We are turning the spotlight to Eli Lamberson, a valued member of our Therapist Enablement team at Luna. He's at the forefront of our mission to ensure therapists' voices are heard.
His story is a testament to Luna's commitment to listening to and empowering its therapists, even to the extent of creating new roles to champion their cause. Let's dive more into his journey and his role in bringing Luna's vision to life.
Q. What motivated you to transition from the traditional outpatient orthopedic setting to your recent role? What attracted you to Luna?
Ultimately, I have a similar story to many other physical therapists. The fast-paced, high-volume environment contributes to professional burnout, and I was definitely not immune to that —particularly after being promoted to Clinical Director in my previous role. My day would involve seeing 10 - 12 patients and then spending the rest of the day doing more managerial responsibilities. While it was a very good experience, it wore on me as time passed.
I've always had an interest in health technology companies and a personal desire to explore opportunities beyond direct patient care, and I was fortunate enough to get a leadership position within Therapist Enablement at Luna. Luna provides an opportunity for therapists to treat a similar patient population while being able to spend a lot more time with them, and that initially intrigued me.
Q. You're now in a different part of the process, not directly treating patients, but still leveraging your firsthand clinical experience. How does this transition allow you to connect and empower other therapists at Luna?
When a therapist joins the Luna platform, there are a number of checkpoints and processes to help get them started and get familiarized with the system. From there, we wanted to add an additional layer of support to the clinical team once the therapist is seeing patients. That’s where I come in as an additional touchpoint.
Being a therapist, there are benefits to understanding the challenges and stressors, particularly when starting a new therapy job. I serve as a dedicated resource to address clinical or app-related questions and to help our therapists leverage our platform and technology to provide the best care possible.
During my time at Luna, I’ve been really impressed with the investment in both clinical support and technology improvements. On one hand, we are focused on providing therapists with avenues and resources to answer clinical questions. On the other hand, we aim to minimize the burdens of the average therapist, such as scheduling patients, documenting, and billing. I serve as a direct resource to therapists on the platform to make sure they have the tools they need while feeling supported by an additional person in their corner.
Q. How are you building and empowering the therapist community? What worthwhile initiatives have you seen since joining Luna?
Within the various teams at Luna, we have a number of people who are physical therapists or have healthcare backgrounds, so they relate well to the pain points of our therapists. They can better understand the context of their questions, as with my position, which provides a stronger support network.
One investment that will continue to grow is our quarterly webinars. We will post these webinars for our therapists that provide additional educational opportunities designed to be fun, engaging, and easy to access. They’re entirely free and provide continuing education units, which are required in many states to renew your license. These webinars allow us to help build their skills as a therapist, so we’ve put in additional effort to support that.
Q. What sets Luna apart from other healthcare organizations when valuing and investing in its clinicians?
In the physical therapy space, time is a big aspect. By nature, it’s an inflexible profession. With Luna, there is a ton of flexibility. The platform provides significantly greater control over your time and schedule, which was foreign to me as a therapist in the clinic. Additionally, documentation is a massive burden, even for those outside of physical therapy. Luna has invested in making a big dent in that time, minimizing this pain point as much as possible through tools and technology advancements. Hopefully, giving therapists more time to dedicate to their lives outside of work.
Q. Why do you love working at Luna, and why are you passionate about this new role?
The main reason I love working at Luna has been the perspective change; facilitating patient care and consistency is massive in contributing to a positive outcome. There are so many unseen barriers that make access to care difficult and ultimately lead to people suffering more than they need to.
Luna is an impressive company and tool to work toward that access problem. Making that simple, easy, and quick helps to remove a lot of those barriers, and that’s something I’ve become increasingly more passionate about. If we can make a dent in that problem, we can really improve the quality of life for many people.
If you’re a physical therapist interested in owning your career, we invite you to learn more and join our dynamic and supportive therapist community at Luna.
