. . . And In Health

It was early 1996, just months after he and his wife, Jacquelyn, founded their contract rehabilitation company, Achievement Therapy Professionals (ATP) Inc., when Ted Langdon first heard rumblings that times, they were a changin' (in the health-care industry, that is). Hearsay trickling down the grapevine of home-health and rehabilitation providers pointed to the inevitable: President Clinton's Balanced Budget Act of 1997 would cut back on Medicare, not only bringing about a cap on outpatient rehabilitation services, but also lowering per-visit costs to Medicare-based home-health agencies, hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.

Sadly, looming business woes were the least of the Langdons' worries that year. In the summer of 1996, at age three, their son Spencer-twin brother of Tyler-was diagnosed with leukemia, warranting three years of chemotherapy and approximately $1,000 worth of medication each month. Faced with circumstances that would obliterate the future goals of most, the Langdons didn't fold, but instead expanded ATP's services to override the Medicare massacre.