Make 2020 More About What You’re Going to STOP Doing

unsplash-logoBethany Legg
unsplash-logoBethany Legg

 

I had one of the most important conversations of my career 10 years ago. I had just taken over a new position, the first leadership role of my career. The first year was going well – depending on who you asked. It was a great year for the company, but less so for other aspects of my life. We enjoyed tremendous growth, and I continued to feed it with my time, working 7-6 daily and coming in most Saturdays. I didn’t mind at first – it was a new job, and it was exciting to create the growth. However, after about a year, I started to break down.

I couldn’t handle the workload anymore. Other parts of my life had already been suffering, and it was finally starting to dawn on me that I was investing way too much time and energy into work. So, I did what most people do, I went to my boss to tell him I needed a break. I needed him to give me some help.

I told him I was working 55-hour weeks and coming in almost every weekend. I told him I was getting tired and didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up. I told him that our team was doing an outstanding job and that our patient volume kept growing as a result, so I was unable to back down even when we brought on more clinicians.

His response:

“Wow. I’m sorry. That does sound really tough. Who’s asking you to do that?”

“Well…uhhhh….I guess just me,” was all I could spit out.

Checkmate.

“Craig, this is a good lesson to learn,” he said. “You can’t do everything. You can’t say ‘yes’ to everything, or this is where it will get you. Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit down and think about what you are doing that you don’t need to do. Some of it needs to be done but not by you. Some of it needs to be done but not nearly as well as you’re doing it, and some of it doesn’t need to be done at all.”

This remains some of the best business advice I’ve ever received, and what better time to pass it along than the fresh start of a new year.

So, while you are starting to plan for your 2020 or thinking about resolutions…Do yourself a favor. Start with what you are going to STOP doing in the new year.

For example, if you are going to start getting up at 5:00 AM to workout, don’t start with that as the goal.  We’ve all done it (I’ve done that one like 4 times). It never works. Instead think about why exercise is important to you. Will it help you be a better example for your kids? Will it help you improve your quality of life?

Once you’ve identified why something matters to you, its time to think about the things you’re doing that get in your way. What are the things that you don’t need to do or at least don’t need to do as much or as well?

How can you take meaningless things out of your nighttime routine so that you can be asleep by 10 PM consistently? Because without committing to AT LEAST seven hours of sleep every night, your goal of waking up at 5 AM to work out will not be sustainable.

We are exceptionally good about filling our spare moments with “stuff,” and technology has made this even easier. We get so great at being busy that sometimes it can be difficult to stop, look around, and realize that some of the things we’re doing don’t even matter. It’s not just you, it’s all of us.

Take the first step and figure out what you’re going to STOP doing in 2020.

PTs – Here’s the One Question You Should Always Ask in an Interview

unsplash-logoTim Gouw
unsplash-logoTim Gouw

 

“Don’t tell me what you value, show me your bank statement and your weekly schedule, and I’ll tell you what you value.”  This message may be the most powerful discussion I’ve ever had with my mentor.  When you really value something, you spend our time and money on it.  However, what you spend your time and money on often disagrees with what you SAY you value. 

This line of thinking also applies to employers.  A PT company can say they value great clinical skills and relationships with patients.  However, if they don’t spend time and money to deliver and track these things, they don’t value them.

You just spent the last seven years of your life staying up so late studying that at some point it seemed like the only way you would ever truly learn the brachial plexus is if you used a marker to draw it on yourself.  You’ve done incredibly hard things and reached what you thought was your breaking point about seven times each semester.  You didn’t do all that, on top of passing a grueling board exam, to settle for a lousy job. 

To get the candidates they want, employers need to be able to ask the right questions.  The same is true for you.  Your job interview is not only your chance to show an employer what you can do for them, it’s your opportunity to see what they can do for you.  As such, there is one question you should ALWAYS ask in your job interview:

“How will you know if I am successful in this role?”

This simple question gives you great insight into the company.  When they tell you what they measure, you’ll know what they value.  It gives you the ability to see how well who they say they are aligns with who they actually are.  These are the three responses you may receive, and what you should do about each:

  1. The employer has no idea how to answer this question – sad but common. This company is very likely to have the kind of work environment where your success probably has a lot more to do with your relationship with your manager than it does to any other element of your performance.  Unless you want to spend your energy sucking up to your boss, instead of helping patients and developing as a clinician, this company probably isn’t for you.

 

  1. A purely financial measure is given. This response may be units/visit or productivity for staff positions or some measure of profit for clinic manager roles.  I’m not saying that financial performance shouldn’t matter to your employer. I’m saying it shouldn’t be the ONLY thing that matters.  When companies are relentlessly focused on driving short-term profits, bad long-term decisions are going to happen.  These decisions will negatively affect the quality of care or the quality of the work environment.  This job may start out great, but it has an expiration date. 

 

  1. The employer uses several different objective measures to let you know when you are successful. Best-case scenario here is a mix of clinical results, patient perception, and even some productivity measures.  This answer shows you that the company can pay attention both short-term and long-term results.  When they say they care about clinical results, you can believe them.  They are likely to invest in your relationship with patients and your personal development, while maintaining a good sense of fiscal responsibility.  If you find this company in your interviews, you may have hit the jackpot.

 

This one powerful question will give you key insights into what your potential employer values.  If your values don’t match up, keep looking. You’ve worked too hard, for too long, to settle.

Helpful Resources for PT Logo Design

unsplash-logoHussam Abd
unsplash-logoHussam Abd

 

Getting your logo will be one of the most exciting parts of starting your business. It is the symbol of your company and represents your hard work and dedication. You should be proud of it.

However, it doesn’t mean nearly as much to others who haven’t been there with you putting in that work. Your potential clients won’t have nearly that level of attachment to it. They see hundreds, if not thousands, of logos every day. They’re completely inundated with them. Just like anything they see all day, they don’t “see” any of them.

It’s hard to develop a logo that really stands out. Which is why most companies don’t try. Logos from Fortune 500 companies look the same. It’s not an accident. Those companies want to look established and reliable – which tends to look like other established and reliable companies.

Even the companies that spend millions of dollars on a logo swing and miss sometimes. You don’t have that kind of money to spend, and it would be unlikely to impress anyone if you did. You need a serviceable logo you like and are proud of that can be attained at a reasonable price. Don’t worry if your logo doesn’t stand out. If your logo is the only thing about your business that does stand out, you’ve got a much bigger problem.

Here are some of the routes you can go to get your logo:

 

Looka

Looka is a good option. You can get a logo through this site for as low as $65. The designs are more basic and generic – using your name in different colors/fonts and adding some different symbol options. This site is good enough for most small companies. The whole process may take as little as 10 minutes.

Fiverr

Fiverr is another good option. This one comes with a little more risk than Looka, but you will likely get a less generic logo. You review designers and pay a fee for one to come up with logo concepts for you. You pay whether you like the concept or not. Fees can vary a lot based on the designer you pick. You can enter some information about what you are looking for in a logo and Fiverr will recommend some designers based on the info you provide.

99designs

You can get a unique logo for your brand designed for $299. Unlike Looka, which uses automated designs, 99designs uses a large group of freelance designers who submit their work to you. You start a contest and agree to pay $299 to the winner. You submit some information and examples of logos you like, then the designers run with it. You can tell them what you like and don’t like so as the process goes on, you start to get a better idea of what you’re looking for. This site is where we got the logo for Rehabilitation & Performance Institute. We received more than 100 logo design options and were able to work with the contest winner to adjust her design a little bit. Then she provided all the file formats we needed for the logo.

Hatchwise

Hatchwise is very similar to 99designs, but with a tiered pricing structure. For each pricing level, you get a certain number of guaranteed designs. The consensus is that you generally get better quality logos from 99designs than you do from Hatchwise. Here’s a review from Best4Business comparing these two options.

Local Designers

Using a local designer is probably going to be the most expensive route, but for many the added cost is worth it. You may not get the same variety in designs as you would from the online options, but you will get to closely communicate with the designer during the process. My general rule is to support local individuals and businesses when I can afford it. I encourage you to reach out to some local designers in your search.

 

Big Picture

We all want a cool logo that jumps out at prospective clients. Realistically, this doesn’t happen often. The iconic business logos you know are memorable because the companies have done great things, not because the logos are amazing. It’s ok if your logo doesn’t turn heads. Let your service to the community be the part of your company that stands out.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Naming Your Business

unsplash-logoMike Petrucci
unsplash-logoMike Petrucci

 

Naming your business is an interesting combination of exciting and stressful. It can feel like the moment you make everything official, where you really decide to go for it and do your own thing. It can also feel like if you screw it up, you’re going to doom your company. The truth is, your name (unless it’s really, really bad), probably doesn’t matter that much.

The world isn’t fooled by flashy designs and clever names. Sure, we’ll still ooh and ahh at them, but they don’t really change anything. They’re certainly not enough to keep your business running. However, you’re still going to stress out about it. So, here are a few tips:

DO

  • Take your target audience into account – Could you see them having an internal dialogue of “people like me go to places like _________” and being proud of it? Seth Godin uses the “people like me” phrase in his book This is Marketing. It’s a good read if you’re thinking about how to brand your business.
  • Keep it short and simple – The best speeches and articles are written at roughly a 6th grade reading level. My PT business is named Rehabilitation & Performance Institute. Try and say it. I’ll wait… Imagine how much our front office team likes saying that when they answer the phone 100 times a day – sorry, McKailla. Be kind to your future employees and make the name something that can be said and understood clearly and quickly.
  • Make it something you like – A lot of branding is about connecting with your target market, but that doesn’t mean to take it so far that you name your company something that you dislike. You’re the one who has to look at it every day. Make it something you are proud of and enjoy hearing.

DON’T

  • Don’t use your name – I like to avoid writing things that someone else has already written better. Check out Pete Dupuis’ article about it on his blog. To sum it up, an owner of Cressey Sports Performance advises against using your name in your business.
  • Avoid words people have to look up – Sure, the Latin word for “happy” sounds great (sanus, if you’re wondering – thanks, google). How likely is someone to go through the process of looking up the origin of your company name? Chances are, you’ve just added confusion and an inconvenient step to your clients. How many of them know or deeply connect with the Latin language? I’m guessing none.
  • Don’t use a name that makes you sound arrogant – Better yet, maybe just don’t be arrogant? If your plan for your name is to use it to let people know you are better than the competition, then you probably aren’t ready to start your own business. It’s not about you. It’s about what you can do for others. Never forget that.

 

ALTERNATIVE OPTION

If all this talk of naming a business stresses you out and you’d rather focus on more important areas of planning, don’t worry. You can basically outsource anything nowadays. Check out Naming Force, a business-naming contest website that starts at only $175. Users submit name ideas, Naming Force ranks them, and you pick a winner.

THE GIST

A great name won’t make your company, and a bad one won’t break it. The businesses that do great things are not the ones with great names, they’re the ones with great plans and, most of all, great people.

We All Need a Coach

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

 

I worked a basketball camp for extra money in while in college. I played for the college and our coaches put on the camp. It was easy work, and it was always fun to interact with the kids. It was all enjoyable, but day four of the five-day camp was always a special one for me.

He always set it up as we were about to break for lunch. The camp leader, one of my coaches, took the stage. He was great at capturing their attention with his energy. It was amazing to see fifty middle school boys with their eyes fixed on him, heads turning in unison as he paced back and forth along the baseline.

That’s when he started his game, and he was undefeated. He asked every camper who was completely self-motivated to raise his hand. Sure enough, almost every hand went up. Coach smiled, picked a camper out from the group, and had him stand up at the baseline.

Trey stood up. He had short black hair and a slight build. He was one of the smaller kids at the camp and had a chip on his shoulder as a result. He was a great kid, but you wouldn’t always know it on the court because he was so competitive. The coach’s instructions to Trey were simple: run from one baseline to the other and back as fast as he could.

Coach yelled “Go,” and Trey took off for the other end of the court, touched the line, and smiled as he ran back through the line where coach stood with his stopwatch. “13 seconds. Pretty fast.” coach said. “I told you to run as fast as you can, right?” “Right” Trey said confidently. “And you’re self-motivated so I don’t need to motivate you to run faster, right? Coach said. Trey responded with a much less confident, “right” this time. Coach followed up with, “Ok. If you’re honest with me, you could make some money today. I’ve got a $20 bill here that’s yours if you can beat 13 seconds.” The campers roared with excitement, bounced around, and hi-fived each other.

Trey stood back up and toed the baseline. Coach yelled “Go,” and Trey took off. No smiling on the way back this time. Trey stuck his chest out and cocked his head back. He made it in 11.7 seconds. As he crossed the line, coach held out the $20 bill as if to hand it to Trey. He pulled it back at the last second and said, “you know what, I think you can beat that.” Then he reached into his wallet and got out a $100 bill. Trey’s eyes lit up. He again lined up at the baseline – fists clenched. He took off, grunted all the way up and down the court, and almost fell as he crashed into the padded wall at the baseline upon finishing. “11 seconds flat,” Coach said.

The first time I saw him do it, I asked if he had scouted the kids during the camp to know who it would work on. He responded simply, “I don’t need to. It works on everyone. Everyone needs a coach.”

I enjoyed my time playing college basketball even though it was very apparent to me after the first week that I was never going to make a living playing the game. Sports taught me a lot of lessons, and that short conversation with my coach was one of my favorites.

We tend to be really good at picking out flaws in others but often miss them in ourselves. A coach gives us perspective that we wouldn’t have had otherwise and helps push us a little harder than we could push ourselves. It doesn’t make you a lesser person to need some help. It makes you human.

How to Avoid Writing a Worthless PT Business Plan

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

About two years before we started our company, Rehabilitation & Performance Institute, the other two founders and I started the daunting process of writing a business plan. I found a template online and we ran with it. Impressively we were able to say absolutely nothing important in 96 pages of work. That’s right. We wrote a worthless 96-page business plan. So, if you’ve ever felt like you’ve spent a lot of time doing something that didn’t matter, at least you know you didn’t orchestrate this disaster.

As writing a business plan is generally an overwhelming task anyway, I’d like to help other PTs avoid making the same mistakes I made. The goal is to stimulate great thoughts about you and your business and to do it in a way that avoids wasting time and energy.

A word on general format before we get started…It is best to complete your plan as a slide deck and develop a presentation around it. One of the most important skills any PT can have is to translate your complex thoughts into something others can easily understand and follow. Shoot for a 15-20 minute business plan presentation.

Here are the 10 sections you need for your PT business plan:

Purpose

Think of this as your big picture section. The section of your business plan that helps you clarify other decision you need to make. Here you are answering, “What is the purpose of my business?” Simply put, how do you plan to leave the world a better place than you found it? And why is that something you are comfortable working incredibly hard to achieve?

This section is where you should list your mission and your values. Leave the fluffy stuff out and get straight to the point on these. Your mission and values aren’t going to impress or inspire anyone. People, both employees and customers, have been lied to about mission statements and values for a very long time. No one trusts you because you can write fancy words. They want to see you live them, and this is where you start. These words are going to help you decide how you make the rest of the decisions in your business plan.

Good examples: Southwest Airlines, TED

Target Market

You’ve defined why your business exists. Now it’s time to think about who you are trying to help. It can be tempting to say “My physical therapy business is for everyone!!! Hooray!!!” Balloons and streamers drop from the ceiling, trumpets sound in the distance, and a random stranger starts a slow clap. It’s wonderful to be adored by everyone. But the truth is businesses who try to connect with everyone, connect with no one.

If you have to consistently change your identity depending on who you are trying to please, you won’t have an identity. We all have the one friend who changes every aspect of his personality depending on who he happens to be dating at the time – let’s call him Joey. It’s not good, it can be really expensive to jump from being into travel, then motorcycles, then art, and it never ends well.  Sure, it’s amusing to watch Joey and relentlessly make fun of him while he changes his personality, wardrobe, hair, and demeanor every six months. However, it’s not healthy.  It’s bad for Joey, and it’s a sign that he doesn’t know who he really is.  The same is true for your business.  If you try to be for everyone, you’ll be for no one.

Here are some of the ways you can define your market and you can even use a combination of them:

  • Geographically (usually not enough on its own)
  • Activities performed (endurance athletes, baseball players, performance artists, powerlifters, etc),
  • Age (pediatrics, geriatrics)
  • Body parts or conditions (though I strongly advise avoiding this – you treat people, not body parts)
  • Services (like work health – targeting employers as your market)

In general, you want to think about groups of people who share values and expectations.

Why You?

How do you connect to your target market? Have you already done it? What special skills, knowledge, and passion are you able to employ to help them?

Done well, physical therapy is a relationship-oriented business. Societally, we have developed some very unhealthy behaviors, thoughts, and habits. You will only be able to help people change these health issues after you have developed trusting relationships with them.  As Stephen Covey states in his book, “Change happens at the speed of trust.”

Relying solely on physician referrals in your practice is bad for patients’ health, their wallets, and your business.  A goal should be to be the primary provider of neuromusculoskeletal care for your target market. After all, there is good evidence that you are the best person for the job. There needs to be a good reason why they should trust you to do it.

Timing

I’ve written this section for you. Check out this blog post for the full details. To summarize, right now is the perfect time to start a PT practice that is designed to deliver the experience and care your target market values.

Your Winning Plan

This section is essentially your business model. No, cash-based is not a business model. Neither is insurance-based. Those describe who pays you and how, not how you deliver a service that people value.

To complete this section, you need to know your target market. What are they looking for? What are their pain points with physical therapy and the health care system in general? What do they expect, and what do they value?

Your business needs to build a service that solves pain points for your target market and does it in a way that allows them to receive maximum value. The next challenging part of this is to determine how to deliver this service in a way that is financially successful. What are you going to spend money on? Hint – spend it on things people value. Where can you save?

Generally, you should be spending your money on allowing you and your team members to establish and develop great relationships with people. Other items that may be of importance are convenience and your ability to reduce the effort of your clients.

Assemble Your Team

Don’t have to know it all – just need to know people who do

You are setting up a business because you have an expert opinion, and you feel people should pay you for it. A good start to valuing what you do is valuing what others bring to the table. You can’t and won’t know everything. Pay experts for their opinion as soon as you can afford to do so.

More business owners hold themselves back by spending their valuable time doing these things (frequently poorly). Look at it this way. Your time spent with patients is AT LEAST $120/hour work. Your time spent planning and growing your business is $500/hour work. In general, it will take you AT LEAST 2-5x as much time to do some of these things as an expert to do these things, and you probably won’t do them as well either. Again, you don’t always have to pay experts in the beginning, but you should do it as soon as you can afford to. It frees you up to work on what you are best at and allows you to learn from them in the process.

  • Lawyer
  • Accountant
  • Credentialing/Contracting Person
  • Billing Company
  • Front Office Person
  • Bank
  • Insurance Agent
  • Designer

How do these people/teams help you deliver a service that people value?

Space and Equipment

The happiest people spend their money on experiences, not things. The same can be said for PT businesses. Spend your money creating a great experience for your patients. Many new business owners put themselves in a terrible position by having incredibly high fixed expenses. This mistake forces them to safe in other areas that are more important for their customers.

For your office location, you could go as small as 600-800 sq ft. A good rule is to divide your total square footage by three. This number is the maximum patient visits you can handle in a month.  So, a 1,500 sq. ft. office should support 500 patient visits/month (about 3 clinicians depending on your business model).

In addition to the amount of space, you need to consider your location. Highly visible locations also tend to be highly expensive. It’s ok to be off the beaten path (preferred actually, based on the cost savings) as long as your office is still safe, accessible (both in terms of driving and parking), and relatively convenient.

As far as equipment goes, what do you really need? A table, some weights, a few bands. Again, the best thing you can do for your patients is listen to them and connect with them. You don’t need much stuff to do it. You need a comfortable treatment table and comfortable chairs in the lobby. That’s about it. Everything else is a luxury in most instances.

Financial Projections

Nothing makes a PT more uncomfortable than talking about money. This part isn’t that hard, I promise. If you fill out the “contact me” section on my landing page, and request an example budget, I’ll send you this section for free.

Marketing

Your marketing efforts need to be focused in two areas:

  1. How do you reach new clients and help them see the value in your service?
  2. Once these individuals have experienced your service (which you’ve got a plan for them to value), how do you get them to help you spread the word?

Reaching new clients can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. If you genuinely want to help your target market, you should already be involved with them in some way. If you want to help runners, are you involved in a local running group? If not, you should ask yourself if you really want to help them or if it just seems like you could make money doing it.

The best way to reach new people is to be helpful. It’s that simple. So, you need to make a list of AT LEAST 30 people, businesses, other medical and fitness professionals, etc. who want to help the same people and communities you do. Then ask yourself how you can help each of them do it. Finally, reach out to them and offer to help. It really should be that simple.

The next step is helping turn your new clients into brand ambassadors. If you’ve got a great service that they value, this is also much easier than it sounds. Here’s the process:

  • When you’ve done something that makes a client very happy…
  • Ask the client for help
  • Tell them exactly how they can help

You don’t need to make it complicated. If people love you and what you’ve helped them achieve, they want to help you. Your job is to ask for it and show them precisely how to do it.

Vision

If all goes well, in 5 years, what will you have built?

Who benefits from your success?  If the only answer is you, then you have a problem

How will you give back and help your community?

How do you plan to progress to working on the business instead of in it?

Many small businesses fall apart when owners aren’t prepared for success. They end up fundamentally changing their business as they are grasping for help. Don’t let that happen to you. You started this business to be successful. Don’t neglect to plan for it.

 
I think the world is a better place when more PTs start a practice using these methods. I hope this post has simplified that process for you. If you’d like more information about any of these sections, don’t hesitate to contact me on my landing page.

 

We Need Our Patients to Blame Us

Photo by Dakota Macek on Unsplash
Photo by Dakota Macek on Unsplash
What do our patients picture when they think about physical therapy?

……..

Maybe a person in pain?

Someone stretching or doing an exercise?

Ice or hot packs? People with electrodes sticking on their skin?

Are they picturing a person wearing khakis and a polo?  We therapists love our khakis and polos…PTs keep the poorly fitting khaki industry in business. You’re welcome Dockers.

Hopefully what our patients are picturing is one of us helping someone get back to feeling great and doing what they love. It’s a great image and it’s a great career, and while I’d love to tell you that this is reality…

It’s not.

You see, physical therapy has a dirty little secret. That secret is that only about 10% of the people who come to see us actually complete the process. Our reality is that most people end up settling for something that is less than they were able to do before. 

It may be a mom who got hurt training for a half marathon. She gets back to running, but now she has to stop at two miles, or her knee starts to hurt and swell.

It may be a grandfather who hurt his back when his giggling 2-year-old granddaughter ran to him and jumped into his arms. He can walk around without back pain now, but his reality is that he’s not sure what’s going to happen next time that little girl runs at him. So, he’s forced to do everything he can do avoid that situation – missing out on a lot of fun while he’s at it.

The truth about physical therapy is that most of our patients drop out of our care because they decide that it isn’t worth their resources – their time, energy, and money – and they aren’t getting the results they are looking for. The results, or even lack thereof, stop being worth it to 9 out of 10 people. This means people overwhelmingly do not see value in PT. Interestingly, while our patients don’t value what we do, they are overwhelmingly satisfied with us. In fact, while only about 10% of people value what we do enough to make it through the course of care, more than 90% of people say that their care was very good or excellent (link).

So here we come to an interesting crossroads. How is it possible that people are overwhelmingly satisfied with the service we provide and choose to consume it so little? 

I’ll pose another question…one with the same answer… Why wouldn’t you be upset if you had gas station sushi for dinner last night, and it wasn’t very good?

Low expectations.

Unfortunately, physical therapy is the gas station sushi of healthcare.  Our patients will consume our services when it’s convenient, and some of them may even like us…but they sure don’t expect much from us.

Physical therapists are smart, kind people, who are just that – people. Our industry will rise, or sink, to meet expectations.  We need our patients to expect more out of us, and we need to be prepared to deliver it.

The exact experience of delivering “it” will vary a bit from person to person, but Miciak et al did some wonderful research and provided us with the conditions we need to facilitate great therapeutic relationships with our patients. Our patients will only expect more from us when we demonstrate we can actually deliver what they are looking for. Those necessary conditions for engagement with patients are as follows:

Be present

Simply put, when you’re with a patient, be with that patient. I once read a line where someone asked what else you could do while listening to be more productive. The answer – NOTHING

Be receptive

You know PT, your patients know themselves. Don’t underestimate the importance of that expertise. Your patients will give you a lot of the information you need to help them. Will you be open to it when they do?

Be genuine

Be open and honest. Invest in the person in front of you, not just their objective measurements. How your patients are doing mentally and emotionally will absolutely affect them physically.

Be committed

A great way to demonstrate your commitment is to make sure you know where you’ve been and have a plan for where you’re going with every patient prior to the start of the session. Share that commitment with your patient at the start of a session. “So, last session, we did _____, that really helped with _______. I think that is a great step toward (your goal). Do you think we can make even more progress on that today? How did things go for you at home since last session?”

So, the next time you evaluate a patient, get to know her goals and agree on a plan to get there. Then tell her that you fully believe that seeing a physical therapist is the right choice for her, and if she doesn’t meet those goals, she should blame you.

Why Now is the Perfect Time to Start Your PT Practice

Photo by Will Truettner on Unsplash
Photo by Will Truettner on Unsplash

So much of success seems to boil down to putting yourself in the right place at the right time. A crazy amount, really. The fascination with timing as the driver of success in business was the topic of a wonderful TED Talk by Bill Gross.

One great example he uses is Airbnb. You probably can’t even fathom the idea of your parents renting out your home to strangers when you were growing up…because they never would have. However, after the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 and resulting recession, people needed money. Airbnb launched in August 2008 and provided those people with an option. Letting someone sleep in the basement didn’t seem so bad when the alternative was losing your home entirely. The need for financial help drove hosts to changing their outlook. It also provided travelers with a cheaper alternative. Airbnb met the needs of both hosts and travelers, and the timing was perfect.

Here are the three reasons why right now is the perfect time for physical therapists to start their private practice:

REASON #1 – CONSUMERISM IS COMING TO PHYSICAL THERAPY

The #2 trend in health care right now is consumerism. The #1 trend is consolidation. It is beyond clear that health care consolidation drives prices up and service quality down while leaving patients in the dark about what’s going on and why. What is it that drives consumers to find a better way??? That’s right –

  • Lack of transparency
  • High prices
  • Poor service

So, the #2 trend in health care is being delivered to you by the #1 trend. If you were waiting for a sign to tell you when the market was ready for a small, local practice to stand above the competition, this is that sign.

REASON #2 – YOUR COMPETITION IS IN TROUBLE

Most PT companies are not delivering a service people want. This is evidenced by WebPT’s 2018 State of Rehab Therapy report that cites only 10% of patients completing their physical therapy course of care. Even if you don’t like WebPT’s number, the highest % of patients who complete PT I’ve ever seen is 30% – which is still plenty damning.

As large PT companies continue to acquire smaller practices, prices will go up, quality will go down. It’s what we’ve seen with physicians and health systems, and it will be what we see with PTs. They’ll make an incredible profit margin doing it – until they don’t. That’s where you come in.

My mentor once told me, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me what you spend your time and money on, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

People are telling us with their wallets, time, and energy that they don’t value physical therapy in the way it’s currently being provided.

Big box PT companies have no desire to change what they’re doing as they’re too busy chasing short-term profits. Additionally, they couldn’t change their entire model overnight if they wanted to. It would be incredibly expensive and risky for them to try. Many of them need consumer ignorance to succeed, and that isn’t sustainable in the new health care economy.

REASON #3 – YOU DON’T NEED A LOT OF MONEY TO DO IT

The cost of starting a private practice is lower than it’s ever been. Online and local resources that can help you keep costs down are abundant. You don’t need to be in an incredibly visible, high-traffic space. You don’t need to have the nicest, newest things. Your patients need you – your expertise, your time, your energy, your ability to listen, care, and understand them. The things people really need from you do not cost you anything. Start there. Spend your money on things that allow you to spend time and energy with your patients and save on the rest.

BOTTOM LINE

Starting a private practice isn’t nearly as hard as it was to get through PT school and pass your board exam. If you’re like most PTs, you don’t give yourself nearly enough credit for your ability to learn and do challenging things. Costs are low. People who can help you are out there. You’ve got this.

The best time in history to start a physical therapy private practice is now. Don’t miss it. Timing matters.