About the practice
Dr. Peter Bartges, PT, DPT, CCI
A Doctor of Physical Therapy who has spent a career building programs for the patients other settings find too complicated.
Background
Training, and what it was used for
Dr. Bartges earned his Doctor of Physical Therapy at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. What followed was less a career path than a pattern: arrive somewhere, find the patients falling through the gap, and build the program that catches them.
In Delaware, that meant opening and directing a concussion specialty program at a time when persistent post-concussion symptoms were still routinely managed with rest and reassurance. It also meant running the rehabilitation program for a Division II college athletics department, where the standard is not merely recovery but return to competition on a real calendar.
On California’s Central Coast, the gap is different and larger. Chronic wounds in a rural, medically complex, heavily Medicare population, with limited access to advanced wound care and long drives to anything specialized. Coastal Wound Care exists for that gap.
The credential that says the most about how he practices is the least glamorous one: CCI, Credentialed Clinical Instructor. It is the qualification for supervising student physical therapists in the clinic — and it commits you to being able to explain, out loud and on demand, exactly why you are doing what you are doing.
Where the work has beenDelaware → California’s Central Coast
Working with medical complexity
A meaningful share of patients are turned away from outpatient clinics for reasons that have nothing to do with their potential to improve — equipment, comorbidity, and complexity that a busy schedule cannot absorb. Dr. Bartges has worked extensively with patients who have multiple comorbidities, diabetic neuropathy, significant balance deficits, and post-stroke deficits, and with patients on supplemental oxygen or managing indwelling catheters, nephrostomy tubes, feeding tubes, and ostomy appliances.
None of that is a reason to decline care. It is a reason to plan carefully.
- CredentialsPT, DPT, CCI
- DoctorateThe George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
- FocusChronic wounds · balance & neuro · chronic pain
- AlsoConcussion recovery · collegiate athletics rehabilitation
- PracticeCoastal Wound Care Physical Therapy, PC
How we practice
Four commitments we’re willing to be held to
Measure it
Wounds are measured and photographed. Function is tested with standardized measures. Progress is demonstrated, not described.
Say it plainly
What the evidence supports, what it doesn’t, what your insurance will likely do, and what it will cost if it doesn’t — before you commit.
Change course
Treatment that isn’t working gets changed or escalated. A stalled plan repeated for a full authorization is a failure, not a course of care.
Aim at discharge
The goal is your independence from us. Every plan is written toward the day you no longer need it.
The suite
Shared space, separate practices
Coastal Wound Care practices at three offices — Hollister, Freedom/Watsonville, and San Jose — and each is shared with an independent physician practice led by Dr. Felix Huerta. When a wound requires medical evaluation, diagnostics, or a regenerative option such as platelet-rich plasma for advanced diabetes-related wounds that have not responded to conventional rehabilitation and ultrasound therapy, that care is available in the same building at every site.
The two practices are separate legal entities with separate clinicians, separate records, and separate billing. You are never required to see both, and you remain free to choose any physician you wish. What the arrangement offers is proximity: fewer weeks lost to referrals, and clinicians who can speak to each other about your wound the same afternoon.
Start with a conversation, not a form
Tell us about the wound or the fall, and we’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right fit — and what your physician needs to send if we are.