Why I Jumped: The Story Behind IconicCare

It all started in Albuquerque, fresh out of my residency. I was trying to build a career and a life, which meant I was juggling two very different worlds. By day, I was the medical director at a state-of-the-art inpatient rehab facility. In the afternoons and evenings, I was making rounds in local nursing homes.

And a thought kept nagging at me, getting louder every day.

I’d walk the halls of my high-tech rehab facility, surrounded by specialized equipment and protocols. Then I’d walk the halls of a nursing home and see patients who were, from a medical standpoint, just as complex. They were recovering from the same surgeries, the same strokes, the same illnesses. The need was exactly the same, but the specialized, physician-led rehab care wasn’t.

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that we were leaving so many people behind. There was this huge opportunity to help patients in a way that just wasn’t being done. So, I started asking questions. And more importantly, I started listening.

I didn’t have a grand plan sketched out on a napkin. Instead, I sat down with nursing home administrators. I pulled up a chair with Directors of Nursing and Directors of Rehab. I talked with therapists and aides. I wanted to understand their world, their pressures, and their needs. What I learned was invaluable: a one-size-fits-all program was doomed to fail. Every building, every team, and every community was unique. To truly help, we had to be flexible. We had to adapt.

I also realized it wasn't just about the what, but the who. You can’t just walk into a nursing home with a hospital mentality. It doesn’t work. You need clinicians with a different kind of skill set—people who know how to communicate, how to collaborate, and how to become part of the team. A friendly attitude and a genuine desire to "fit in" and support the existing staff were just as important as any medical degree.

All of these ideas were swirling around at what was probably the most chaotic time in my personal life. I was still wearing multiple hats at work, and my wife and I were about to have our third child. To say things were busy would be an understatement. It probably sounded a little bit crazy to want to start a new company right then.

But there was this deep-down feeling I couldn’t ignore. It was a conviction that we could do this, and that these patients deserved better, more thoughtful care. So, we jumped. We took a leap of faith and decided to build the company.

From the very beginning, our program was built to evolve. As we started partnering with more and more nursing homes, we kept listening and learning. We saw that a program in a bustling city needed to be different from one in a rural area where resources were scarce, so we built a model that could work anywhere. We learned to customize our approach, not just for each facility, but for the unique needs of the communities they served.

That’s the promise I try to keep at the heart of IconicCare as we continue to grow. We have to stay mindful, stay humble, and never stop evolving. It all comes back to that simple idea I had in those early days: meeting people where they are, with the exact care they need to live their fullest lives.

Below I want to share a deeper dive into the thesis for IconicCare. Hopefully you find it intellectually stimulating!

-Dr. Christian Morris

The Problem of the Missing Blueprint

In facility after facility, I noticed a similar pattern. Rehabilitation, the very engine of recovery for so many patients, was often running without clear medical leadership. The plan was typically driven by therapy minutes, not by a comprehensive, physician-led strategy. I saw a lack of evidence-based protocols, disconnected communication between departments, and goals that didn’t always see the big picture.

It was frustrating to see patients who could have thrived with advanced pain management or specialized equipment miss out simply because no one was coordinating the full rehab picture. These weren’t just operational inefficiencies; they were missed opportunities for human recovery. I founded IconicCare to solve this by bringing physiatry into the core of facility operations. I designed clear, programmatic pathways for common conditions—orthopedic recovery, stroke, chronic pain—that include everything from initial assessments to outcome tracking and discharge planning. We created the blueprint I knew was missing.

Unlocking the True Power of Physiatry

Another driving force behind IconicCare was seeing how deeply my own specialty was being underutilized. In many facilities, physiatrists were seen as ancillary providers, called in occasionally for a specific problem but rarely viewed as core team members. This meant that our most valuable skills—optimizing medications, performing functional assessments, overseeing therapy plans, and providing non-opioid pain solutions—were largely being left on the table.

I started IconicCare to change this narrative. My vision was to embed physiatrists into the very fabric of the care team, transforming us from outside consultants into essential team leaders. Our providers lead weekly interdisciplinary meetings, mentor therapy and nursing staff, and serve as an integrated resource. When this happens, the dynamic shifts. Therapy becomes more targeted, documentation improves, hospital readmissions decrease, and patients feel the benefit of a truly collaborative team fighting for them. We became the "force multiplier" that I always knew physiatry could be.

It's Not Just About Better Care—It's About Better Metrics

In today’s value-based world, I knew we had to deliver measurable results. One of the things I’m most proud of is IconicCare’s proven ability to drive real impact across key domains:

Improving Quality Measures: By implementing our model, facilities see tangible improvements in CMS indicators like functional outcomes, reduced readmissions, and better discharge-to-community rates. This directly impacts their Five-Star Ratings and reimbursement.

Increasing Patient Satisfaction: When patients have a rehab doctor coordinating their plan and listening to their concerns, they feel seen and supported. This builds trust and significantly boosts satisfaction scores.

Reducing Opioid Reliance: Perhaps most importantly, we bring a full toolbox of non-opioid pain management strategies, from targeted injections to functional movement analysis. We consistently help facilities reduce their reliance on opioids while achieving better, safer pain control for their residents.