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EDITOR'S NOTE: Thomas Pack prepared this article from information provided by KORT president and CEO Larry Benz.
How did KORT get started?
"In the 1980s, I was a physical therapist in the Army, assigned to Fort Knox. There was a shortage of therapists in Kentucky, so I moonlighted in hospitals. In 1987, I - along with my then future wife, Patty - founded a physical therapy service in Elizabethtown and started contracting with hospitals and nursing homes primarily in rural areas.
"Our real passion, however, was orthopedic sports medicine. So we started opening outpatient physical therapy clinics under the name Southern Kentucky Physical Therapy. Health care in the '80s was moving towards outpatient centers - getting people out of the hospitals and into freestanding centers. That worked to our favor because we were able to meet a need that wasn't being met by other organizations in smaller communities.
"Gradually, we expanded throughout Kentucky, and in '92 or '93, we renamed the company Kentucky Orthopedic Rehab Team, or KORT."
How did you finance the startup and expansion of the company?
"We started with bank loans and lines of credit. When we got money in, we would pay down the debt, and we've been mostly debt free since about '92. We went for a long time where we wouldn't open a clinic until we could do it without debt. Most of our clinics have been startups, but we also have acquired some. About two years ago, we acquired six in Lexington and took on a little debt."
Benz declined to provide specific financial figures, but he said the company's revenue has grown at an average annual rate of about 15 percent per year over the past decade.
How many clinics do you have now, and how many physical therapists?
"We have 25 clinics and about 200 therapists. We have more boardcertified therapists than any other provider in the state. They take care of nearly 12,000 patients a month."
What are the most common ailments they treat?
"Neck and shoulder pain. Injuries to the knee and back used to be the most common, but now we're seeing many more overuse injuries in the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists and bands. We have a center that does nothing but...