Transcript
Marla: All right. It's about 3. 01 and welcome everybody. And thank you so much for joining today. I know everyone's really busy, so we appreciate you spending this next hour with us and for coming to hear about today's roundtable discussion, which is business resolutions for a successful 2025. And my name is Marla Ranieri.
I'm the head of clinical innovation and clinical strategy at Prompt EMR, and I'm joined by Brian Gallagher. Brian, give us a little bit of a wave. Great, which many of you may already know Brian is the founder and president of Meg Business Management, where he specializes in physical therapy practice management and executive coaching.
He's been in the field and helping coach rehab business owners for over three decades. That makes you sound really old, Brian, but I know you're not. And really pleasure having you here today, Brian.
Brian: No, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here and I enjoy this. PTs helping PTs. There's nothing better.
Marla: Absolutely. And really with the new year approaching these next couple weeks, it's just going to fly by. We all know this. December is a whirl and January 2025 just comes right, in front of us. So it should be on top of everyone's mind. Most successful rehab practices, they don't leave growth to chance.
They plan for it with purpose. So we really want to know what are everybody's New Year's resolutions? What are their goals for 2025? And today we have three fantastic speakers, our esteemed panelists, who we will be introducing in just a minute. But they all have firsthand experience seeing navigating challenges of practice management and achieving measurable success, and they're here to share their new year's resolution for 2025 while Brian gets to coach them and ask a lot of questions and really help make those resolutions measurable, actionable, and hopefully all of you, it can help you provide insights into your resolutions and not only help you set ambitious goals, but also turn them into reality.
So just a little before we get started, some housekeeping, we are going to open the chat and we want to hear from you guys. We are going to ask you questions and we want to hear and hear your engagement. So please do put some comments in the chat and engage with us there. But if you have any actual questions, there's a Q and A icon at the bottom of the screen.
Please use that. So this way we can answer your questions right from there. Or if we don't get to it in today's session, we can make sure after today's session that we get back to you and answer your question. So with that, let's introduce our panelists. We have Melanie Brennan. She is the founder and CEO at EA Therapeutic Health since 2011.
It's a physical therapy and health wellness company in Rochester, Minnesota. And over the past 14 years, she's built a neuro first rehab company with a 2. 5 million annual budget. That's huge. Congratulations. She's 22 employees and 25, 000 visits per year, with 15, 000 of those visits being cashed base.
She has one on one specialized personal training and health coaching, and she opened two satellite partner clinics in Rochester in 2024 and is working to expand to additional rural and urban Minnesota communities in 2025. Thank you so much for joining us, Melanie. Can't wait to be asking you some questions in a few minutes.
Give us a wave. Great. And next we have Sam. Sam Morjaria has been a physical therapist. Oops. Did I say that right?
Sam: Perfect.
Marla: Awesome. Has been a physical therapist since 1998 and opened his first office in the Harlem community in New York city. And since then he has opened a 23,000 square foot store on the Upper West side of New York city.
His specialty is innovative and creative medicine to heal the community while providing a high level overall patient experience. Thank you, Sam. Pleasure to have you as well.
Sam: Thank you for having me. This is awesome.
Marla: And finally, we have Ben. Ben started his career in 2013, became a board certified orthopedic clinical specialist in 2016 and a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual PT in 2019.
He won team leader of the year. in 2021. And he founded Better Now PT in Texas in 2024. So Ben really brings the perspective of the brand new practice owner who started his business months ago and is hustling and thriving to expand and grow. All right. So before we get started, like I said, I really want to engage you guys.
So if all of you, the audience, if you could put in the chat, what your number one resolution as a business owner is for 2025. It'd be great for all of us to read that and get a good baseline of everybody's resolutions right now, whatever you have top of mind.
Brian: And I think, Marla, we have such a great group here to be engaging the public with.
We've got Sam from New York, we've got Melanie in Minnesota, we've got Ben in Texas. We've got a nice cross section of the country. So no matter where you are and listening to us, you're going to have a perspective that I think may resonate with your particular environment and maybe your particular demographic.
So it is unusual that you have such a nice balanced cross section. So I think this is awesome. And I think many of us are all struggling and challenged with the same thing as we go into 2025. So this is going to be a fun engagement.
Marla: Yes. And Brian, a lot of times we make resolutions and then they don't come to fruition, or we just really didn't.
So I love that today we're being proactive and saying, what's your resolution? And then how are you going to get there? And you'll get to hear from all of our practice owners who may have had similar ones as you in the past, or even have ones that you've written right in the chat. And I love seeing how everybody has some really good ones here.
Increase reimbursement, expanding practice size. Hiring PTs. Oof, that's a very big one. I hear from a few of you. Retention, value based marketing.
Brian: Yeah, lots of expansion, isn't that funny if we're all gonna be honest about our resolutions. They're typically Directed in the direction of expanding or doing better or you know Taking it to the next level whatever that may be and so it's all in the secret sauce, right?
Marla: Yep, and we've got a startup practicing too. So that's great because we've got you know We've got from the small practice all the way on so let's go ahead and start with Melanie. Love to hear from You Go ahead and give us your number one resolution. I know you have many, but give us your number one resolution for 2025.
Melanie: Yeah, so listening to the stats of my company, it might be a surprising resolution. But what I want to do in 2025 is complete a quality improvement project that really looks at what the barriers are for my therapist, my physical therapist to recommend and schedule cash based services. We do a lot.
We do a lot of cash based services, but they're primarily in one area. And that area is a very successful state waiver reimbursement program that we have for our wellness services in Minnesota, and it's basically. 90 percent of our cash based services income comes from that bucket. We're a little concerned about everything.
All of our eggs being in one bucket. And when it comes to recommending cash services to individuals that we still can benefit with our training services, it's a bit of a struggle for therapists. So I really want to look at what are those barriers and really provide seamless processes to decrease those barriers.
Marla: Yeah, Brian, I think this is all you. I love it, I know you've got lots of questions for her.
Brian: I do. I do. I think it makes me reel back to the new grad perspective, right? So the new grad typically comes out and they don't quite have the full understanding of the industry that they're emerging into.
They think I'm just going to treat my patients, do my notes and go home. But the reality is you're trying to uplift, you're trying to raise the independent functionality of all the patients you're working with. You're trying to help them. them to achieve optimum health, right? And for years and years, the traditional physical therapy model has been to get a new patient, treat the patient, discharge a patient, get a new patient, treat the patient, discharge a patient.
I think the most successful practices in the country today are those practices that are literally focusing on the full spectrum. of engagement with their patients with the idea of achieving the optimum health for that patient, the highest level for that patient. And let's face it, that's going to go beyond the scope of what the insurance carrier is typically wanting to pay for these days.
We're going to do an evaluation. We're going to treat the patient through skilled services, but It's rare that I walk into a clinic that doesn't have some form or fashion of an aftercare program, some aftercare program that has some, now that you're coming to the end of your physical therapy, skilled care, let me bring in my personal fitness trainer and let me bring in my Pilates instructor, or let's talk to you about some long term application of the newbie East and what it can do with the master reset and what it can do.
And now it becomes like a cash based, unskilled physical, cause can't do that, you can't just throw wellness on PT, but you want to do it the appropriate way, but you're able to actually help that patient well beyond what the diagnosis was, what the script called for, because you're caring for that patient well beyond just the scope of the plan of care.
So I think Melanie, you're, Practice. I know your practice. I know you guys are rock stars and everything you do. And I will say this and I'll stop talking. It's not just about the doing this and the establishment of the system, which you have. It's the attention to detail that you give to the quality of every single step you take in that process.
You guys are going to hear me say this throughout the zoom cast today. Quality drives quantity. And Melanie, you're a shining example of that in everything you do.
Melanie: Thank you. And I guess the reason for New Year's resolutions is we're still, as the owners, as directors, we still see that we're not hitting our mark.
Like we're, We have really high ambitions to really hit those marks and continue to grow. And no matter how long your practice has been around, we still see that we could do better. And I think that's the struggle in making New Year's resolutions is thank you, we do a great job and we are busy, but we still have, we, we have stories where, people come and go, and I say, Why didn't you, why didn't you stick around for physical therapy after such a short stint or for training after such a short stint of physical therapy?
And they'll say nobody ever talked to me about your services. And nobody ever thought, my PT didn't tell me that I could work with a trainer. And so the, ah, those are the things that we as owners have to pay attention to. And just continuously work on process improvement.
Brian: Yeah, and sometimes you might have a stigma where the clinician or the person who's engaging the patient kind of views it as sales, but, take the word sales out of that when you're educating your staff.
My two cents on what you just said would replace the word sales with help. Aren't we supposed to be helping people to the greatest extent that we have the potential to achieve? And, a lot of people in the chats are like, I'm moving from a 1200 square foot office, 2400 square foot, I'm going to open four more clinics.
That's all about this being blissful in what you do. I was saying this before we went on the air, I'm always blissful at everything I do, but I'm always a bit discontent. I'm always just a little degree discontent. Like I'm always like, am I literally living my best life today? I'm literally giving it my all.
Can I do better? Can I do more? So to your point, Melanie. I think if somebody's in business and they've lost that, I don't think they should be in business. I think you have to have this degree of I can always live a better day today than yesterday.
Marla: And Melanie, I'd love to know, especially because you said you are doing this cash, but you want to be able to educate and make sure all of your providers are offering it more.
So what are your first steps to, you've made the goal, you've made the resolution, but what would you say your first steps are going to be outlined to actually get to that resolution and achieve it?
Melanie: Yeah, we've already like obviously this isn't something that just magically starts January 1st.
It's been something we've been working on and first steps are really engaging with the physical therapist to say, okay, here's some case examples. Here's our process. What in this situation? Why, when we look back at the notes, why was it not recommended? What was the barrier? And instead of really coming at it from a disciplinary perspective, really listening and saying, what are those kind of pain points, what are those areas that they're uncomfortable with?
And listening to those things and thinking, okay, how can I run, educate and empower them? Brian said, it's not a sales. It's just what we do. We believe the insurance company should not be telling our patients when they're, they've met their goals when they're done and that they should be able to access highly skilled services way beyond insurances.
What Medicare manual, the new one says 12 to 18 visits. We work with a lot of people that have chronic pain strokes. It's well beyond that, but we have to know where we as PTs address the impairments and where we as PT don't, we just don't get to continue to bill insurance for wellness. Even when they need it, even though, even when it needs some skill and so really empowering them to not think about it as a sales, but just think about it as this is what we believe.
And that's why we work here. And this is what we do. And then number two is there flaws in our processes. So in PTs are busy. Is there anything we can take off their plate through administrative staff? Or tech staff that we can make that easier. And so really just looking at that first. I think that's the really important piece.
Don't come at it from a are we gonna discipline them? Are we gonna, they're just not doing it right. And instead really asking what are those pain points and looking at it as a barrier. Those barriers, how can we write them down and tackle them?
Marla: Yeah. And is there anything that technology can help to alert these maybe when it's coming to the end of their care to help alert your therapist to remind them?
Or have you put any processes in place around that?
Melanie: Yeah, I mean our processes are to talk about it from day one. So we actually have trainers in on the evaluations. It's something we can't charge for. We don't charge for. It's just part of what we believe because we know it'll help us downstream. And so we have those trainers in there day one.
And yeah, we're constantly talking about it and constantly having that be interjected throughout our pts and trainers work side by side. And yeah, looking at technology as your question. Yes. I think that's part of what we need to continue to look at in 2025 because the technologies continue to change.
We just started using prediction health and I and let me tell you, I've been working personally opening one of our small practices and I've been doing all the evaluations and I am loving that type of technology and having the right my evaluation for me, their goals are way better than mine.
So I think it's just right. And so it's just, it's not a Necessarily, can we use technology to help with this process? Because at the end of the day, our PTs have to embrace wellness and they have to embrace the process, right? But what can we take off our plate in other areas so that we have time to think about it, Yeah, so many technology that we've put on board through prompt with P.
T. Wired and just better use of the technology for the home exercise program. And yeah, try mentoring. Try to lead by example. Yeah, I can't think of any certain technologies right now, but we're always looking for new ones.
Marla: Yeah, that's awesome, Melanie. That's awesome. And it's interesting when you're just naturally talking about what you do, but for the people who are listening, I think what you can hear in Melanie's voice and her business strategy, her business approach is to diversify her income verticals.
If you can incorporate more income verticals, because a lot of people have attention on reimbursement, they're not paying us more, they're paying us less, right? So how do we counteract that? You counteract that by increasing the diversity of services you can deliver. In various income verticals, various cash based services, various aftercare services RTM within the scope of care think, bringing the trainers in at the evals brilliant.
I always like bringing them in at the discharge visit and saying, Hey, since you're a physical therapy patient and you're going on to our eight package, training with the, your personal fitness trainer, the outside person on the street would pay X, but you're a PT patient, you're going to pay Y.
So I'm giving you greater value for your continued participation. It is that recurring income guys, that makes all the difference in the world. You already have a patient. You don't have to go get another one. Continue to help that person by giving them a greater volume of care in what they actually need.
I'm not saying give them something they don't need. I would never suggest that but what they can actually benefit from. Yeah,
Melanie: and one more comment to your question marla that I was just thinking about is I have been working with the front staff on, how we can better engage Technology to do the wellness packages.
So currently there's we've been in search for the 14 years of my PT plus wellness company for an EMR that does it all. And to date we've always had to have two different technologies. So we've always had our EMR and then like mind, but we've been through so many mind, body or, So we have to switch our schedulers, have to go between programs, our therapists have to go between programs, our trainers are in a completely different program.
It's time to bring those together for the EMR to really embrace bringing that together and having the wellness in the EMR. And so we've been engaging and I really appreciate the engagement that we've been having because we have all this talk about improving cash based services, but the EMRs, I think everybody would agree.
They're very limited on how we can schedule groups and personal training and packages and classes. We do a ton of classes. And we have to have a third system to do our classes and it's all makes a mess on our website. It's hard for patients to navigate. Very difficult for our front desk. And so that From a technology perspective, answering a question that would make it all so much better.
Marla: And I'm going to make a prediction that in 2025, cash based services are going to be a big part of everyone's practices. So I definitely love to hear from you guys in the chat. Are you doing cash? Is it going to be part of your practice in 2025? And I love to hear that, Melanie, that sounds like everyone's working together to achieve those goals.
Sam: I'll just piggyback on what Brian said. He, Brian's been my mentor for years. He always says, you always want to work with people you know and trust. Melody, your patients know you. They trust you. They like you. Sometimes if you just reiterate that to the staff, it's not selling. They know you.
They like you. They trust you. They want to keep working with you. That's the way it is. The point of it. I think that could be more of an approach with our staff and selling, it's, these patients love you. They know you, they want to continue this work with you and they don't want to go somewhere else.
They don't want to find another trainer. They want to be right here in your
Brian: practice. That's a great point, Sam. I'll add one thing to that. I think a lot of people who are licensed clinicians come out and when an owner's suggesting like more services, more care, you may get a pushback from time to time.
You might get this. undercurrent of, Oh yeah, sure. You just want me to upcharge patients, or you just want to make more money, or you're just trying to get more billables. I like to step in and say to every physical therapist and everybody listening, physical therapists don't bill. We have nothing to do with billing.
We provide care because we went to school to, to produce two main products. One, Help as many people in our community as we possibly can. And number two, give an overabundance of care at each and every opportunity because we're so fortunate and blessed that they picked our clinic for us to be their treating therapist.
So I want to give as much care with each and every engagement. Those are the two main reasons why I work with the patients and the way I do is to give an abundance of care and help as many people in my community as possible. When the therapists are working for you and they see that's really your mental philosophy, it's not about units and all that, that it changes everything.
It's isn't that why we got our PT degree? Isn't that why we went to school? And then to the point that Marla is bringing up, Prompt is fantastic at being at the top of the game and innovation and technology, but it's not. When you can layer that onto that mindset of, I want to help people as much as possible and how can I do it most efficiently, like with all the services prompt offers you, it's a game changer and it's time for game changers, guys, it literally is time for us to change the change, what we're doing.
Marla: And then finally, I'd say I don't love the word discharge. So I love graduation. And now you become a patient for life, right? We are here for you for life. We are primary care providers. You're preventative, your ability to stay connected with us and to get you the services you need, no matter what that is.
Melanie, really hope you achieve your goals. I love it. I think it's a great resolution and look forward to hearing more about it in 2025.
Sam, I'm going to pull you up next.
Sam: All right.
Marla: Tell us who you're number one in 2025 resolution.
Sam: So I went to PPS in DC this year. As always, it's amazing. Love going. And every time I leave, I always, on the way back, I'm like, what did I learn from PPS? What were the biggest takeaways? This year, the theme was, We have a huge demand for our services.
PT is in huge demand, but the economics of PT is not firing all cylinders. Everyone seems to have a staffing problem reimbursement's an issue but you can look at it as the glass half empty or the glass half full. The glass half full is, We have a huge demand for services. So what's the solution to this problem?
I think we just have to actually for 2025 is to really be close to 100 percent of clinical efficiency. One of the big themes and I love this picture. It said every no show cancellation is one spot that another patient would love to be at and receive the care that they deserve. So each spot because of the because of the staffing shortage and just, demand for our services.
Each spot is so valuable in our schedule more than we think it is. And we can't let any spot go to waste because patients want that spot. It's our margins are thin when it comes to outpatient because of declining reimbursement. So just be, and I started making a one of my solutions is make a lost income calculator every week on how much revenue I'm losing by having no shows cancellations and it adds up.
And it's really nobody wins in that situation. Patients aren't getting the care. It's just a no win. So the goal is really work as much as we can. And that's why I love prompt. You guys are so good about the, filling in the spots and the online scheduling and, those kinds of things.
So I just think. You guys are ahead of the game in so many ways in helping us get this way. You're saving us time, energy and money by creating this waitlist type schedule where we can think patients can go automatically and they get automatic reminders when they can make appointments.
And we love it. So thank you to prompt.
Marla: And Sam what would you say is your actual, where you said you want to be a hundred percent. scheduled. I think that's hard to get as an actual though. What would you say would be X percent more or what would be a really realistic? I love a hundred percent, but
Sam: Is it, you got to shoot for the stars, right?
You want to be better. So is it that unrealistic? I don't know. We're going to, you start there and work your way down, you always want to shoot for the stars and see what you can do. Brian always says 85%. I think we probably have to be closer to 90, 95%. But Hey let's try for a hundred.
If we're working, if I'm working at it, if all the staff's on board, if prompts on board I use Brian Meg's virtual front desk. If everybody works together, like why not? We could probably do this.
Brian: Yeah that's really good. And Marley, it's good to push on metrics because I think a lot of people listening really want to know what those metrics are.
I often say I want my clinicians to be 85 percent of their full potential in their schedule, right? I want them to always be above 85 percent of the total possible slots that they have available to them. But as far as the front desk goes, I really want 92 percent or better. And I like to refer to it as a percentage of kept.
If you roll into the office on Monday morning and you got a hundred people scheduled on your schedule, you want 92 of those people or higher to show up each and every day. It's funny. I've been podcasting since 2018. So it's been five years of podcasts. And just this morning, I shot a podcast, which will be released tomorrow.
And I went over the tips and tricks of how to reduce your cancellation and no show. So it's funny. You bring that up, Sam, and I'll just give you like. A couple, two, two, two little tips that I've put out there that I found super effective because I believe patient retention and patient compliance is a team sport.
I think it's really, it's not just your front desk sole responsibility. It really spreads across every single person who has a human touch with your patients. So what can the therapist do? to improve patient compliance. What can the therapist do to increase? Here's what they can do. Each and every therapist can be coached and mentored to play the give me five drill.
I call it a give me five drill. I should be able to go up to any therapist in my gym and say, Hey Marla is that your patient over there on the bike? And she's yeah, that's John Smith. All right, Marla, give me five on John Smith. All right, he's married, he's got three kids, he's a lacrosse coach, he goes to the church around the corner, and his hobby is, model airplanes or whatever.
I don't, I'm not asking her to give me personal what's his social security number and DNA? I'm not interested in that. What have you done to be more interesting? Did then interesting when patients feel that they're a part of your family, they're a part of your community and you care about them as an individual, 'cause you're engaging with them at that level, they want to come into physical therapy.
They don't wanna let you down. So that's an action that your therapist can do to actually help increase the patient compliance and keeping them in the schedule. What about your front desk when the patient's leaving? If every single time somebody is leaving the practice because their visit is over that day, she says, Hey, Sally, thank you so much for coming today.
I've got you in the schedule for Wednesday at four. We'll be looking for you then. It's just that verbal reminder that you're important to us, that we care about you, that we're looking forward to seeing you at your next visit. Cause it means something to us. You're not just a hip shoulder or knee. So those are just two examples.
I went into more on the podcast, but I won't keep going. But I think if you just look at the percentage of kept over 92 percent as your KPI, you can get there, but it's literally a team sport and it requires policy, people and participation.
Sam: Awesome. If we get a lot of cancels in a day, what happened? What's We can follow up and be like, What was the reason why you couldn't make it?
And just understand where they're coming from.
Brian: And if you have a better relationship, you can engage them and get them rescheduled in the same week. So if it's in the same week, it's recovered, right? If you're cluster booking, you've got enough openings to actually put them in that week. But if you're not cluster booking, you're not going to have those openings.
Speaker 2: And I definitely think that clinicians working in the clinic, they don't love metrics. They don't love KPIs. That word doesn't resonate with them. But if you say we're looking at clinical excellence metrics, and that's what, how do you measure how well the patient, how well you're doing with the patient?
They're grading you every day and a no show, a cancellation, or a self discharge where they, Discharge themselves and don't come back. That's actually them leaving your care and grading you. So if you frame it in that way and say, these are your metrics used to be in school and get A's and A pluses. Here's how you're being graded by the patient.
And if you have a 92 percent cancellation rate, or a show up rate, or you have all of your patients are not discharging themselves, you're discharging them. That's actually you being graded. And that's the metrics of the quality of care of the patient. And I think now Your clinicians are really going to buy in because they know that makes more sense.
It's not just a number. It's not just a KPI. It's an actual picture of what you're doing with the patient.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I tell them if once a staff member gets a hundred percent, I'm like, look at how much these people care about you and the work that you're doing. They value it so much. They'll drop everything else.
Just to come to therapy. You're the most important thing for them right now. Your care is so important that they don't care about anything else. They're all willing to show up on time. So that's a huge pat on the back and it's a huge honor to get a hundred percent or, that up at that 90%, cause that's how much they care about you and they care about what you're doing and how important you are in their life.
So
Speaker 3: it's such a reflection of that patient's care, right? I often say in staff meetings, I'll say those things in your life that are most important to you, you will measure. You measure your IQ, your grades, your bank account, your credit score. Same thing here. The things that are most important to running and operating this practice for the benefit of our patients and ourselves are the KPIs.
It is very important to have the right mindset, the right viewpoint on those, right? To your point, Marla.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then Sam, I'm going to push you a little bit more. If they do hit their, your goal and their metrics, let's say they get a hundred percent, What are you doing for the clinician to reward them or thank them?
So what's your instead of there?
Speaker 6: We have megs, bonus system use so One thing we started doing and this is from prompt I think when I first introduced with prompt is a lot of cancellations happen on sunday night No, people plan their week on a Sunday night. So that's when people want to make appointments is on a Sunday night.
But there's nobody to answer the phones on Sunday. And you guys talk about how the online system, you can make appointments. So what I started doing actually right after PPS is taking two hours. On Sunday night and see what the cancellations are for the Monday. Cause you can't fill those spots.
If they call at eight o'clock on a Sunday in the morning, that's 24 hours. But if you, if I have some time to work on Sunday night, I can start planning for Monday morning, maybe possibly try to fill the spots. So that's a goal for 2025 is like start working in the Sunday evening for those cancellations that happen over the weekend for that 24 hour period.
To get the spots filled for Monday morning. Because that morning, Monday morning spots is where a lot of those cancellations happens and there's no time or for the front desk to call in the morning to fill the spot. I think everyone's wants that. Period on Sunday night to the plan. They're weak.
The patients do. Maybe that was off topic. You were asking me about the staff, right?
Speaker 2: No, no that's a great that's perfect proactive like what you're setting up and doing And then I was just asking what is the how are you rewarding if somebody does hit what you're? Successful 2025 resolution is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a bonus system. So you get, once you hit a certain amount you, you get a a bonus for every patient after that.
Speaker 3: And I would also encourage add on to that question, Marla people like fame and fortune, right? So announce them in the monthly staff meeting for a job.
Well done. That's professional validation. That's just validation. Give a Starbucks gift card or something like that. Doesn't always have to be money. It doesn't always have to be monetary compensation. It could just be validation and acknowledgement. People take such great pride. They like to be, everybody wants to be the hero, right?
So give them that day in the sun. And it goes a long way that they're noticed. And it's not shallow. I'm not saying that I'm not trying to, I'm saying it means something to me that you went to that, the link that you had a hundred percent attendance this week, super well done. I need to acknowledge that in front of my team, in front of my staff, because that's very much worth being rewarded.
I love it when people work in a company culture that they're noticed. And that is so important today. People want to be noticed for jobs. Well done validation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I love that every staff meeting starting with clinical first and truly calling out a great testimonial or a great experience or one of your clinicians and pointing it out and recognizing them.
I think that's always the way, as you said, you've got the bonus system, but they love to just be recognized because they did do such a great job at the patient. So love that.
Speaker 6: I was having a dinner with a friend a month ago he's in finance and he was telling me, my job is completely useless. All I do is buy low, sell high.
I don't bring any, I don't bring any value to the world. And when he said that, I was thinking to myself, I've never felt that way in my entire career. I've never gone to work and felt like my job didn't matter. And I wasn't important to the people around me. I hated calling him sick.
Cause I was like, All these people are depending on me. All these patients are depending on me to see them. And, it's, I think the work we do is just so important. And it hit me when he said what he said that how valuable we are as a profession and how much we hear it, we see it, we feel it.
In, in our field and it's really a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: That's a very good metric. Absolutely.
Speaker 6: And it's not about money. So it's about, it's just about touching lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's important. It's about one of two things, right? It's about the doing this and the being this. Finding people who share the same moral values, the same purpose, the same mission in life.
That's if you create that culture, nobody's going to leave you for 2 more an hour somewhere else. Cause I see people, claim that and I'm like what's missing in the culture? Like I often see people just don't want to leave a group where they, love the people they work with. And it's through validation and acknowledgement really well done, Sam.
Well done.
Speaker 2: All right. Oh,
Speaker 6: Yeah. One more thing. So one of my philosophies is always find the smartest people in the room and go listen to what they have to say. And I just, I love work with Meg and Brian. He's been my mentor for years and prompt. I think he has watched you guys at PPS just grow and expand.
It's you guys are, the smartest people in the room. So it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2: I think we learned from all of you guys and really make sure that we're tapped into the industry and listening. And I think that's, like you said, the answer is always in the room and it's the people around you that are going to help get you there.
Speaker 6: Ben,
Speaker 2: I'd love to bring you up next on the hot seat as a, especially as a new practice and a new business owner. What are your goals for 2025? What's your number one New Year's resolution?
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was going to say, I feel like I'm the baby in the room. Such a newbie this year. We just opened in May. So a lot for me to learn as an owner and hopefully that's always true, right?
Always learning. But my, I thought about if I could pick one thing for this upcoming year, it would be Google reviews. And partly because To me, it means if we're getting say 250 Google reviews next year, one that would mean several things. One is that we've hired this next therapist that I've been looking for a while, because I don't think we'll get to two 50 without them.
Two, we're making a name for ourselves in this community. We're trying to establish, who better now PT is, what we, who we are to the community. So I think having that. happen would mean that we're doing that. And three that our therapists would be the kind of therapists that, love their job enough, love what they do enough to where they're comfortable asking the patients, Hey, would you mind leaving me a Google review?
And and they're actually creating those kinds of experiences in the clinic with the patients. Wanting to write those Google reviews, so I think it encapsulates a lot, at least for where we're at as a company right now, just trying to grow and make a name for ourselves.
Speaker 2: That is a very important one, and I'm sure everybody in the audience could put in the chat as well, in terms of what they're doing for Google reviews and how to increase the Google reviews It is your front door, your website, your Google reviews, or your front door to your practice, as that's where everybody's now going to look.
So I think that's a great resolution and would love to just dive a little bit more in as well. How are you going to get more of those Google reviews? Are you using any, like I asked Melanie earlier, any kind of technology? Are you putting in some measures and process in place with your staff.
What are the steps you're taking to make sure that you set this up well for success?
Speaker 4: Yeah. One of the cool things about Prompt, as most of y'all probably know, is that they can, you can set that up in Prompt Plus as an automated thing to send a Net Promoter question to patients at various intervals.
And for the ones that are promoters, then they can be asked to write a Google review. And that's a really nice, automatic thing to do. for that to happen. I don't think, I feel pretty strongly we would not get to 250 if we relied on just that in the next year. And in my experience, it seems like well over half, maybe 75 percent of the Google reviews that we've got so far come from usually at their graduation day, the patients had a good experience and I would ask them, Hey, would you mind writing an online review?
Google review and they say you almost everybody says yes. I don't remember anybody saying no But if I don't do the next step then it'll never actually happen Which is i'll email them a link make it really easy for them and just say hey, this has been with pt Thanks for agreeing to write an online review for me.
That means a lot. Here's the link. It doesn't work every time, but it works. It gets a lot more than I would otherwise. I see somebody putting the chat, the QR code. That's really helpful too. That's a we've actually have not done that with this company. I've done that in the past and it seems like a nice way for people to do it in the clinic before they actually leave even.
But then, so yeah, that, that would be things I'm doing now that we want to continue doing. And then, like I mentioned before Part of that goal assumes we've hired this next therapist. We've still got online ads on LinkedIn and indeed. But I've been meaning to get this sign. I actually have, it's really nice that this property has a digital sign that has not been working for the last several years and the way I actually found my PTA is she just came in the building, having seen us from driving by.
She didn't even know we were hiring. She was like, Hey, I've been a PTA for a while. I was trying to come out of retirement. So she just learned about us by the sign outside and in my head, I'm thinking, okay, that's how we found Lynn. Then maybe we can find the next therapist by making this, like putting this digital signup saying now hiring PT.
It's just been a process to get it actually functional. So that's like. One step trying to get more local word out beyond just the online platforms. Cause I've had paid ads on those two platforms for four or five months and haven't hired a PT yet. So I don't want to keep relying on just those as my main.
Speaker 2: Ben, I love that idea. I don't know, Brian, have you ever seen that? I think, I feel like when I'm looking on LinkedIn, I see now hiring around people and I don't think I've actually seen a PT clinic that has a spanning now hiring and if somebody is driving around and it's local, that's actually way more enticing than being on an ad.
So love to hear how that goes. I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 3: That's huge. That's awesome. You don't hear that often. I don't think ben told you he also says giving away free ice cream for everyone Who comes in right? Oh, that's yeah,
Speaker 4: you're right. I forgot. No, don't do that I had
Speaker 3: somebody I had somebody once tell me in marketing I was doing a marketing workshop and they're like I got this great idea, Brian.
I think I'm going to put our name, logo, and phone number inside fortune cookies. So when you open the cookie, you get your little fortune, but on the other side, you get a little, I'm like no, don't do that. Please don't do that. Don't you don't want to do that. But I wanted to comment on your Google reviews because, I don't know for how many of you guys have ever picked up on this back in 2017 I read an article and then it's never been posted again because amazon's pretty tight lipped on everything that they do But there was an article I had read at that time that said there's this thing called the amazon effect and the amazon effect is 83 percent of all purchases on Amazon only happen after the person reads a review of the item that they're purchasing, right?
So it, it taps into this genetic human nature that we all want to belong, right? We all want to see that we belong, that we're, we made the right choice because other people reinforced the decision we made. It's the same reason when you go into a diner or local restaurant in the first five or 10 feet in the restaurant, when you walk in are all the awards that they won, right?
All the things that, because it makes you stand there as you're waiting for your table Oh, look at that. They were like diner of the year. And Sparta, the Jefferson diner, right? The Jefferson, I, it's like the best diner in Jersey. And they're like best diner in Jersey five years on it.
It makes me feel good about standing there waiting to get my table. So my recommendation, Ben, just to play off of that, have a wall of fame. Create a wall of fame where you have the pictures of patients, water skiing, snow skiing, hiking, biking, running, jogging. But they have this testimonial of I had a total knee replacement, I could barely get around my house and now I'm blah blah.
And they get to see the before and after and you frame it, make it nice, don't just post it on the wall with a tag. Make it a really nice wall of fame. People are standing there and they're going to read that and they're going to be like, I made the right choice. It's that Amazon effect, right? Same reason why you want a million Google reviews.
It's that Amazon effect. Like people feel good about making that decision because it's validating to see other people have reaped the same benefits and rewards by coming to your practice. But again, it goes to my theme of what I said in the beginning of I, I'm telling you moving forward here, being an industry disruptor is being a practice that exhibits higher quality than anyone else.
You will have all the quantity of patient care and work that you want. If you're seen as the quality, like you can be the Nordstroms, or you can be the Walmart of your community. I am, I'm not bashing either one. They're all successful stores, but I am saying, let's lift us up to that perception of being a level above what your competitors are doing.
Be an industry disruptor. Oh, and one other thing about the Google reviews, I would recommend, or if this is worth to anybody, beneficial to anybody, try to get three reviews per patient. Don't wait for the discharge. Every time somebody comes in I can't, my shoulder, I can't get the hanger onto the, and all of a sudden you're like, Hey, I just saw you were getting your seatbelt.
Yeah, that's better. I'm not quite where I want to be, but that's a win. It's two weeks into care. They're now putting their code on the hanger up on the. The rod and they're now getting their seatbelt time for a Google review time for a testimonial. I've been in therapy two weeks and I'm already achieved my short term goal.
But, and I highly recommend tip number two, keep an iPad in your clinic, keep a tablet in your clinic exclusively for this, you just throw it there and go, here's your iPad, it's all queued up, just put in what you want and they can fire away right then and there. Your compliance is a hundred percent better when you're doing it in person inside the office than relying on an email for them to do it in their busy day at home.
Not to say you're not getting good stats on it because it sounds like you surely are, but if you can have an iPad roaming around every time there's a win, my goal was always to get three reviews from start to finish. With each patient,
Speaker 2: and Adam has a great right here in the chat that during the graduate graduation paperwork, they actually have the QR code on there and explain why Google reviews are so important.
I love that. And I would even go one step further on that discharge. When you are giving out your business card, give out to And say, here's one for you and one for somebody else. Who can I help? I would love to help somebody else in your family and friend network. And right on there, you can have the QR code as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If you're happy with our care, who else can we help? That's why the net promoter score. So vitally important. Ben, I do have a question for you though. You're mastering this Google reviews and you're getting these reviews. What would you say are the top three things of greatest value that people are reviewing you on?
Yeah. What are they most commenting about that they're most appreciative for that stands out in their mind that They care so much about they want to say something about it to you
Speaker 4: That's a good question top three because I do read each one and you know Kind of what y'all were talking earlier about appreciating like anytime they mention Another team member, I'll share that with them and the group, so they're like, Hey, they see what a patient said about Lynn or about Shannon or that's when for everybody.
But I would say the things that come to mind a lot of times they're noticing or commenting on how well we listen. They we really seem to listen to what they had to say and took the time and showed the care, that kind of thing. I think another one that comes to mind is they seem knowledgeable, professional, like they know what they're doing or they had a treatment plan kind of thing.
And then the other thing that comes to mind would be maybe like the cleanliness of the facility. It just seemed like a nice, Place to be that may be partly due to this building used to be an old rundown empty place. And now it's like a PT clinic. People have that, comparison, but those are, I'd say the top three things that come to mind.
Speaker 3: That's so awesome. That's 100 percent that aligns with what I see nationwide. Do the people that treat me? Are they friendly and nice? Is the care that's being delivered to me delivered in a competent, confident, competence, and confident manner?
And is the space clean, neat, and orderly? Those are like the top three things that people seem to rate physical therapy practices on. Competency and confidence, friendly and nice, clean and orderly. If you nail those three, You're like 75, 85 percent in the win column with almost every single patient. So well done, Ben.
Super well done.
Speaker 6: And also just put each one in each category that Brian said. Are they grading me on all three? Are they grading me on just one? How many reviews am I getting on that one column? How many reviews am I getting on this? And then see which one's the least and try to work on that more. They may love the, Results they're getting, but they don't talk enough about the environment.
So that's okay to me, that's, you love the results, but you don't like the environment so much. So maybe that's something I need to work on. So even a good review can be like a self reflection and okay, I'm getting great stats in this area, but what about this area? Not so much.
So you want to elevate all three.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Great point.
Speaker 6: It's not only the good review, it's the quality of the review and
Speaker 3: it's good. It's good to put them in buckets so you can see what's ranking higher and then lean into that. Really lean into that. But gamification and being more interested in your patients is everything.
Engagement, engagement, engagement on a personal and professional level with every patient goes a huge distance, goes a long way.
Speaker 2: Now, we have a great question from the audience on how do you get around the must have a Gmail account to leave a review on Google, and I'd love to hear from the team, Sam, Melanie, Ben, Brian any thoughts on that part?
Speaker 6: What was the question?
Speaker 2: How do you get around the must have a Gmail account to leave a review on Google? I don't think we have to do, we have to have that on prompt. I'm
Speaker 3: scratching my head. Is that true?
Speaker 2: I don't
Speaker 3: think so. I think if you use the QR code, it just brings you right into the review. And I'm not sure that's actually the thing I could be wrong.
I'm not the guru expert on that, but I don't, I haven't heard that before. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the way prompt does it as well. You don't actually have to sign in with a gmail account. It actually brings you right there. I have to get. Yeah, Ricky says you don't need that on prompt that maybe something of the way you're doing the Google review.
Speaker 3: think that's a format thing. I think that's a more of a form like the way you're going about it, maybe.
Speaker 2: All right. We're going to get back to you on that and look into that. And we will make sure to do a little bit of research and get back to you on that question. But everybody can do a net promoter
Speaker 3: score for sure.
Everybody can do a net promoter score and tout that for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Definitely the whole world doesn't have Google accounts, but a lot do. So I think if people find it a barrier, I haven't heard that as a barrier.
Speaker 3: I haven't either. It's good that you'll look into it, Marla. That's on Marla's plate.
Speaker 2: On mine. I got it. I know one of the things that you had said as well, Ben, which I think I saw on the theme in the beginning was more employees, more clinicians. How do we get more people in the door? So I just want to give my quick New Year's resolution and I'll do a. Five minute one, but we really are trying to help all of the clinics in the prompt network get more students And I highly encourage all of you guys to add that in as your new year's resolution this year as well students become Perfect interview for an employee and if they love the culture, they want to work there as well So not only do you just see if they're the right fit they get see if they're a right fit.
So I encourage everybody to try to up the amount of students they take and even put it in your J. D. If you've been a clinician for a year, it's almost required that you take a student for continual learning. So prompt is actually working with the exact platform to get all of our clinics on there.
And supporting universities to connect with our clinics to help send more students their way. We find that to be really valuable and important. I hope all of you guys take that back and try to add that as a goal as well. Not only are we giving back to the community, getting students, but we're also hopefully turning them into employees if we do a really good job with our patients and our culture, all the students there.
Speaker 6: Great.
Speaker 3: Having a pipeline like that, Marla, is priceless on the long run. You'll always have nice, young, new staff coming in who can be groomed and who can grow and flourish and prosper within your culture. Turning staff members into entrepreneurs, like intrapreneurs within your practice is pivotal into having a very stable trajectory of staff that are performing to the level you're looking for.
So super important. And
Speaker 2: Sam, how many did you say you take a year? I think you said you take one every nine months or right? Oh
Speaker 6: no, we have students nine months out of the year. So we would have 12 months out of the year if we could. But rotations are nine months out of the year. And, just to add, I think this happened a couple of years ago.
We had a student from California we're in New York city and He went to Columbia and even though he was going back to California after he graduated, he did a rotation with another student from another school and said, I'm having a great experience at Park North. That other student actually reached out to us and said, Hey, I was talking to this, student that had a great rotation here.
Can I interview with you? And so it was word of mouth from one student, another, it wasn't just that one student. They talk to so they spread the word.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we have. We have students 12 months out of the year and usually 2 to 4 at any one time. And 11 thing I can throw out that we do that's been very successful for us because we have a PT school in our community.
The Mayo Clinic physical therapy school. We actually started a partnership with them that all second year students do a community service learning project with us. And so september through december and then january through april We have them see do our pro bono friday afternoon clinic So it's a time that we're not that busy And we have a staff person that took it on as a project and so we rotate through six students at a time And we offer free Wellness services beyond PT services.
And several of those students have become employees of ours. And so it, we have a pretty good pipeline for hiring when we have an opening.
Speaker 6: They bring such great energy to the office too. They're just so ready to go. And, we talk about burnout in our field, but like these guys are like guys and girls are just ready to learn and get their hands dirty.
And they're just so excited to, put all their education to work. So it's, having students is terrific.
Speaker 3: I think that's great, Melanie. And I think it strikes another chord that is so important to, again, being a differentiator within the industry. I like to challenge everybody to find three to four things a year in 2025, where you exchange an abundance and one way flow with no expectation of anything in return, just something that you can outflow to either a school or a charity or participation or sponsor a family.
Where you are literally exchanging an abundance in a one way flow, but you have nothing in return, you're expecting nothing in return for doing so. I think as a company culture that really sets the tone about who you are and how important your community is to you, because you're not looking for any, self interest or any benefit coming to you, you just want to flow.
I think that says a lot. So I challenge everybody to look for that. I think those opportunities really separate you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I love all of the talks today and everyone's resolutions. Really appreciate the insight and all of the differences that you guys are doing and the audience engagement.
We're going to put up a quick little survey, a prompt. If you're interested in learning any more, please feel free to go ahead and fill that out. And like I said, we will reply back to anybody who had some questions in the Q and a feel free to pop some in right now. If you have a few last minute ones as well.
And there was some great questions in the audience to each other. So feel free to share your email addresses. If you were talking to somebody specifically in the chat, that's what these are all for is to connect. We all do a lot better in this industry. If we are working together and pushing it ahead, there's more than enough patients to go around.
It's about providing the best quality of care, pushing each other to do that, having bigger and better resolutions and working together to do that. So thank you. Brian, I think that was one of your first parts in the beginning. Run a better business by investing in quality of what you do to see an increase in the quantity of what you do.
So love that. Love that quote.
Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%. And what in the chat. This is perfect evidence you such great questions and such great engagement because everyone's trying to, forward something that's going to possibly help another, right? And I always like saying PTs helping PTs. And, we've all heard practicing at the top of your license, but also practicing or living your life at the best view, right?
Living the best view is so important. I find that it's that mindset that really makes a difference, but a lot of people want to know mechanics too. And I think mechanics are pretty easy to discuss because structure does dictate function when it comes to private practice. But if you don't have the right beingness, people don't want to even play in the sandbox.
So knowing the right KPIs and discussing the right, pay for performance model or doing more with less is really an important I can't really beat up Blue Cross to pay me more per visit as much as people like to tout that they're really successful at doing that. I don't think the majority of us feel like we're super successful at getting more money out of our payers.
But what can we do to actually increase our margins and actually increase our viability of what we do? There's other things you need to do. And it's definitely outside of the business model that was set forth in 1950, that has been practiced all the way up to now. I literally think it's not about thinking outside the box.
It's about throwing away the box and operating your business in a much different fashion, getting, reducing your payroll. Focusing on your clinical delivery systems and your clinical delivery care and let people who are experts in billing and virtual front desk and things like take that off your plate.
So you can really focus on that. That's been my message for the last four years or so. And I'm very proud to say that people are really winning with that. And I think that is where the future is and marrying that with prompt and high level technology where you can actually work more efficiently. So your therapists walk out within 60, 45 minutes of their last patient on a 12 patient day.
That's golden. That's golden. And so Marla, well done to you guys. I'm so happy to have been invited to participate here. So thank you for letting me babble on. I will just answer the one question of cluster booking. Cluster booking is where you walk into the schedule first thing Monday morning. You look at all the evals that are from Wednesday to Friday.
You call those patients and see if they would be interested in coming in earlier. You have open slots and you move those patients earlier that opens up slots. So as there's cancellations or the phone rings throughout the week, you have more evals. You have more open slots in the later half of the week versus the beginning of the week.
It's an action that's done every Monday morning and not everybody wants to move. It's not forceful. It's a courtesy call.
Speaker 2: Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. And tons of important information from you, Brian. I love it. And. Thank you, Sam. And thank you, Melanide and Ben, for joining us and taking the time to do this and talk to everybody and talk with us.
So really appreciate it. And to all of our audience, really appreciate you guys being here and look forward to our next one together.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys. Great example. Thanks everybody.