Page 10 - Mobility Management, April 2017

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Numotion’s Mission Possible
The winner of the 2017 Trickett Wendler award was Alexis Ward, Numotion’s director of Medicaid affairs. Tealyn, the Wendlers’ eldest child, told the Numotion audience about a letter she’d recently written to her mother and how she was saddened that her mother would not be there to help her select a college or attend her wedding.
Then, Swinford said Tealyn told the audience, “All these memories I’m not going to have with my mom are memo- ries that you allow your customers to experience every single day by allowing them to be more independent and mobile.”
Swinford, who was on stage with Tealyn as she spoke, said he was humbled.
“We get caught up in working medical documentation and justification and technical reviews, doing everything we can to manage a very complex, cumbersome process of getting reimbursed by insurance companies,” he explained. “And sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in checking boxes and to lose the emotional and purposeful connection of why we’re doing what we’re doing. That was a major impact and something that has fueled our team on a whole new level as far as dedication and motivation.”
Getting Everyone Involved
Just a few years ago, Swinford said this National Leadership Conference was largely regarded as an ATP education event — and something of a chore for its attendees.
“Two years ago, we had a large percentage of people who didn’t come for one reason or another,” Swinford said. “That percentage has been declining; it’s a small, low single-digit percentage now. People look forward to this. They look forward to seeing what’s new, where we’re taking the company. They’re excited because we take
Numotion warms up before tackling its Give Kids the World service project.
such as its medical supplies sales force. There are managers and leaders from throughout the company, including from operations.
“And we’ve got ATPs who work exclusively with children, others who are working with spinal cord injuries, some who are in a rural setting, others who are in a very urban setting,” Swinford said. “So we’ve got to make sure we’re not just talking to ATPs or just to certain types of individ- uals. We’ve got to make sure it’s relevant and that we’re finding a way to connect with everybody.”
He says attendee surveys, as well as personal correspondence he’s received, have been overwhelm- ingly positive, indicating that Numotion’s mission is indeed possible.
“The most common word used in the surveys we got back was family,” he said. “Such as the Numotion family. And It’s good to get the family back together, it’s good to see the family is committed to our customers and to doubling down on our mission.
“The use of the term family is one I don’t take lightly. People eat, breathe, live and sleep complex rehab and Numotion and our industry, whether it’s during working hours, after working hours, weekends, holidays. I’ve never seen an employee base so committed, 24/7, to our mission. And because of that, you’ve got to feel the people you’re doing this with share the same values, have the same compassion and emotion for what we’re doing.”
Swinford believes the meeting’s customer-centric focus was right on target.
“The biggest take-away for me was how profound and impactful focusing everything on our customers was,” he noted. “I’ve got notes from ATPs who are in this 30-plus years who said, ‘You know, I’ve been doing this a long time and it gave me a renewed and a re-energized perspective that I haven’t had in years in terms of why we do what we do.’”
— Photos & story by Laurie Watanabe l mobilitymgmt.com
Mike Swinford addressed a packed auditorium.
10 april 2017 | mobilitymanagement
half a day and dedicate it to community service (see the Give Kids the World sidebar, starting on page 14). So I think we’ve found a really good formula to bring our team together to energize them and find new ways to excite them and really get them to a new level of commitment to what they’re doing.”
The new iteration of
the National Leadership Conference includes not just ATPs, but members of Numotion’s other divisions,