Rockville Centre Native Spearheads New PT Practice In Hometown

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NY. — A Rockville Centre native is returning home after 10 years away this week, as Spear Physical & Occupational Therapy opens a new location at 270 Sunrise Highway. The location will be the company’s third on Long Island, and the first therapist on-staff at the new location is Rockville Centre’s own Michael Santo.

Santo is has been a licensed physical therapist for 15 years, graduating from NYIT in 2011 with his doctorate of physical therapy. An avid soccer player and coach in his spare time, Santo specializes in orthopedic and sports rehabilitation, saying he takes an approach “grounded in movement quality, strength training and preventative care.”

When asked how it felt to be on the team at the PT center in his hometown, Santo said it was special to him. Having grown up on Park Avenue in Rockville and graduated from South Side High School, the new location is “right around the corner” from his old stomping grounds, Santo said.

“I have roots in this community, I know a lot of people in the area, obviously, some of my family still lives in town,” Santo said. “I’ve got a big family, though, so I’ve got people in other parts of the country as well. We still have some roots in the community, my parents both grew up here, I think their parents, my grandparents, moved here in the 50s, so we’ve been around here a long time. So, coming back here is special, it’s important. I’m looking forward to it.”

As for the practice itself, Spear VP of marketing and business development Jon Rogers said Santo would be the first therapist on-site, with the company planning to hire additional staff with different therapeutic specialties down the road.

“This location will have occupational therapy, hand therapy, pelvic floor therapy, we plan to offer pediatrics as well, but that’s probably going to be a couple of months from now,” Rogers said. “Every therapist at Spear [also] does virtual therapy, so in the event that you can’t make it in for an appointment, or whatever the case may be, we can always offer a virtual appointment as well.”

The location is opening with a “soft opening” Friday, before its full-scale opening Monday, Jan. 12, Rogers said. Spear is opening two offices Monday, with an additional office in Bellmore, bringing the company’s presence to four offices across Long Island, with 75 offices across Brooklyn, Connecticut, Long Island, Manhattan, New Jersey, Queens, Staten Island and Westchester. Rogers added that the company’s services are offered on a fully-in-network basis.

For its first therapist, the Rockville Centre Spear practice is a chance to get back to the community that raised him.

“Honestly, to get back into serving the community I grew up in,” Santo said, when asked about his goals for the new location. “I haven’t lived here for about 10 years, but I’ve been a therapist for about 15 years. I'm relatively new to Spear…I’m just excited for the growth and expansion they have planned into this area.”

Santo added that, in his view, the new Spear practice wouldn’t be “just another big mill,” but would focus on individualized care for patients coming through its doors.

“It’s not just another big mill that pushes out physical therapy by the numbers. Most of our treatment is one-on-one therapy, which is very rare, especially these days. So you’re not walking into a clinic that’s just got people all over. You’re actually working with your therapist the majority of the time. So I’m not seeing four, five, six people an hour, I’m seeing one to two,” Santo said. “So it’s a big difference, it’s a different model than what most people are used to with physical therapy. And I think that’s important. You’re getting time with me, you’re getting time with whatever therapist I would hire after me. People who don’t know too much about physical therapy probably think it’s all the same, but most physical therapists treat 100 people a week. We treat 50 to 60, so we’re seeing about half the amount of people that most physical therapy practices are seeing, so you get a lot more face time with your therapist. It’s just a higher quality product than what people are probably used to.”