APTA Nebraska Podcast
The APTA Nebraska Podcast dives into the stories, challenges, and innovations shaping physical therapy in our state. We’re here to advance, promote, and protect the practice of physical therapy, build our community, and optimize the health and quality of life for all Nebraskans.
APTA Nebraska Podcast
E14 - Member Spotlight with Matt Janssen
Matt Janssen, PT, DPT shares how wound care, pain science, and community ties shape meaningful outcomes. We explore belief change, access barriers, and why advocacy lets clinicians stay focused on patients.
• Career path from orthopedics to wound care and pain science
• How pain neuroscience reframes persistent pain and guides care
• Building therapeutic alliance to change beliefs and behaviors
• Real patient wins: from cane to deadlifts and burpees
• Wound care realities: audits, denials, and prevention gaps
• Compression coverage barriers for venous insufficiency
• Combating misinformation and overreliance on imaging
• Role of APTA membership in advocacy and stability
• Invitation for members statewide to share their practice stories
Hey, if you have a great story that you want to share, you want to share about your practice, please get a hold of me. I would love to interview you. I'd love to share what you have going on with the rest of our state too.
Have an idea or topic for the podcast? Connect with Brad! bradley.dexter@unmc.edu
Welcome to the APTA Nebraska podcast, where we dive into the stories, challenges, and innovations shaping physical therapy in our state. We're here to advance, promote, and protect the practice of physical therapy, optimizing the health and quality of life for all Nebraskans. Join us as we connect with experts, share insights, and build community throughout our profession.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to the APTA Nebraska podcast. I'm Brad Dexter, your host, and uh as I've said many times on this podcast, we love to kind of highlight what's going on from an advocacy standpoint, from you know, give practice updates from our president Nick Weber. We've tried to make sure that we are spotlighting what's going on in some of our different committees and the work that's being done within the organization so that we can be transparent about that. But uh, one of the third aims is to make sure that we're highlighting what's going on around the state. Uh, and we're trying to do that by uh doing interviews with members from around the state. And today we're joined by Matt Janssen. Matt is a physical therapist in Sydney, Nebraska. And uh Matt and I were just catching up a little bit before we actually started recording because we graduated from the PT program uh back in 2011 together. So, Matt, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Hey Brad, thanks for having me. It's great catching up with you. Um, I still talk often about how we used to play tennis together and how frustrating it was playing against you because Mark and I would be Mark Shear, one of our other classmates, would just be hitting hard and trying to hammer things home and you just get there and don't get back over and just couldn't get your unflappable, man.
SPEAKER_02:That that was a lot of fun. Uh now that game has transitioned into pickleball, you know, where it's a smaller court. Yeah, not as much movement. Not as much movement. It's it's funny. I I often think about, you know, we would have, I think we worked out together uh in the gym a number of times, and and uh you you kind of pose this philosophical question one day of, hey, have you ever thought about the fact that all we're really doing is is building different shadows on our bodies when you're working out? Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, working on that physique.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. Uh I can't can't tell you how many times I've been like, gosh, all I'm really doing is building different shadows uh when I'm exercising. It's more than that. No, man, it's it's good to have you. Um it's been a long time since we talked, and and I love just being able to kind of highlight you and some of the work that you've been doing um in the Western district of the state in Sydney. So, hey, just jumping in here, um, can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself? So, how long have you been a PT? Um, what's your career path looked like? What does family hobbies look like? And and ultimately, why Sydney?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, so I'm Matt Jansen. Um I'm from Western Nebraska, grew up around Gordon, um, went to high school in Shadron. Uh, graduated from the Med Center, University of Nebraska Medical Center PT in 2011. Um, I've been practicing in Sydney for the hospital here, um, Sydney Regional Medical Center for a little over 14 years now. Um, practice-wise, you know, I started out um mostly interested in orthopedics and kind of the sports world. Um, it's really expanded since then. About 10 years ago, I got into um wound care, um, became wound care certified um practitioner. Um, and then about seven years ago, um, I dived deep in the world of uh pain science and um pain neuroscience education. Um, went and got a therapeutic pain specialization through evidence in motion, which has really changed kind of my practice how I practice and how I kind of look at things um from a big picture standpoint. Um you know, family life. I'm uh married, have twin daughters that are almost 10 years old, so they keep us busy, you know, running around to different dance practices and soccer practices and um all of that. Um you know, Sydney's just been a great place for us, you know, growing up in a rural community. It was always a desire and passion of mine to return back to rural Nebraska and um, you know, provide excellent service to um the people of rural communities that may have sometimes have a hard time accessing that. Um and you know, the hospital here has just been a great place to work for. You know, I love all the people that I work with. I think we have a great group of people, um, a great um leader, our department our director, Brad Kennedy, does a great job of giving us a good environment to just be the best practitioners that we can be and provide support to you know help provide the best services that we can.
SPEAKER_02:So what um you you've you've kind of transplanted into Sydney, you're a part of that community now. How how would you talk about Sydney? So maybe not just your job, but like what is Sydney, Nebraska like?
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's a it's a great little town. It's really, you know, um, from when I first moved here, um, it's changed just with the um, you know, the whole Cabela's um deal when they sold to Bass Pro. Um, you know, this the community went from being all you know very heavily supported by that fact that Cabela's headquarters was here to um, you know, kind of happen to transition into something different. And, you know, it was there were some low points there where it's kind of scary, just a lot of houses for sale and the community just kind of feeling empty, but you know, kind of brought everyone closer together, and I think everyone kind of has a little bit more sense of community and togetherness because of that, you know, having been through that, and you know, there's a lot of pride that I think that Sydney takes in itself and having gotten through that together. So um, you know, it's been great. We do a lot of work with the high schools, local the area high schools, um, both Sydney High School and we go over to Potter Dicks, which is about 25 miles away, and Leighton, which is about 25 miles away, little D uh class D schools and provide sports medicine services. Um, so it's been kind of weird, you know, over the years transitioning. I always, you know, being from Shadron, I always like to provide sports medicine in the games against Shadron. And you know, the the amount that I cheer for the Shadron team quietly, you know, has gone down a lot.
SPEAKER_02:So you've you've slowly become, you know, more of a uh a Sydney, Sydney Ike.
SPEAKER_00:Is that how you yeah, I think I've become a lot now more of a red raider than a cardinal.
SPEAKER_02:So okay, wow. Um I I'm really kind of interested. Uh, you know, you were talking about how your career has kind of wound some different directions, kind of starting with kind of that more muscular, orthopedic, sports-based, um, but then transitioned more wound care, and even you've dove into more pain science. Um, was it just interest that changed for you? Was it a need from your system, maybe a combination? Can you talk about that a little bit?
SPEAKER_00:Um, you know, the wound care was specifically just a need. You know, we had a wound care provider that had some life changes and wasn't available anymore for a while to provide outpatient wound care services. So um we had a you know a stable of wound care patients built up that needed more coverage. So I was offered to take over some of that and got some education on it and went and got my wound care certification so that I could provide good wound care services. And um, you know, that's so that just kind of became a part of what I do. Uh the pain science was more an interest that became a passion. Um, I took just a pain neuroscience education course, which was just kind of giving you the you know, the foundational um foundational education on like how to teach people about pain that got me really interested in it to where I wanted to dive into it more and get that therapeutic pain specialization to, you know, really always say to build your iceberg, you know, you want to you have the stuff on top that everybody can see that you're telling them, but you need to have a lot more underneath to build your foundational knowledge so that you can, you know, give people, you know, kind of relate stuff to people and educate them. Um, so that was just a really great experience doing that specialization course and just kind of change, you know, took it from pain science was initially an intervention, you know, to educate people, and now it's become more of just like kind of a foundation of practice and kind of how I look at everything.
SPEAKER_02:So how how so? Can you speak to that?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I I think mostly so, like I'll just give an example of like, you know, you get somebody that would come in that's had back pain for three months and you say, Okay, well, what happened? And like, I don't know, I just woke up and my back was hurting and it just hasn't gone away. You know, when I was when I was working or before, like I like understood pain science better, you know, I would do all these mental gymnastics of trying to figure out how did you injure, you know, this structure, or you know, what was going on with this structure, and how do I could I fix that structure, you know, type of a deal. Versus now I understand that pain is a lot more complicated than that, and there's a lot more that goes into that. Um, so I can address those things and kind of help the patient understand that, like, you know, just because your back starts hurting, it doesn't mean that you're screwed, you know, or it doesn't mean that you're stuck with that because something is broken and kind of help them get through that process. So in understanding it better, I can educate them better so that they can, you know, take back their life.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, and even maybe stylistically, some of the the tools that you've learned in treating people with with pain can transition over to patients that don't have chronic pain too, right?
SPEAKER_00:Um exactly, and kind of understand, yeah. So even now, if you have a you know a sports or an athlete that comes in that you know pulled their hamstring, you know, not only am I treating their hamstring, but I'm also teaching them how they can, you know, treat how you know, just how the nervous system is involved, not just the musculoskeletal system. So we can address some of those things as they come up.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Um, all right. So next question for you. Uh you know, I I think as you you've you and I both have been in the clinic for a long time now. Um maybe middle career is how you might might phrase some of that, right? Uh and so you've got to see some of the hard things, but you've also got to see a lot of great things along the way. Um, and oftentimes those things can happen at the same time. They can be happening simultaneously. So can you just talk to, as a physical therapist, building your career in this area as a healthcare provider, what has been hard or challenging about being a PT and what's brought you a lot of joy from being a PT?
SPEAKER_00:You know, from the challenging aspect, I mean, there's obviously the thing that everybody's gonna say, you know, the in working with insurances, working with um, you know, needing uh pre-authorization and you know, do all that stuff on the you know, the billing part of it. Um for from more of a practice standpoint, you know, I think one of the harder things is dealing with being in the information age and the amount of information that's out there and the amount of misinformation that's out there, and having to try to, you know, it's almost like you're starting with somebody and you're five steps back because you know, of things that they've heard or seen on the internet, um, and even really the misinformation provided by people, other people in the medical community, you know, people that are still um using and an outdated understanding of you know pain and recovery and um you know injury recovery and that kind of stuff. Um, so that's something that's you know been frustrating and difficult to work with and try to work around. Um, you know, it's hard when you get somebody that comes in that you know would be a good candidate for conservative um improvement with like a back pain or a knee pain, but their doctor gave them, had them do an MRI and they're like, oh, I've got arthritis. So now, you know, I have to have surgery and having to try to change those beliefs. Um, but you know, kind of on that same pathway, I think I get a lot of joy and a lot of pride in having success with that with some people, you know, being able to get help people understand their pain better, help people understand their bodies better, and get past some of those negative beliefs and you know, kind of take, like I said, take back their life. You know, one of my one of my biggest, one of the things that uh I consider one of my biggest accomplishments is like helping a guy that was about my age that had had back pain from the military for like 10 plus years. Um, and he was walking with the cane and you know, didn't really do a whole lot, wasn't really active to where we were done. He was, you know, doing burpees and heavy deadlifts and you know, walking, you know, without any assist devices, like you know, he just really night and day was able to, you know, kind of live his life again, you know, despite what he had dealt with. So, you know, that's just brings me a lot of joy to be able to help people like that.
SPEAKER_02:And I mean, that's a really good example of uh you're you're not just treating the symptom, right? You're treating the whole person in a circumstance like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I think one of the things that PT provides us with how we get to work with people that is gonna be one of the biggest drivers of helping people is just that therapeutic alliance, you know, being able to connect with people and you know, really get to be a part of their lives and get to know them so that we can help them. And I think that's a big driver of how successful we can be is our ability to do that. You know, the more those people feel like we're working, you know, working for them and with them, then the more likely we're gonna be able to help them. If they think we're just treating them because they're there, then you know, they're not gonna take the things we say and teach to heart.
SPEAKER_02:You you kind of hit on that challenge of um, you know, maybe sometimes people are coming to you with really strong beliefs in in one direction. And simply that could be, I have this problem, the only way that it's gonna be fixed is with a surgery of some kind, right? How do you go about using that therapeutic alliance? How do you go about um influencing those beliefs in a different way uh and helping them come to a different understanding?
SPEAKER_00:You know, um the the therapeutic pains deal that I did was through Adrian Lowe, um one of the you know, one of the top pain science providers in the US. Um and he always talked about how we just gotta plant seeds. You know, we can't come at somebody with the idea that we're just you know we're gonna, you know, completely turn them around. But if we can plant seeds that can then, you know, that they can then we can nurture and through how we treat people and how we work with them, then we can kind of water those seeds and help them grow into new beliefs. Um and it's you know, I think a big part of it is just about again, just be getting to know the person and you know getting to have a good relationship with the person, you know, the idea that you know, honesty without empathy is cruelty, you know, um, that we have to, you know, really listen to and care about our patients so that they can trust us to help them, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, well said. I um I love that idea of, you know, as we build that therapeutic alliance, um, we also we have some influence in people's lives, right? And we're we don't have to come at it from a paternalistic standpoint. Um, maybe some people need that and they would value that, but uh oftentimes we're kind of coming alongside uh to help people understand really or demystify what's going on so they can come to some of their own conclusions. We can help steer them in that direction. I I love uh I love Adrian Lowe. There's a lot of great stuff that he has. Um I'm I'm resonating with you across the board. Um, hey, my next question is it's really kind of organizationally uh through APT in Nebraska, trying to understand what do people need help with, right? Uh what kind of problems are you facing in your own practice? And so my question is what kind of challenges or problems have you currently been facing and and or what kind of solutions are you looking for uh in regards to your practice?
SPEAKER_00:Um, you know, I think one of the challenges that we face, especially in the wound care world, is um one getting our services covered. Like we've just been having some struggles of some audits and getting denied for providing sharps debreedment to wounds, um, just really nitpicking on stuff to just um especially from Medicare, um, nitpicking on small little things that and using those small things to deny um payment for that. And that makes it hard to harder to provide that care. And it's even made us kind of have to, you know, dig deep and justify whether we're gonna continue providing wound care services and whether it's worth it. Um, so that's been you know one of the challenges we've faced also with preventative care, um, especially like for me, coming from a wound care standpoint, you know, with venous insufficiency, you know, we see a ton of people that um come in with like venous wounds, and then we treat them with compression and wound care and get them all healed up and in a good position. Um, but then Medicare does not provide cover long-term compression like um compression wraps or compression stockings for a patient with the diagnosis of venous insufficiency. Um, so we one of the changes to Sydney that we've seen is the it's become a lot more blue-collar and less white collar since Cabela's left. Um so we have a lot more patients with, you know, financial barriers and being able to afford out of pocket those long-term, you know, compression solutions can be a barrier to, you know, there's times that we discharge patients because we can't really justify seeing them anymore. Um, knowing that they're not going to be able to afford compression stockings that are appropriate to manage their issues, and they're gonna be right back in there in three months with swollen legs and venous wounds again. So that's been a big challenge.
SPEAKER_02:And I, you know, aside from uh you know the coverage aspect, I would assume that there's an administrative burden of uh the appeals process, how you're writing your notes, revising notes, right?
SPEAKER_00:Um exactly.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And having to again put more time into that. You know, Brad, our directors had to put a lot of time into like dealing with these odds and you know, things like that. And like I said, even to the point that we've had to, you know, really kind of search, search deep of whether or not it's a service that's worth providing anymore, you know, not worth providing for the patients because that's obvious that it's a need, but you know, can we make it financially viable?
SPEAKER_02:You've been an APTA Nebraska member, APTA member uh for a long time now, too. Uh, what value have you found in being a member of APTA Nebraska?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I love the APTA and APTA Nebraska. And my, you know, my biggest benefit of that is that I want to provide as much of my focus towards patient care as I can. I love being a clinical uh clinical physical therapist. Um, and the way I kind of look at it is that if I can support the APTA, I know that there's a lot of things that kind of have to happen in the background, you know, advocacy at the legislative level, um, you know, different administrative services to make sure that PT can be as strong and healthy and um viable of a career as it can be. Um, and by supporting the APTA, I know that while that, you know, it just allows me to focus on my clinical practice as much as I can, and knowing that there's people in the background that are, you know, doing those other things that I'm you know not wanting to put my focus toward so that we can keep providing the best care that we can.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for being a longtime member. Um you know, I think there are there are different levels of what membership looks like. Uh you can be highly involved, you can be, you can kind of take uh a perspective like you just had too of hey, I still want to support this because I I see I see how it's helpful and I see you know a tie to the greater good in some ways, right? Um and there's certainly opportunities uh in between as well. Um Matt, it's been good to catch up with you. It's been good to hear about what life and practice looks like in Sydney, uh, and I appreciate you sharing sharing your time too. Um I know this is a day off for you, so uh we we got a good conversation in, and I hope that this is a valuable um listen for some of our audience as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I was glad to do it.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Listeners, uh, I hope this is enjoyable to you. Uh hey, if you have a great story that you want to share, you want to share about your practice, uh please get a hold of me. I would love to interview you. I'd love to share what you have going on with the rest of our state too. Again, the intent of uh these conversations is uh to help bring our community of physical therapists together throughout the state. So thanks again for listening, and we'll look forward to the next conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for tuning in to the APTA Nebraska podcast. Stay connected with us for more conversations that elevate our profession and improve the lives of Nebraskans. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and join the discussion because together we're driving the future of physical therapy forward.
