that nationwide managed-care systems have placed pressure on small, independent rehabilitation clinics, causing their owners to look for greater resources and economies of scale. He says Matrix has acquired some of those independently owned and operated clinics and offers the former owners the support they need, which can range from financial resources to insights into the managed-care system. After a practice has been acquired, the former owner typically is asked to stay on and manage the clinic. Matrix currently operates more than 180 outpatient rehabilitation facilities across the U.S.


We feel we have a low-key approach. We dont come in with big corporate rules, he says.


He adds that the aim of the company is to be a local player by allowing decisions concerning its clinics here to be made locally by an area management team.


Moving into Spokane


Matrix entered the Spokane-area market in mid-August when it opened physical therapy clinics in Cheney and downtown Spokane. The Cheney clinic, called Cheney Physical Therapy, is located in leased space at 1855 First Street, says Gary Smith, Matrixs Spokane-based district manager. Smith and a number of other Matrix staff members also formerly were with HealthSouth.


Matrix leased about 1,600 square feet of office space in the United Security Bank Building, at 222 N. Wall, for its downtown Spokane clinic, called Spokane Falls Physical Therapy. That space also is being used for a Matrix billing office, which will handle billings for all of the companys Spokane-area clinics.


On Sept. 18, Matrix bought Sports & Industrial Rehabilitation Inc. (SIR), of Spokane, from Tom Metzger and Myron Thurber, who along with Matrix decline to disclose the terms of the sale.


Metzger says that he and Thurber still manage SIRs two clinics, at 523 E. Third and 14306 E. Sprague, and that the clinics have been allowed to retain their name.


Matrix still allows us to run our business as we did before. They havent come in with a heavy hand. Its pretty much business as usual. Weve just been able to unload the extra paperwork and some of the headaches, Metzger says.


That same day in September, Matrix also opened South Washington Street Physical Therapy, which is located in a former Wells Fargo bank branch that it has leased and remodeled at the northwest corner of Washington Street and Fifth Avenue; Nevada Place Physical Therapy, which is located in leased space at 10220 N. Nevada; and Medical Lake Physical Therapy, which is located in leased space at 101 S. Jefferson in Medical Lake.


Smith says that the average size of a Matrix physical therapy clinic is about 3,000 square feet of space. He says, however, that the downtown Spokane clinic and the Medical Lake clinic each have only about 1,000 square feet of space and likely will operate for a limited number of hours each week.


Smith says that Matrix, which now employs a total of 22 people in the Spokane area, currently is talking with owners of other clinics here that are interested in joining its network, but no agreements have been reached yet. He says Matrix would like to add clinics in one or two areas of Spokane, but for now hes content with the number it operates here. He adds, however, that by the end of next year, Matrix hopes to open one or two clinics in North Idaho and about four in the Tri-Cities.


Matrix also is working to expand the services that its clinics offer here, Smith says. Currently, one clinic offers hand therapy, another has an industrial rehabilitation program, and another specializes in chronic swelling problems. The company is adding an athletic injury management program for high-school athletes and is trying to start a golf and an aquatics program.