Westcoast Brace & Limb, Neighbor

For more than 40 years, the team at Westcoast Brace & Limb has provided professional expertise with a personal touch for our patients, creating customized, life like artificial limbs and braces for people with amputations and skeletal or neuromuscular conditions. We operate an in house fabrication laboratory and one of only a handful of in house anaplastology laboratories in the US, recently recognized for excellence by the International Anaplastology Association. Our five office locations cover the entire Tampa Bay region (Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk Counties) and and we provide emergency on-call service 24/7 covering nights and weekends. Westcoast also operates five Mobile Units that are equipped with the latest technology and tools so our clinicians can make critical adjustments and provide specialized care for our patients, wherever and whenever they need us.

The Westcoast Brace & Limb Difference

Westcoast employs approximately 20 ABC Certified and state licensed practitioners, representing expertise in all specialties, including: upper/lower limb prosthetics; pediatric orthotic conditions, such as scoliosis; cranial plagiocephaly and other pediatric pathologies; upper extremity orthotics; stance control technology; anaplastology; stroke; polio; CMT; osteoarthritis; diabetes; orthopedic injuries (especially of the hips, knees and spine); traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries in adults and children; cerebral palsy; spina bifida; muscular dystrophy; adult orthotic management of acute and chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis; and clinicians specializing in functional electrical stimulation (FES) technology for foot and wrist drop (WalkAide and Bioness).

Westcoast Brace & Limb staff provide care for more than 10,000 patients each year. In-hospital patient care is completed on the same day for basic orthotic and prosthetic needs, and within two days when the design and creation of custom devices is required.

Our state-of-the-art on site central fabrication laboratories mean faster turnaround and the highest quality and cost controls.

Our niche products, including: High Realism Silicone Skin Prosthetics (finger, hand, arm, foot, leg, facial and breast); Cranial Remolding Orthoses for infants; mastectomy fitting services; and Pectus Carinatum Orthoses are all fabricated and/or provided in house.

Healthcare practitioners have access to our clinicians 24/7 for whatever is needed, and our Mobile Units are available to care for patients who are homebound or in a hospital, nursing home or assisted living facility.

Personalizing Case Management Meets Physical and Emotional Needs

Our initial patient consultations and routine follow-up visits, phone consultations and meetings are a value-added commitment we make to our practitioner partners and patients, and are provided at no charge. We have created an online library of instructional ‘how-tos’ and other materials to help patients manage the wear and care of various orthotic and prosthetic devices (www.wcbl.com).

Unique among O&P companies, Westcoast has a Case Management Team that coordinates patient care at medical facilities, obtains insurance approvals and assists in identifying alternate funding as needed, helping patients negotiate these often stressful, difficult and convoluted processes.

For our amputee patients, Westcoast engages Case Managers who have personally dealt with amputation — they may be amputees themselves, or have gone through limb loss with a loved one. As a result, our team can advocate on behalf of patients with a deep level of understanding and empathy.

Westcoast Supports Model Programs for Amputees

We facilitate visits to patients still in the hospital through our one-of-a-kind Amputee Peer Visitation Program, providing extra support at a difficult time for those who can benefit from this special outreach.

Westcoast is proud to sponsor its own networking and social group, called Amputees Together (www.Amputees Together.org), that offers opportunities for amputees to participate in social and sporting events and meet with other amputee groups in the region.

Providing Customized Reports for Healthcare Professionals

Depending on a practitioner or organization’s preferences, our specialists generate timely reports on patient interactions and outcomes in whatever format works best for a practitioner and their medical records system.

We participate in and are credentialed with most insurance companies, taking the guesswork out of a patient’s coverage and enabling us to put a patient’s mind at ease regarding reimbursement for devices and services (see list of participating companies at www.wcbl.com/accepted-plans).

Westcoast Has An Enduring Commitment to Professional Education and Improving Patient Outcomes

Westcoast is accredited as a Resident Teaching Facility by the National Commission on Orthotic and Prosthetic Education. We host residents on site for 18-months to two years, training them in all aspects of orthotics and prosthetics until completion of their board exams for Certification by the American Board of Certification in Orthotics, Prosthetics and Pedorthics, Inc. We also host internships and externships year-round for students in area colleges and universities.

We host an educational website for the global orthotic/prosthetic community, at www.360oandp.com.

We publish a quarterly newsletter, The Westcoast Wire, highlighting O&P devices, patient stories and case studies, an O&P Desk Reference cataloging O&P devices and a prosthetic newsletter, Prosthetics Today.

As an accredited teaching and research facility, we offer CEUs and in-service courses for professionals (especially occupational and physical therapists, nurses and case managers) and we sponsor events throughout the year at locations across the Tampa Bay region. We believe it is important to create and sponsor educational programs to help area professionals enhance their knowledge of new devices as they become available for their patients.

Westcoast is committed to ongoing investments in R&D, exploring advances in bracing and other critical prosthetic components to further enhance patient outcomes. Westcoast was one of the originators of the Pectus Carinatum Compressor (WPC) and was the sole inventor of both the Kaliper Orthosis (to treat tennis elbow) and the Inflatable LumboSacral Orthosis (ILSO), in use nationwide. Our practitioners are involved in publishing research and case studies, utilizing the latest technology to measure and quantify clinical and quality outcomes as well as patient satisfaction, providing patients with the highest standard of care and helping advance acceptance of new technologies.