Why The NorCal SCI Center

Spinal Cord Injuries are life changing resulting in paralysis
The Health Care system is no longer set up to offer the intensive rehab necessary to provide the newly injured a platform to maximize their recovery and independence The vast majority of the newly injured simply do not get the continued rehab they desperately need.

The Hard Facts
Inpatient Rehabilitation Therapy in specialized centers has been the corner stone for recovery from a Spinal Cord Injury. Tragically, over the past couple of decades, we have seen the average length of stay in a rehab hospital following a life-altering spinal cord injury decrease from 70 days to an average of 19 days in 2020 in Northern California. As medical costs have spiraled upwards, there has been intense pressure from the insurance providers (and their well-funded lobbyists) to reduce the length of stays.

Rather than having the goal of preparing the newly injured to return home with a platform to maximize their functionality and independence, the goals have shifted to discharge the patients when they are medically stable leaving the burden of the long recovery with the individuals and their families.

The initial savings for the insurance providers is significant. A reduction of 10 days in acute rehabilitation can save the insurance provider $100,000

It's no wonder how the insurance providers have continued to create metrics and data to justify these unacceptable changes in lengths of stays.

Our Solution
Those with a new injury will enroll in a program that would provide extended rehab at our facility for 2-3 hours a day for four weeks where they’d experience a combination of 1-on-1 work with a Physical Therapist and an Exercise Trainer to help them become more functional and independent.

Our facility will be like none other in Northern California, ensuring those without the financial or adequate insurance resources to experience the same therapeutic benefits as anyone else. We’re grateful to Neuroworx, the renowned outpatient rehabilitation facility in Utah, and their founders who’ve been among our biggest supporters in helping us launch our facility.

Back in 2020, we launched our “5/22 Capital Campaign” in order to raise a minimum of $500,000 to provide newly injured individuals the extended rehab they need to maximize their recovery, in addition to offering an open gym facility for others to continue their therapies and exercises. 

With our tremendous fundraising successes in 2020 and 2021, it provided us with the confidence to announce the allocation of $500,000 toward the opening of an extended rehabilitation capability all within a modern facility operated by us.

We have developed a budget to have the facility’s operation be fully funded for its first two years, requiring approximately $750,000 in capital. This would allow us to provide much-needed extended rehabilitation and support to over 70 clients during the first two years of operation. Additionally, we will also be able to serve the needs of others in the SCI community seeking to benefit from exercising and interacting with their fellow peers at an accessible and adaptive facility.

While we remain confident that our community of supporters will help us raise the remaining $250,000, we have already started the work of opening the facility in the first half of 2022. Our launch committee has been hard at work scouring the commercial real estate market for a suitable site, identifying and prioritizing the equipment needed, and beginning a wide search for our lead Physical Therapist, along with many other tasks to prepare an impressive operation that would meet our community’s needs.

We are now focused on opening our center and providing a sustainable and scalable operation that will have a dramatic positive impact on our community for years to come. Our future funding sources will include insurance reimbursement, private pay for those able to, grant funding and continuing fundraising and support from our incredible donors.

Be Part of The Solution
Please email us at info@norcalsci.org to get more details of this exciting initiative and find out how you can make an impact on the Spinal Cord Injury Community in Northern California.