Increasingly, employers are warming to an idea already familiar to many physical therapists and physical therapist assistants: investing in prevention and wellness efforts makes sense both in terms of overall health care and company bottom lines.

Now APTA is helping PTs and PTAs interested in making that idea a reality for more employers.

The "Working With Employers Toward Population Health" webpage is an area devoted to providing PTs and PTAs with resources to help them make the case to employers that preventing noncommunicable diseases among employees—or addressing them before they become symptomatic, disabling, and costly—is a smart move, and one that the physical therapy profession is poised to lead in collaboration with other disciplines.

The webpage offers a perspective paper and recorded webinar on direct-to-employer physical therapy, and includes past articles from PT in Motion magazine that explore how employer self-insurance opens up opportunities for PTs and PTAs in the population health space. The page also features an inspiring blog post from Mike Eisenhart, PT, that challenges the profession to "actually deliver on the mandate of our vision and, in so doing, deliver on the essential promise that we help individuals and populations alike move away from disease and toward improved health and quality of life."

The association will continue adding resources as they become available as part of larger efforts by APTA to support PTs and PTAs in promoting population health to transform society. Those efforts include an upcoming webinar looking at the social determinants of health and how they're measured across populations. The webinar itself is set for September 21, 1:00 pm–2:00 pm (ET), but registrants will be provided material to read in advance.