The Great Reset

Craig Phifer, PT and Sean Bagbey, PTA are co-owners of Rehabilitation & Performance Institute which puts the person first. They created the Private Practice Rebellion where they teach other business owners their model. Check those out here:

·        Rehabilitation & Performance Institute https://rehabilitationperformance.com/

·        Private Practice Rebellion https://www.privatepracticerebellion.com/

Craig follows Dave Chase’s idea of what healthcare should look like and recommends the book “The CEO’s Guide to Restoring the American Dream.” In this book, Dave Chase discusses this period we are in today is “The Great Reset.”

Craig gave us his equation on what the “great reset” is in patient care. Craig emphasizes not all parts of this equation are weighted the same in each patient interaction.

·        Value = patient experience + emotional experience + physical outcome / effort putting in + price their paying + risk taking.

Sean shares a personal story about himself and his treating physical therapist. From his experience, he feels PTs are needed now more than ever as our skills are essential.

Craig explains the patient perspective in physical therapy and if patients do value us to pay for our services. He describes this value is developed in the first 3-4 visits with the patient.  

Craig and Sean demonstrate that PTs need to have an existing relationship to build trust. How to build a relationship with your patient is different now compared to pre-COVID.

QUOTES

“If this is a reset, what is going to change and how are we going to adapt with it?” – CRAIG

“Physical therapy needs to have a better place in our society.” – SEAN

“We need to show our worth and this is our chance to start doing that.” – SEAN

“It just reinforces to me what we can do in this profession.” – SEAN

“If you want to seem interesting, be interested.” – JIMMY

“That monster becomes bigger when you think it is under the bed.” – JIMMY

“We are not the star of the show when we are treating someone.” – SEAN

PARTING SHOT

“The profession of physical therapy can be much better then what we currently live in.” – SEAN

“We gotta get away from talking and we need to get to doing.” – SEAN

 “Make healthcare work really well for us.” – CRAIG 

It has been suggested by Dave Chase that this period of time may be defined “The Great Reset.” I believe we’re about to see much faster changes in opinion, lifestyle, and behavior then we normally would. What does that mean for the profession of physical therapy?

We’re doing so much right as a profession, but our service is generally not valued (5th choice for chronic MSK pain by primary care physicians, 6th-ranked choice for people who have LBP). Right now, we have a tremendous opportunity to change that.

  • Understanding that while clinically, we’re doing so much well, that doesn’t mean that people value the service we provide on a macro level.
  • People significantly changed where and how they spent their money in the Great Recession, and we are very likely to see changes again.
  • We can prepare PT to be at the forefront of this change, but we have to acknowledge and deliver what people want from our service – price transparency, highly individualized care, and trusting relationships with providers.

People don’t value PT the way it’s currently being delivered (trying to offend as few people as possible). This is a business systems problem and not a clinical problem. As few as 10% of patients complete their prescribed care plan (WebPT 2018 State of Rehab Survey), and 78% of PTs reported that they thought this number was at least 50% of patients (16% not sure, only 6% of therapists indicated a number less than 50%). So, it’s a problem therapists either don’t know about or don’t want to know about. What’s worse, is that most of them are not put in a position to do anything about it. Now is a great opportunity to change that for the following reasons: 

  • Many therapists are finding out their employers kind of suck and probably see that if they want to do this right they may need to do it on their own or with others who see what they see
  • Patients attitudes and beliefs are changing – if a company depends on therapists seeing 2-3 patients at a time to make it financially, that company is not going to do well. This gives new small businesses a massive advantage