In the late 1940’s the American Physiotherapy Association changed its name to the American Physical Therapy Association and the profession followed.  According to Ryan Johnson, physical therapist and owner of IPA Physio, there is an undertow among younger physical therapists to change it back.  

“Dissatisfied with the evolved and predominant American model of Big Box physical therapy that cherishes patient numbers, and being more globally aware with connectivity of the Internet, younger physical therapists are beginning to embrace the international brand of physiotherapy. ‘Physio’ is a short, punchy and unique word that is understood worldwide, which is ever more important in a connected world”, said Ryan.

Being the patient provider of the Institute of Physical Art’s (IPA) Functional Manual Therapy® technique, Ryan’s IPA Physio business focuses on quality patient care.  The IPA is a post graduate physical therapy education company based in Colorado USA.  The founders, married couple and Ryan’s parents, Gregory S Johnson and Vicky Saliba Johnson, have been training physical therapists in advanced manual therapy techniques since 1978.  

Initially seeking a career outside of physical therapy, Ryan was pre-med in college, a bar tender, actor and car sales dealer but when he took stock after a relationship breakdown he soon realised he admired his parents vision – to transform lives without drugs and surgery.

Ryan’s IPA Physio business model is not unlike a franchise where he provides the brand, the marketing and the systems, but rather than charging an upfront and annual franchise fee he commits to each business with a minority shareholding.  Currently IPA Physio have practices in California, Oregon, Colorado and New York, with more on the way.

Ryan said, “The business brand ‘IPA Physio ‘is the perfect marriage of my parent’s educational business from which it derives its values and its application to patients.  At the same time the ‘Physio’ identifies our connection with our global profession whilst saying that we are different from standard American physical therapy”.  

At the time of his business launch the .physio domain extension became available and Ryan was an enthusiastic registrant of the company’s website’s domain www.ipa.physio.  Ryan said, “The ability to have an exact match between our brand and a short, memorable and relevant domain name gives us a powerful marketing advantage”.  Consistency across branding is vital to being easy to find.  Ryan was also savvy enough to also secure exact match names on his social media accounts at Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

The .physio domain extension provides an opportunity for American physical therapists like Ryan to unite with their global colleagues to actively promote themselves and the profession under a single brand.  Join the movement with a .physio domain name at www.dot.physio