About Kaizen Health and Wellness | Physical Therapy in Urbandale, IA

01 How we started 01 / 06

It started with a stopwatch problem.

Dr. Bryan M. Ladd, PT, DPT, MS, OCS, spent years practicing inside the model most patients already know: a packed schedule, a hallway of rooms, and a doctor’s title attached to whatever slice of the hour was left over once the paperwork and the handoffs were done. For him, that model was the U.S. Navy: two years as Assistant Department Head at Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington, then three as Department Head at US Naval Hospital Okinawa in Japan, where he completed the Military Musculoskeletal Residency and earned his board certification as an Orthopedic Clinical Specialist.

Running a department taught him what scaled care actually costs a patient: more paperwork, more handoffs, less of the doctor who found the problem in the first place. When his five years of service ended, he moved back to Iowa with his family, intent on building the opposite: one doctor, one patient, one hour, every time.

That’s Kaizen Health and Wellness. Not a slogan borrowed from a wall calendar, but the actual reason the schedule works the way it does. His favorite cases are still the complicated ones, the shoulders and the reasoning puzzles that reward doing the evaluation right the first time, exactly the kind of case a rushed model can’t afford to take seriously.

“I am biased but I believe we have one of (if not the) best team of physical therapists, not just in Des Moines, but in the state of Iowa.”

Dr. Bryan M. Ladd · PT, DPT, MS, OCS

02 The model 02 / 06

One-on-one, on purpose.

Not a line on our wall. The operating decision everything else is built around.

One-on-one isn’t a slogan here. It’s the only way a cause-first evaluation stays useful past the first visit. The doctor who finds the actual reason for your pain is the same doctor treating you at visit two, and visit six, because that reasoning doesn’t transfer well between three different aides taking notes on three different clipboards.

If you’re reading an about page before booking anything, you’re not being difficult. You want to know who’s actually going to put hands on you, and that’s a reasonable thing to want from a doctor. It’s the same instinct Dr. Bryan M. Ladd had on the other side of the table, which is most of the reason this model exists at all.

Skip the cause-first step and pain has a habit of finding its way back to the exact place you left it: the shoulder that behaves right up until the weekend you finally reach overhead for real, the back that holds up until the move, the trip, the yard work you’d been putting off. A plan with an endpoint only works if somebody actually found the endpoint first.

Every plan that comes out of that evaluation moves through the same four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, Prevent, in that order, whether the diagnosis is a stiff shoulder or a knee six weeks post-op. The phases don’t change. The specifics inside them do.

Model One patient, one doctor, one hour

Evaluation Cause-first, hands-on from visit one

The plan Four phases, named endpoint

Referral Not required. Direct access in IA

03 What we believe 03 / 06

What we believe.

Six convictions we build every appointment around, not six words on a wall.

01The evaluation is the treatment, not paperwork standing in front of it.
02Where it hurts and why it hurts are frequently two different places.
03A plan without an end date isn’t a plan. It’s an open tab.
04Hands-on care doesn’t retire once the pain does; strength is what keeps you off our schedule for good.
05A patient who understands their own plan tends to follow it better than one who was just handed a sheet.
06Direct access means you don’t wait on somebody else’s referral to start getting better.

04 In the neighborhood 04 / 06

Part of the neighborhood, not just located in it.

We see patients from all over the Urbandale area, and most weeks we recognize half the names on the schedule before the front desk finishes reading them off. Urbandale is a small enough town that your physical therapist might also be your neighbor, your kid’s coach, or the person three cars back at pickup. It’s harder to treat someone like a number when you might see them again at the grocery store.

Inside the treatment space at Kaizen Health and Wellness in Urbandale — The treatment space

Strength and mobility equipment at Kaizen Health and Wellness in Urbandale — The strength floor

A team member’s child visiting the gym floor at Kaizen Health and Wellness in Urbandale, IA — The neighborhood part

Come meet the people holding the plan.

Talk to a Specialist ⟶ Meet the staff ⟶

05 The intake 05 / 06

Put it in writing.

Five short questions. A real person calls you back, usually within two business hours, with times that fit your week.

The people who end up filling this out are rarely in the worst pain of their life. They’re just done working around it, done picking the errand that doesn’t require the stairs. If that’s the stage you’re at, this is the part where you stop researching and start.

Hours Mon-Fri 7:00 AM–6:00 PM, Sat-Sun Closed

Prefer to talk? (515) 207-2450, a human answers

Availability Same-week appointments, most weeks

On record 5.0 · 315 Google reviews

Appointment request 01 / 05

Let’s start with your name.

So we know who to ask for when we call.

We’ll need a name to book you in.

That didn’t go through. Call us at (515) 207-2450 and we’ll book you by phone.

06 Where we are 06 / 06

Easy to find. Easy to park.

In the neighborhood, with parking by the door. Come see the place before you commit, if you like.

Map 01The neighborhood

The clinic · Kaizen Health and Wellness

Address 11119 Plum Dr, Urbandale, IA 50322

Phone (515) 207-2450

Fax (515) 513-5431

Email admin@kaizendsm.com

Hours Mon-Fri 7:00 AM–6:00 PM, Sat-Sun Closed

Parking Free, by the door. No garage maze.

Get Directions ⟶Opens in Google Maps

The practice, and why it still works this way.