Booked Solid, Broke Anyway: Why Your PT Clinic Needs Leverage

0:00 I got something new for you. I like live reactions. Live reactions. Let's begin. Are you showing something? Whatever you're playing or showing isn't coming through. All right. I don't know if you can hear. I can hear a little bit. Oh, it's loud on my end. Maybe I got to fix that. All right. Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome to PT Breakfast Club, the only live healthcare entrepreneur show where your soap notes are messy, your strategies are spicy, and your front desk probably ghosted someone this morning. I'm your host, Rudy McKay, alongside Tony Maritato, who is mobile, and Dave Hiddle, who is not mobile.

0:41 Um, let's see. Uh, do you by saying thank you to ou Therascream, the only hipp because sometimes the rea is screaming into a sound the EMR crashes for the t document later. Find them online at therascream.com. Eventually, someone's going to take one of these ideas and make a fake website and just sell like Pet Rock. Pet Rock sold a gajillion Pet Rocks. It's the dumbest idea until it's not a dumb idea. All right, Tony, you wanted to kick off the show with something that I was doing or I don't know.

1:25 I play. I do what Tony does. I do what Dave does. I think it's... It's probably a good quality in an entrepreneur. And I think I'm a budding entrepreneur. I've always been someone's Robin. I've always been an entrepreneur's Robin. So let's get ready. Get ready, baby. What I mean is the thing I'm saying is that that that I'm doing is you just play with stuff like you're like, oh, yeah, this is the new hot thing. I'm going to play with it. I don't I'm not going to listen to everybody. I'll listen to like the Gary V's that this is a thing we should pay attention to. But I'm going to play with it in private. I'll play with it in public. This sounds like we're talking about- Tinker, you tinker like Tony.

2:05 Yeah, you bat it around. So what I've been tinkering with is we've had a couple sponsors on my podcast come on that are pretty large PT organizations. And- one of PT organization's largest problems. Yeah, I think Patience is top five, but it's a clinician acquisition. We need more great clinicians. We're always looking. Even if we're not hiring today, we're always looking. So I took one of the sponsors and I'll get the video. I'll play it in a second once I give the setup, because I want to hear your thoughts. I made the anti-job posting job video and i just said what if i was just gonna like take the invisible and make it visible take the just make it not sound like everybody else this is like where i i'm gonna say this again for the hundredth time the bar is on the floor everybody else is doing i mean i love all of you but you're all doing the bare minimum.

3:09 So when I do four percent better than you, I look like I am a genius. I am not a genius. I'm not. I'm just literally putting two percent extra effort into this thing. You'd probably just put it in chat GPT, copy paste and walk away from. I also did another spin and you saw me do this, Tony, on LinkedIn. Chris Wilson. Yeah. don't know him well i just you know i know him from linkedin right and i saw what he did and it was just after i did an episode with will humphries where will humphries says don't write job postings write love letters to your future colleague and i was like what the hell does that mean it means pretend they're already working for you for six months and you can picture them and write them a love letter of why your weight you're beckoning them to come work with you so i took chris wilson what's his story what's his background he runs a clinic somewhere where is it He I think he just I'm not totally sure.

3:59 I know he was working for like a hospital based organization. He's like a researcher background. Super smart guy. I remember him for years. Chris Wilson, this is not a knock on you. It's not a knock on you. I saw what he did. He did what everybody else is doing. And then I took his job posting and I just wrote it like Will Humphrey said. I wrote it like a love letter. And then I I did that before and people took offense to it. I did it with Chris. He was like, I see what you did there. So anyway, I'll now get the video. I'll be able to bring it up on screen. But thoughts on what I'm doing. Real quick, Dave, have you seen any of Jimmy's like recruiting for a company videos, the newest ones?

4:39 I haven't. No, I'll find it. I'll find it. How would you like it? Why would you like it? They were so good. I love the approach. I love the idea. It made me think of you because I know you're always in hiring, recruiting, attracting mode. And I'm like, this is perfect. Jimmy's coming out talking about the location, talking about why you should move there, talking about, you know, the things that would attract a potential new hire beyond just The expectations that you do evaluations and you do your documentation and all the normal stuff that you see on every job listing. Yeah, I just took the job listing and I was like, what if I made a cable access commercial in nineteen ninety six out of this?

5:28 And I think it was like, come to Wallingford, Connecticut. And listen, they're not a mega huge practice, but that's not what everybody's looking for. In fact, if you get someone who really knows what they're looking for, you don't need ten thousand applications. You need three. You need three right ones and then you get to choose from three or just hire all three. You know what I mean? Figure it out later. So I'm downloading the video. I'll upload it again. Have you used video at all to recruit Dave or have you just been text based, social based? Just text-based, social-based. There was that, I do, whether now or in the coming minutes, there was that post we were talking about over messaging with the airbrushed physical therapist headshot.

6:12 Oh, yes, yes, yes. We'll get to that. I would love to get your feedback on that, but no. Actually, in the past year or two, I have done a little video where I posted it to LinkedIn, just organic selfie video while walking. And it's kind of describing the role a little bit. I have done that a little bit. But in the past two years, it's mostly been cold outbound strategies on LinkedIn. So cold messages. that I've talked about here on the show before. And then a little bit of social sprinkling a little bit of social organic posts. We use PT match for candidates as well as sturdy McKee's company. So like, he does like he does like the formal recruiting side, but then we're also doing like our own in house, in house outbound, if that makes sense, like in house to us, but outbound messages to therapists are potential candidates.

7:02 Yeah. Yeah, talk about that video while I download mine. So you did a video. Was this on YouTube, I think I remember? No. Yeah, I saw it somewhere else, though. My question to Dave real quick before you get into that is, like, what are the things that you love about New York? Like, what do you love about living there? What excites you about New York? Because obviously those are the things to convey to other therapists who are like, hey, if you want to come live in X, Y, Z. So what is it that you still love? Why haven't you left? No, I don't know. No. No, I wouldn't necessarily want to post content about attracting people to come into the city because part of our job is to be in the subway.

7:49 That takes time for someone to even learn the subway. I want someone who already knows the subway. That makes my job a little bit easier. So I want someone who's already here already has a license, already knows about these restaurants, Tony. They already know about the secret spots that Jimmy McKay wants to go to some speakeasies. I want them to know all that. I want them to already be burned out with the nearby in-network, therapist experience. I want them to be annoyed or frustrated that they're seeing twelve to twenty patients a day, twelve to twenty notes a day. And you can make more with us by treating less patients per day. It's crazy. And shout out to my new therapist, Andrew, who just signed his offer letter starting January twelfth, about a month away.

8:39 all from the cold outbound messages. But no, probably in the last year or so, I did video. But the most recent posts have just been about similar around this cold outbound messages. But yeah, I would love to hear, because Jimmy commented on the post from last week, the one with my staff therapist where it looked like an airbrushed headshot because I ran it through ChatGPT. Yeah. And Jimmy, you said something like the line about the craft or the craftsmanship or something was tight or resonated with you or something. You remember that? I think you reposted the video and you added a line and you said something about craftsmanship.

9:20 And I was like, to the person who wants to be the best PT, that's the line. Do you know what I mean? I got the video. Do you want to see it? No, my video. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, pull it up. Sure. All right. So it's just a selfie video, right? Or whatever. No sound. Still no sound. All right. I can hear a little bit. I get it. Yeah. All right. So but last week, last week, the post that I'm talking about was an organic image from us that you that Jimmy, you commented and you said the line about craft was tight.

10:03 So that post, by the way, that I was going to say that post has gotten and you guys know I've been inactive on LinkedIn. Last week, my profile views went up four hundred and forty five percent from that one. Literally the only post that I posted last week. That's a lot. That's a lot. So do you know why I like the craftsman line here? I'll just I mean, I'll give this away because it's not I didn't sign an NDA worked for an organization called Fox Rehab. And there they hired some big, fancy consulting firm and did a deep dive. Why do people work here? Why do people continue to work here? Why do people leave? And they came up with three Cs.

10:44 Did I ever talk about this with you guys, the three Cs? Craft, that's why the line landed. The first one's craft. The second one is cause. The third one is community. So I'll just break them down. Craft is like, and again, you're probably gonna have all three elements, but one's gonna be your leader. It's got to be. Craft is like, I just want to be the best PT, OT, speech therapist, athletic trainer. This is my thing. This is my thing. I polish my tools. I sharpen my axe. I am a craftsman. Now, you might also like cause and community, but this is your lead. So that's craftsman. Be the best. Insert whatever I am here. The second one is cause. I want to be a good PT, OT, speech therapist, athletic trainer, but I'm here because I know I'm in the right boat.

11:29 I care about what we do, but man, I just like being around. I just like being in the right boat, knowing that this whole boat is going in the right direction. And then the third is like, I care about what we do, and I want to be really good. But I'm here for the vibes. I just like being around people who are super positive and da, da, da. So that's what they said, that those are the three DNA imprints of a really good Fox physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist. This applies everywhere, though. It's not just for Fox. But if you don't pay attention to why someone's there, and then you're like, it's CEUs, and it's this, and mentoring, and this, and this, and you're like, I'm here for the cause. You're talking about the wrong thing. So first, understand, thou shall understand within first.

12:11 What is our thing? Is it craft, cause, or community? Then realize you're going to want to communicate that so you attract the right people who, when they get there, they're like, I'm in the right place, because you guys all want to be the best PTs and you're elite. Or, hey man, we are here to be really good B pluses. But we're here to make people move better, move more, move frequently. So that is the three Cs. So when I saw Dave's Craftsman line, Dave just, he might've had a wifi issue. When I saw Dave's Craftsman line, I was like, ding, to the right person. And it sounds like, I mean, the community within Dave's clinic is going to be remote. I know he has brick and mortar.

12:52 Dave would be like, we have brick and mortar. You got to do better at communicating that, dude, because you're two co-hosts of a live stream for two years. Didn't know that, right? So I'm imagining Dave's vibe amongst his clinicians isn't much because you're all over New York City, right? So don't look for someone who's there for community. Maybe a little bit. Maybe quarterly you get together. Cause? Yeah, probably a little bit of cause, but I think Dave's looking for the craftsman Crafts women, craftspersons in New York City. Yeah, I totally agree with that. Like we're the anti-community in a sense. There's only three of us now. You know, we went from over twenty down to like three.

13:35 One is my wife and we don't want to do Christmas parties. We don't want to do potlucks like we love each other. We have a great time, but we don't want the community where when we started, we loved like Friday night, happy hour. Everybody would go out. We'd have a great time. We'd go to the tiki bar and that's not the phase of business we're in uh i think that's it man people and businesses because businesses are made of people have and i know you guys are both very big taylor swift fan fans eras you're in your Do real good, five of one, I'm out era. Cause I got stuff to do that's more important than this.

14:15 It should be, it should be. When you're twenty-five though, I got my first key to the radio station and I was like allowed to come in and use the equipment on the weekends. And I'm like, can I just come here whenever I want? And they're like, yeah, but why would you? I was like, because I want to learn this stuff. I want to be as good as you guys one day. And I got to do that on Saturdays. Ben Galen chiming in, similar to what we need to do for patients. Yes, you don't want someone who's like, I'm going to be a one percent athlete, top of the top of the top, and walk in and it's like, what's up, man? We're hanging out, right? Conversely, you don't want the other thing, right? Someone who's just hanging in, like, I wouldn't go to one of those clinics. It's not my vibe. Then Ben also says, I would go further to say, if you show your staff the value they want, whatever it is, the more they will put up with different hours, bad EMR.

15:03 Yeah. Yes. Yes. to Ben. Yeah, we're, we're embodying that, you know, we've had a crazy run. Like I, we, we've been more busy in the last month, month and a half than we have all year. Um, and with that, as numbers go up, systems start to break down. Our systems have broken down. We we've, had patients, new patients come in that don't exactly fit the culture of the clinic. And so it's kind of disrupting things a little bit, but it's one of those deals where I used to, fifteen years ago, want the patient who valued expertise, wanted the patient who wanted the best of the best, the most amazing therapist.

15:48 Now, I just want a patient to come in and hang out. I want a patient not to take it so seriously, not to believe that, all right, Dave is back, sharp as a tack. I want the patient who just wants to come, move a little bit, feel a little better. But unfortunately, and we understand this as a team, we're like, look, we are not a serious clinic. We are not trying to be a serious clinic. We don't want to treat serious pathology. I will send those elsewhere. I told you guys I called physical down the street because I was like, hey, I don't want to do any kind of vertigo stuff, any BPPV stuff.

16:28 There's a place I'm going to call them. I'm going to hook you up. And this was, you know, somebody that we had seen multiple times for other things. But I was like, this is not the place for that. So, you know, understanding it, patient facing, understanding it, staff facing, Ben is dead on. Ben's saying, I would challenge you, Tony, to let those patients walk right at eval than to let them throw a wrench in this. Yeah, he's right. Yep. Exactly. Bingo. Yeah. Get them out as soon as possible because saying yes to them is saying no to the next patient, which could be a really, really, really good fit. Let me know if you can hear this. I'll pull it up on Instagram. Oh, but I also like co-workers who don't drain my soul. Yeah, congratulations.

17:09 Spectrum Physical Therapy in Waterford, Connecticut heard you and built an entire clinic around that one concept. Two locations, twenty-four years of being hometown heroes. Advanced ortho from head to toe. Basically the Avengers, but everybody there actually likes each other. Salary? Seventy-five to ninety K. Mentorship? I'm glad you asked. Yes, real mentorship, not the watch this YouTube video and figure it out kind. Plus CEU support, killer benefits, PTO, holidays, and a team so good you'll start bragging about clinic culture. like you're in a very wholesome cult. You grad, perfect. Seasoned, also perfect.

17:51 Outgoing, energetic, loves people in science. You're basically already hired. If you want a job that actually feels good, the kind where you help patients grow fast, often, and occasionally forget you're technically at work, Spectrum PT, Waterford, Connecticut. Hit the link and enter your main character PT era immediately. That's it. They would have normally just been like posted on LinkedIn, but you're selling Waterford, Connecticut or whatever. That's a very specific person. Do you know what I mean? But there's more of those ops than are come to Chicago.

18:32 i'm sure they have openings in chicago whoever's in chicago but like you're gonna solve it faster um i didn't ask them permission to do that i just did it by the way i just went i went to u.s physical therapy i was like who has an opening what's the most random path and i did another one for a place in oregon that's also on my instagram so go look at that i'm begging you to steal that strategy like I'm begging you and you're going to go content doesn't work. I had a post about that that I think you guys saw. I parallel like if you see if Dave, if you hear someone who goes, oh, you're physically you learn, they learn you're a physical therapist. Yeah, I tried PT once didn't work. What is your next snapshot reaction? My reaction is, well, you've had a bad experience at a restaurant before, right?

19:15 But you don't stop going to all restaurants. Right. So I say the same thing when PTs go, content doesn't work. And I go, but you say the same thing when someone says, I had PT and it didn't work. I posted two videos and it didn't work. Maybe they were crappy videos, bro. I don't know. Did you post them at three a.m.? So Ben is a Connecticut native and says, so he can say this very, I don't know what he was saying, though. uh water what you have to sell the town though but there you know where i got this idea from There was some dude who put up an online, like a video. He shot a cinematic, like cinematic, four K camera, drone shots, and he was selling his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, I'm not saying you're a crap box, by the way.

20:17 That's not what I'm saying. I just got the idea. Now that Dave's back, let's go back to his. The thing that... caught my attention was that it did look airbrushed, that it did look kind of over-stylized. That made me stop the scroll. I didn't know it was Dave's photo. I saw it. It made me stop the scroll. I saw the numbers, a hundred and twenty seven thousand, I think it was. That was big. That was those were like the subheading. So the headline was the over-stylized image. The subheading was the number. Then I realized, oh, wait, this is a job posting.

20:58 Oh, wait, this is Dave's job posting. Look, here it is. Here it is. There it is. There it is. There it is. Yes. Just for everyone, just for clarity, this is the post I was talking about that Jimmy commented about liking the craft and that that pitch was tight or whatever, the line or whatever. Here's also why I like it. You stole... Conscious or not, in a good way. What did you steal? Tony, what did he steal for that first line? For the few who still believe in craft. The few, the proud, the many? The few, the proud, the Marines. The Marines? The Army, you can apply it. I'm not knocking all these branches. You apply for the Army, you apply for the Navy, you apply for the Air Force.

21:41 Marines take commitments. They're the smallest branch. And you can't tell me what any of those slogans are for arming, maybe aim high because they've been using the same one for a billion years. And we're looking for a committed therapist. So he's exactly the point. You don't want a hundred. I'm looking for the few, the proud, the concierge pain relief. The few, the proud. We'll workshop it. And then here's the post we're talking about. This was the one. That was the image that stopped the scroll. So when I was doing those videos the last couple of weeks where I was like, hey, if XYZ hired me, here's the first three things I'd do. And then I tagged the company in it. They were doing well.

22:21 Then I started putting the logo of the company in there and they started doing real well. Because it's like, bang, context. So yes, I agree when Tony says, one, twenty eight K to one seventy. Hang on a second. How do I get some of that? Even if you have to stop because money Right? That eyeballs, faces, they stop things. So let's see, how well did this one do? Uh, twenty-three reactions on LinkedIn is actually pretty good. I said that craft line is tight. Uh, and Tom, so let me, I posted this six days ago. And as you, as I said, I have not been posting at all on LinkedIn and it got so far, three thousand five hundred and eighteen impressions, which is, which, which is way more than anything I typically post.

23:08 Wow. Wow, that's not easy on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is good. It's a hard platform to sort of hack, if you will. I mean, it's an easy number for Tony to hit, but everyone else is not hitting that impression. Why? Because Tony plays and tinkers and does stuff regularly, and he keeps teaching. This is what people, I think, don't understand that I'm starting to embrace too, which is you could be pissed at the algorithm. The algorithm wants to reward people who – constantly give good stuff or bad stuff sometimes to their audience they want people who keep people on platform so you keep teaching it what you're doing by the word you don't think that these platforms are just scanning the words that you're saying and trying to match those to other people that's what the algorithm is who would this who would this make giggle lol or piss off those are the three and it's like well i'm gonna show you that i'm gonna show you that i'm gonna show you that i'm gonna show you that That's how this works.

24:02 I'm not saying hack the algorithm. I'm saying understand it and figure out how to use it for your advantage. And you can make funny videos to get people to come to Wallingford, Connecticut. That's how this works. Going back to Jimmy, what you're doing. It's just awesome. I love it. It's a fresh take on an old idea. You're bringing it back out. Whether it's something that you're being paid for right now or not doesn't matter. It will get attention. And I think it's a great model for other people to look at. Here's my question to you, Tony. Now, I'm just tinkering with my Instagram account. Let's go deeper, one level deeper. If someone was like, we want you to make these videos all the time.

24:43 Should I create a second Instagram account or another Instagram account that's just job listings? Now my head goes to who's going to go here? PTs. Why? Because there might be a job. That's why you join a newsletter. Go ahead. You're muted, Dave, for some reason. Sorry, sorry. You have PT podcast. You are doing the get the message out thing. If you do a new Instagram profile that's just for job posting, I love it. Personally, I hope you do it and you throw my thing up there. But it's like another project. So I just want to I want to I want to just reel you in a little bit. Well, here's what I look at this as.

25:24 I look at this as a link to get the message out because I'm going to work with clinics and I go, hey, by the way, you work with me. You also get almost like the nonclinical PT. I would have someone I would sub this out. I would film once a month, right? Get your things in once a month. I'd film all the things we'd write, film, whatever. Then I'd hand them off to them up. And then I'd say I would add this as a service to get the message out. The small marketing agency with a big mouth. Do you know what I mean? I agree with you. It's one more thing. But to be like, hey, I'm going to come on site. And then I'm also I'll also throw you how many job openings you got. I'll throw you in the feed and now you get exposure. It's similar to what Tony was doing with that database Web site. Yeah. What happened with that?

26:05 I don't know. I've got a cemetery a mile long of dead projects. That was totally dead. Like it still generates leads. And I share those leads out on occasion. but it's an error. I agree with Dave. Like maybe you plant the seed, you put it out there, but it is not something that is going to give you the immediate return. I would keep it. I would keep it on your primary profile. Got it. Okay. You get a couple of videos that hit a million views, then maybe you consider branching it. And I would say like the right thing is you create a dedicated channel, but we don't have the resources and we don't have the budgets and we don't have the moving parts for it.

26:51 I would just keep it on your primary feed because it's within the scope of what you do and what you're good at. It's not completely out of left field. Yes. Agreed. Okay. Are we done with this topic before we move on? I have something for you that I did real quick after this, Jimmy, I'm going to email or text you our PDF, the two pager it's called the elite clinician opportunity or whatever. However I wrapped it and it, and, and you're going to, I think you're going to like it cause it's got two columns on the left. features on the right benefits. So it's the feature and then here's the benefit. I think I would be, I'd be curious if you read that, if totally up to you, if you want to, if you want to make one of those videos like that, because then you could say that could be a template.

27:36 You can say, Hey owner, send me a document like this. You don't even have to speak with them. You know? Yeah. You can do it over email, whatever. Send me this, like, here's the guide, the guard rails of this. and maybe that makes your job easier to make those videos i will easily do that i will easily do that uh i do want to make sure we pause for a sponsor uh thanks to dry needling for dogs because if it works for humans it'll probably work for your golden doodle now offering mobile canine wait wait hold on you gotta you gotta share the script are you sure do you have do you have a graphic Sorry, I apologize. Dry needling for dogs, because if it works for humans, it'll probably work for your golden doodle or your, that looks like a lab. Now offering mobile canine trigger point release, we come to your cul-de-sac for your golden retriever.

28:22 Dryneedlingfordogs.com. All right, let's go to the next topic. This popped up this morning. I don't even know who runs this Facebook group, but it's just called physical therapy. I also want to highlight, don't freaking overthink it. What am I going to name this Facebook group? It's called Physical Therapy. Guess who shows up there? Don't overthink it. Here's what was posted this morning. I feel like we need a little Tony and Dave like rules. This was posted. I cut out the name of the clinic. Why? I don't know. It was posted at a clinic, apparently, and someone took a picture of it. And I'll read it for the audience. It said, attention, all of Martha's patients.

29:03 Martha is the name of the therapist, not the name of the clinic. So clearly, this is just for Martha's patient, because we've all been to these clinics before. You have a bunch of clinician and then there's that one who's like, I'm the Yoda and I am worth forty seven percent more. So attention all Martha's patients beginning January one due to the stagnant and sometimes declining reimbursement rates from insurance companies, it has become imperative for more more That's a practice name that you left in. To begin more physical therapy. Honestly, if you think about it, if this thing is called more, if your clinic is called more physical therapy, that's brilliant. What do you need? More physical therapy.

29:44 You sure had a lot of it. You need more. Go get more physical therapy. It's been perfect for more to begin charging an experienced clinician fee for those patients who wish to have Martha be their physical therapist. The fee will be fifteen dollars per visit. So, again, I already hear Tony and Dave in my ear going, why bother charging fifteen? Charge a hundred. Like, don't piss people off, piss them off and make the juice worth the squeeze. The fee will be fifteen dollars per visit due at the time of service. It's separate from any copays or insurance reimbursement. and is not billable to your insurance company. Martha has extensive experience. She is a crass woman as a physical therapist and dedicated her life to the fields of hands-on physical therapy and exercise so she may maximize her healing potential for you.

30:25 Try to read this all in one breath. We apologize for the inconvenience. No, you don't. You just explained why it's not an inconvenience. It's a necessity, but keep going. This may cause, but rising costs everywhere has played a role in making, stop over explaining the thing. It's going to cost you to see Martha. Why? Because I know you want her. We thank you for your understanding. You're assuming I'm understanding. Martha looks forward to giving you the best she has to offer. So like first, lawyer-y. Is this legal? Can you do this? I don't know how laws work. Tony, Tony, Tony. Um, you could not read like, and I don't know the payer contracts and stuff. But from a Medicare perspective, you can't force a Medicare beneficiary to pay more to see a provider.

31:07 You know, there's always going to be ways to make something like this work. You just got to figure it out. Yes. All right. So thoughts on this besides more physical therapy or I posted the other day. Here's here's a marketing hack. Change the name of your clinic right now. Change the whole thing to physical therapy near me. Because when someone Googles it, all right, no, I'm only kidding. All right, so when you see the thing about Martha, where's your head go? This screamed Tony and Dave to me when I saw it while I was laying in bed scrolling. You already said it. Adding a fifteen dollar charge is like so ridiculous. Like one fifty, a hundred, like you said, like, come on, like, like make it worth it.

31:51 Fifteen dollars. Ben says if you want Ben to wear deodorant while he's treating you, it's another fifteen dollars per session. Stop nickel and diming people. Stop nickel and diming people. Like, don't do it. You know, I bet if you paid Ben fifty bucks, he would not wear deodorant. You might get a different clientele. Oh, although hold on. Drowning for dogs. David from SME says you'd be surprised how many needles we sell. So I made a fake commercial. That's a real commercial. I guarantee there are people dry needling dogs, horses. I mean, the chiropractic, animal chiropractic channels are huge.

32:33 And all the dogs say that the needles feel great. They tell you that it feels great. There was a missed opportunity. I should have done a review. Jasper, the golden retriever, said, oh, whoa, whoa. Got a link for dogs. Got a link for dogs.com. That's what I said. There you go. There you go. I missed that. I left the ball on the one-yard line. Yeah, so anything we want to add to Martha? Well, I just got another message from somebody a day or two ago asking, like, how can I do this? Can I charge a concierge fee? Can I you know, what what do I do to make the delivering services affordable, not affordable for the patient, affordable for the therapist?

33:13 Like the therapist can't afford to deliver services at the Medicare rates. And so this is where the main guideline to understand is if you're going to be a contract to Medicare provider, you can't require patients to pay for things beyond what Medicare covers. You can't require it, but it doesn't mean you can't offer it. And so this is where- Wait, what does that mean? I can't say every Medicare patient has to buy my membership or I won't see them, but I could say, Hey, Medicare beneficiary, we're contracted with Medicare. If you would like, you could join my membership. My membership is an extra hundred and fifty, three hundred dollars a month.

33:56 It includes these amenities that are not covered by Medicare. You're not required to do it, but it is optional for you to do it. You know what I mean? Go ahead. Ben's saying he has an amazing story and he has to tell it. Ben, if you have a cell phone, there's no way Jimmy McKay would put his actual cell phone number on the screen. Oh, yes, he does, folks. Yes, he does. There's no way he would say he would put on the screen eight, four, five, three, one, three, one, nine, one, one. There's no possible way Jimmy McKay would ever, ever do that on a live stream for physical. So the dollar amount, the difference for an experienced clinician versus like a new grad or whatever, like, It happens everywhere else. It happens in law firms with tiered pricing and our partner is more expensive and an associate or junior partner or, you know, new lawyer, new attorney is a lower billable rate.

34:46 It's same thing in accounting firms and probably consultancies and all that. So like the fact that it can't be done in healthcare is just ridiculous, especially when payment reimbursement has not increased. And it stays the same. And in many cases now it's being cut. So it literally does not make sense why this is not allowed. It should be allowed. It should be, I believe it should be like, Hey, Medicare will pay a hundred bucks a visit for a four unit visit. But then if I wanted to, I could on the phone, I could say that I should be able to say to a Medicare beneficiary, Hey, our, you know, we charge three hundred, we charge three fifty a visit, whatever. So we'll bill Medicare. We'll make a hundred bucks off Medicare. And your cost is two fifty per visit.

35:28 And if you didn't have Medicare and you had, you know, Medicaid, if we didn't take Medicaid, then your cost per visit would be three fifty. So either way, we want to make three fifty a visit or whatever. The fact that this can't be done when the payment reimbursement is not keeping up with inflation and cost of living and all that is ridiculous. Well, let's clarify for a minute, though. When you say it can't be done, it's the payer who is saying you can't do that. It's not that it can't be done. It's that we voluntarily agreed to this contract. Dave and I, if we're working together, let's say I hire Dave to go treat patients in New York. I would tell Dave, hey, I am selling the visit.

36:11 This is what the visit's going to be. This is what I expect you to do. I would not, as your employer, I would not want you to go charge that patient in addition to what I'm already charging. That's what we're saying here from the payer contract to the therapist. The insurance company is saying, hey, you're not allowed to charge more than I've agreed to pay. And so I totally understand it from the insurance company side. Nobody would allow something like that to happen. Therapists don't want to understand you are working for the insurance company. Whether it's an employee or an independent contractor, whatever, you are working for the insurance company, not the patient.

36:55 You cannot do things that the insurance company didn't hire you to do. And once we kind of wrap our heads, I think therapists in two thousand twenty five are still thinking, oh, the insurance company is paying me for the services. No, you are working for the insurance company. You get a ten ninety nine at the end of the year, just like every other contractor does. You have specific guidelines, regulations you have to abide with if you want that insurance company to pay you. The patient has nothing to do with it. Yeah, Mr. Devap says, yeah, Dave, I wanna, yes, set your rate, payer sets their reimbursement and allow patients to meet the gap if they want that.

37:37 Yes, this is what I want, but Tony is saying I cannot have my cake and eat it too. Yeah, it's what you want, it's what we all want, but we don't agree to that when we sign the contract. When we sign the contract, we say, I will deliver these procedure codes. Is that Ben? I don't know, somebody calling. Hello, you're live on the air. Live on the air. Yes, there you go. You can't hear it. All right, I can hear it. We'll work on the audio while you guys can't hear. All right, Ben, I'm assuming. Put up to the mic. Oh, man, this is supposed to be working. I'll work on this. But Ben, real quick, and I'll reiterate, you said you had a story with dry needling and dogs.

38:28 Jimmy's listening, and he's going to tell us what Ben's saying. Yeah. You got a dog pinched neck in the neck. Uh-huh. For the record, while Jimmy's getting the story, my dog just pulled up. My wife brought him in. All right, Ben, I'll call you back, man. He hired dry needling for dogs, essentially. The fake thing is a real thing. So I parried it. I just played my thing. I made a fake thing for a real thing. Sorry about that, Ben. I'll work on the audio. I thought that was going to work real well. Yes. Oh, that's Dan Vapney. Oh, hey, what's up, Dan?

39:10 Oh, deep apps. So it's already a thing. So think of the most ridiculous thing and then Google it. It's already a thing. That's how the internet works. Most ridiculous thing. I'm going to pick up a stranger and drive them home drunk from the bar. That's insane. Most ridiculous thing. I'm going to let a stranger sleep in my house. That is the craziest thing. Can I tell you a story? i'll tell you guys it has to do with i was in pt school and uber had run had come out with a feature but i was intoxicated that's why that's most of the time while i'm using uber so i just hit get car right i want to go home jimmy won't go sleepy and i get in the car in the back seat i'm in dc and then i really close the door and i realize i turn on my left real slow and there's a woman sitting there in the back seat i'm like hey I was like, I'm so sorry, I got in the wrong Uber.

40:02 And the guy was like, no, it's like when they did ride share. The pool, the pool, or yeah, ride share. And I'm like, yeah, no, I knew that. I'm like trying to play it, whatever, whatever. Next thing you know, got a new phone number in my, because it was a, I was like, this is speed dating. um the person was a crazy person it you know long story short person i'll tell you guys the rest of the story off the air person was a crazy person but now you're stuck with that which is i don't know if they do that anymore but i make sure now i don't just blindly hit like accept or whatever you shouldn't you should be doing that um all right so martha good luck to you um uh what else oh i have a we have a new uh segment which is called the mailbag.

40:44 You guys ready to do mailbag? Let's do it. So we got a DM. We asked about this two weeks ago, and Marcus decided to follow up. Marcus says he's a cash-based physical therapist in San Diego. He said, I'm booked solid, but my bank account says otherwise. Guys, I've been solo for two years. I'm full. Referrals are steady. I feel busy, but I still can't get ahead financially. Where do I start to look to figure out what's broken? This is starting to feel like a trap and a hamster wheel. He's booked. What's the problem? I mean, you don't have a lot of information to work with. Thank you for trusting me. We have enough. We have enough. Do you really? I don't know. I don't know what to do. Charge more? What's your cost? Be Dave Ramsey, spend more than you make.

41:24 Yeah, exactly. What's his overhead and what are his rates? And he's probably not selling packages. But yeah, if your book's solid and you don't have enough money to live on, either your overhead, you're spending too much, you're at a big fancy place and your overhead is too expensive based off of whatever your rates are. So it kind of comes down to rates. Like is he charging, you said California? San Diego. San Diego. San Diego. Yeah. So, I mean, he's got to be, I mean, at least one hundred fifty, two hundred or something to visit. I'm assuming he's got to be. And if he's not like that, that's definitely a problem. OK. Didn't say. But we'll we'll figure that out. Yeah.

42:04 Every every consultant on the face of the planet is going to say, if you're booked solid, you're charging too little. Period. It doesn't even matter if you're booked solid, you're charging too little. You should be at like a seventy five, eighty percent. If you start raising rates, people will drop off. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. The fact that you have a full schedule. Now, we don't know, is the full schedule of twenty hours a week? Maybe it is. I talked to therapists who are like, I'm so busy. I'm working twenty. I'll do twenty hours, you know, in two days. Good point. Good point. Yeah. So so context is important. But yeah, most likely charging too little.

42:45 I have a sound effect for this. I'll upload it for next episode. Ben says move away from San Diego if you want to see your bank account grow. Marcus, good luck. I hope that was helpful. Also, email all your past customers after you raise your rate and say we're actually adding new value. It's at this rate. I can't wait to see you again. You're welcome, Marcus. Clara is in Ohio. Tony's in Ohio. Hey, PT Breakfast Club. Love the show. I want to stop right there. thank you clara shout out claire thank you quick question i keep hearing about and she uses big air quotes and capital letters i keep hearing about growing through leverage instead of hiring what does that mean i don't understand what does that look like for a clinic can i really grow revenue without just burning out my team or adding more full-time staff what does growing with leverage mean i don't know that i know this is a jargon term that i probably understand the concept but not the words I'll take a shot.

43:39 And then I want to hear what Dave's thinking. I would say let leverages anytime, you know, quote, you have a longer lever. So like I go into the clinic, I treat for an hour, I get paid for an hour. That's one to one. I want something that gives me three to one, five to one, ten to one value on that. So how do I do that? Technology. I show I show people in my zero to pay it. I'm like, look, you want to be a mobile therapist. Go to the patient's home on Monday. That's one to one. But then on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, do single unit, ten minute telehealth. Hey, John, I saw you yesterday. We talked about, you know, your challenges getting out of that recliner.

44:20 Listen, prop your phone up. Let me see you get in and out of your recliner so I can see if you're doing nose over the toes and things that we talked about. Now all of a sudden I'm using technology to lever my time so that in an hour I could do six ten-minute telehealth single unit sessions where all of a sudden I just exploded three and four times the profitability double the revenue because I don't have MPPR reductions. I don't have to travel. I don't have any of the other expenses. That's leverage. Leverage could be people coming into my clinic. Again, I could do one hour in the morning, one hour in the afternoon where I just do single unit visits and I load the clinic up.

45:05 Six, seven people an hour coming through there. Right. And then the rest of the time, maybe I do one on one. I can lose money on one on one because I've made so much money in that one hour of time. Dave? An example that I'm trying to do that I think could paint a picture for leverage is, so yes, what Tony said, like we have therapists, they go and we're going to make three fifty visit or on a weekend, you know, five hundred, five fifty, whatever for a weekend visit. Leverage would be work. I'm kind of trying to create this like offer for our older folks that are already they already love our service.

45:45 They're already spending money with us. They potentially want more. and we're looking to like have this like vip longevity kind of health offering and it's pro it's really uncomfortable for me even to think about and kind of plan out because i'm thinking like it's it's probably going to be around like if if and and maybe everyone says no to it but it could be like fifty thousand dollars to like a hundred thousand dollars i know it sounds crazy guys but And it would be like, hey, there's a physician that does house calls. We would loop him in. And one of our therapists or someone on our team would be an escort for the client to go to doctor visits if the spouse can't go or to go to restaurants like we talked about before and to get them back into museums and theaters and all that.

46:30 Based off of the hourly rate of what our therapist or team would usually do with that individual per hour or per day or whatever, That would be another example of leverage. We could see, we could have, we can have thousands of dollars in value of actual monetary money for the exchange of the minute by minute, hour by hour interactions with this client. Because like Jimmy said, we're bringing new value to the table and we're saying, Hey, we can, we can offer you this, this, this, this, this is another thing. This is like a new thing. And it costs this much. So that, do you guys think that's an example or like a story of leverage? Would RTM also be another example of leverage, like a good medium-sized lever?

47:14 You have to do some work on it, right? You've got to review. You have to do all the things you're promising to do or review the data and give suggestions and help guide. That's a little better because you can sit in one spot and be reviewing sixty patients in three hours or whatever it is. So I think that's a good example. Anything else? One more real quick. So yesterday I'm in the clinic. I'm treating patients. I'm using equipment while I'm treating patients. I'm capturing video of the equipment that I'm using and I'm earning affiliate income from people that will never be my patient. You know, one more example of leverage. I think last month we made fifteen hundred dollars on Facebook ads or Facebook ads, people paying me to show ads on my videos, not me paying Facebook.

48:01 That's leverage. I'm levering those minutes of clinical time to not just get paid by the insurance company, but then repurpose those minutes of my life that I'm never going to get back to get paid by advertisers, to get paid by product companies, to get paid. You know, I could turn that into if I wanted to a digital course or something like that. I saw Bo run an ad kind of post yesterday where he's offering something new. Very cool stuff. Yeah. All right. Um, do, do, do. That's all we have. One more thing. So I'm just, I'm just putting in a Gemini. I've been using Gemini and chat GBT side by side. And I kind of like to compare. I mean, so, I mean, so far, uh, I still like chat GBT a little bit better in my opinion.

48:48 Me too. I'm asking Gemini right now. You guys know, you remember, um, Naval Robicon. Have you guys heard of this guy? Yeah. Yeah. So he has some, and it's, it's not, Uh, okay. It is popping up. Um, three forms of leverage labor, people working for you, capital money working for you or code and media products with no marginal costs of replication, which is exactly, exactly what Tony just talked about. So, um, the, in terms of leverage, there's different ways, there's different things out there for you to leverage, but code meaning software or media media is what Tony does go to total therapy solutions.

49:28 Look at his, uh, Look at his Instagram. Look at his Facebook. Look at the videos that Tony does for Amazon Influencer. Those videos are working for him when he's sleeping, when he's on this call all the time. I talked about this every day on LinkedIn. Dave Candy, friend of the show in a bunch of Facebook groups. He's probably shooting with an iPhone. He's using a twenty three dollar ring light. His thumbnails are pretty B minus. And I showed one video. B minus in a good way. What I mean is he just does the thing. Tony got a kick out of that. But what I mean is like... And then you look at Dave Candy's stats. He's just a physical therapist using air quotes. And I was like, dude, look at this one random video.

50:10 Not even his top video. Had like three months worth of view times. Most of those people will never ever be in Dave Candy's state. Number one, he's getting paid for that video. He did it one time in twelve minutes. And now when he goes to sleep, he's like, what's that? Oh, it's a nickel. Oh, it's a nickel. Oh, it's a nickel. And then some people will book... and find him because of that but you do once you leverage later i'm telling you if content wouldn't work tony robbins wouldn't be a thing right are we done with the mailbag because i have the mailbag sound effect brand new you ready i don't know if you guys can even hear this it's mailbag time real questions real people no bots allowed Ah, there we go.

50:53 All right, that's the mailbag. I do want to say thank you. I don't want to forget one of our new sponsors. This one is going to be a real thing. Welcoming Goniometer Plus to the show, the dating app for physical therapists and physical therapist assistants. Swipe left on tight hamstrings. Swipe right on full range of motion. Goniometer Plus matches you based on your Goni scores and soap note style. Go online. Available in the Android and App Store now. Goniometer Plus. Date another clinician who's as salty as you. It's going to be a thing. I don't think anyone realizes how impressive it is with Jimmy's with pronunciation, especially with swipe right, speaking at the cadence and tone that you sometimes speak in.

51:33 Just kudos to you, brother. My life. All right. So we have nine minutes. I have a segment I can try. We're going to call it the lightning round or we can save it where I throw. We do overrated, underrated. So I'm going to throw a thing. You're going to go overrated. And why or underrated? And why do you want to try this? Yeah, let's do it. All right, let's do it. You're listening to the PT Breakfast Club. All right. It's time for the lightning round. We'll call it overrated, underrated. I'm going to throw it out. You're going to give me a one-word answer, overrated, underrated, and then a sentence verification. Make this fast. Dave, you go first. All right. It'll be Dave, Tony, Dave, Tony. We'll do three. All right. Overrated, underrated. I already know where Dave is going to go with this.

52:16 Overrated. Overrated? You don't want people to be able to book online? correct you don't want them to okay why i love being shocked i thought you'd have been like yes book this goes back to the video that you posted earlier today you were talking about early today about longford where it was like you're basically almost hired no we want to put resistance in the process we don't want anyone just we don't want just anyone to book on the schedule we need to filter you out because respectfully this is i don't i don't want to be demeaning but in terms of not status, but like, we need to make sure that you're the right fit for us at the same time. Like you, you need to make sure that we're the right fit for you perspective patient. Um, but no, we, we will not have just any random person book a time without really either at either phone calls typically, or at the very least we have busy executives where they're like, I am not speaking on the phone.

53:08 Can we do this all over email? Sure. Absolutely. And it's a, it's a back and forth over email. Um, Not just automatically booking any prospective patient with a pulse. I already have an idea, dude. Like, let's create a custom. Let's let's tinker with this. Let's create a custom GPT that you'll just be like, I'm going to send this to you. And then they can interact with the GPT until the GPT you've taught has said, this is the ideal. Let's move them on to booking. Tony, I like it. Twenty four seven online booking availability. underrated by a mile i want zero friction i want the ky jelly but not only that i want patients i want patients to manage their schedule without any human interaction Wow.

53:56 See, and that's the brilliance of this. Sorry, that's twenty four seven online booking. I'm asking for Google reviews in the evaluation process. Overrated, underrated. I think that's too early, but just me. Underrated. If if the peak of happiness is at the evaluation, if I get Tony Stiffney, if I get Tony Stiffney and he feels, oh, that feels like twenty five percent better range of motion. And I've been dealing with this for a year. I go, boom, this could potentially be Tony's, the patient's peak of happiness right now. I may never get them happier than right now. Google review, I'm asking and then sending a text and then sending an email.

54:37 Dave wants to play hard to get. Yes. Reuben knows me well. And Ben, Tony's KY. It's not Kentucky. You said during, I would say never during, but immediately after, you know, if they're walking out, they're scheduling, they're, they're feeling amazing. Yes. Dave is a hundred percent on get that review. It's never too early. I have got baseball buddies that asked me about, Oh, my shoulder, this, that, and I give them like a little, you know, a little help verbally. And I'm like, Hey, can you drop me a good review? Like I didn't formally evaluate them. I did it before. I like it. Okay. You changed my mind. You changed my mind. Uh, last one, overrated, underrated Instagram reels for patient education, your clinic, your organization, creating Instagram reels for patient education.

55:26 I think I'm asking this as I'm a list. Cause I'm like, is it oversaturated? I mean, there's a, there's accounts that only show exercise videos with underrated, underrated. I think, I think Tony and I might agree here. Underrated. I just, just more, the more, the better, more content, the better. There's not enough practices out there that are just doing, uh, all the content, whether it's Therx and movement based or it's, you know, jokes with your front desk and, you know, like TikTok dances or whatever, just underrated. Yeah. Underrated. We should be putting that every, every single patient that does get a home exercise program, those videos, videos are reels ready to publish like all day long. We should be putting thirty, forty clips out every single day.

56:07 If you're treating patients for an eight hour day. Understood. All right. That's overrated, underrated in the lightning round. You're listening to the PT Breakfast Club. Thanks to my buddy, Adam, who is my old imaging guy who did all the voiceovers for those things. I'm going to be using those way too much. Do you want to make sure we're six minutes away? Sorry, four minutes away from the end of the show. I have one more sponsor. We don't get this money. Thanks to Chronic Pain Candle Company. Scented like low back pain and emotional burnout mixed. Scents include sciatica sage, burnout, and burgundy. And new for the holidays, Whiplash Winter Pine. ChronicPainCandleCompany.com.

56:49 All right, we got four minutes to go. We still haven't done live selling. I keep forgetting to put that on a lead off. Maybe we haven't. We also haven't tinkered a lot with live selling. And for people who don't know, this was talked about on Instagram yesterday. Years ago, like how come when I'm looking at a fashion model or some dude lumberjack, I can't just touch the shirt or touch the pants. And now you kind of can and just buy those things like that for me years ago. And I think Instagram didn't want to do it years ago because they were like, stay true to the mission. build the audience become irreplaceable then now you start to see it years and years later but live selling is a little bit different but not really different tony how do you describe what live selling is i mean there's two words that i understand both of those words but like the essence uh real quick let's save that i know we keep pushing it off let's save it this was a fun team dave was gonna say something what were you gonna say dave Is anyone doing live selling where like, I think we could actually make it.

57:52 Cause like we do this, we've been doing, I was about to make a joke and say, we've been doing this for two years and now it's starting to feel or sound like a show, like a, like a formal show, which is kind of funny. Is anyone doing live selling where the team, like us three or whoever, like the, the, the host or whatever, like one of them's ripping it and one of them's like pushing it like because all these like live shopping is like everyone's just pushing whatever this product is and here's the features and the benefits and then and oh you know qvc oh we only have fourteen left in stock and now we got five left in stock and you gotta call this number now and all that type of thing i think with products i think we could give honest reviews about certain products if we ever tested the live selling It would be so raw.

58:32 It would be so genuine. Tony might like it. I'm ripping it. Jimmy's refereeing. Then I'm going to like the next product and Tony's not going to like it. And that could potentially be entertaining or amusing while also being content. The first question you should ask is, is someone else doing this in another way? Yes. Like right now, I don't watch TV anymore. That should tell you something. I don't even want to turn the TV on anymore. Turn a podcast on and I start working, whatever. But I know every Good Morning America, the Today Show, they're going to do the top ten toys to grab now. And they're all pushing it. No one is speaking bad about it. That's my question. It would be Barstool or the Pat McAfee show doing live selling.

59:14 We'll talk more about that. Why should this show be live from CSM or the Graham Sessions or PPS? I've said this for two years. I'm not saying it has to be us. I'm saying we would do an awesome job at it. I just self-censored myself. I didn't drop the F-bomb because I want to show future sponsors like Drowning Link for Dogs that we're a family-friendly show. I think soon organizations are going to feel stupid not to. Live sell or live broadcast. This will be my parting shot. I think the... the problem with what David, I love what David's suggesting. I think it'd be amazing. The concern would be saying anything negative because repercussion of liability and things like that.

59:56 Then don't bring people on that you don't approve. I approve this message, right? There's a reason those messages go out. I've talked to clients and I got to talk to a client soon. They're like, well, we're just scared that if we let advertisers on, we're going to have somebody who's pushing pseudoscience. And I was like, I looked deep into the camera and I was like, then don't let them on your show. I was the program director of a radio station. I was not involved. I mean, I was involved in the sales process, but my job was not knock on doors, find advertisers. But if someone was going to go on the air, it came through me. Is this a good match? Are you okay with your air staff saying this or playing this between Pearl Jam and Lincoln Park? And if the answer wasn't hell yeah, I pushed back and said, this doesn't feel like it fits.

1:00:38 Format wise, I don't want this on my radio station. Very few times that I've ever pushed that button. The organizations I've talked to, they're looking for the exception, not the rule. I'm like, you're looking for the one in a million to say no to. And you're shutting down my estimate, fifty to one hundred K in annual revenue because you're scared to say no to one organization. Say no. You do not meet our policy. Drop a policy. This is the one time I'll say drop a policy. All right. I'm ranting. We're over time. Parting shot. Go. Was that your parting shot? That was it. That was it. My parting shot. I like the long lever of code. I can't code. I like the long lever of media. Do it once and magically this stuff compounds.

1:01:18 We'll be back. Look, all the things. I don't have to remember who to say where. That's it. We're out. Boys, what the hell are you doing? Follow Tony Maritano on YouTube at Total Therapy Solution. Find Dave Kittle at conciergepainrelief.com. And on YouTube at The Dave Kittle Show. And follow Jimmy McKay at PT Podcast. On YouTube, the socials, and wherever you binge podcasts you pretend are for CEUs. And hey, just a reminder, none of this was for advice. This was for entertainment only. Our lawyers say that counts. Thanks to you guys.