The Future of Rehab: Why PTs Must Lead or Be Left Behind

0:00 Industry is a portion of the profession that needs to be understood. You need to work with them because, look, they just wanna solve problems too, right? Like, and, and, and that's part of it. And if we can't figure out how to do that together, like you said, we will not go as far. Yeah. So that's a big portion of it as well. This episode is brought to you by PT Pinecast Media. If you've ever thought about launching a podcast to grow your brand, your clinic, or your business, we can help. We, like, make podcasts like this one. Uh, learn more at pt pinecast.com or just shoot me an email, jimmy at pt pinecast.com, and we can start your show, uh, today, or actually tomorrow.

0:40 We're busy today. On to today's episode. What if the future of rehab wasn't something we waited for, but something we designed together? Imagine a room full of physical therapists, clinic owners, policy leaders, startup minds all gathered together to tackle the biggest challenges in our profession: burnout, career sustainability, retention, and how we thrive in a changing healthcare system. That's what's happening this July at the APTA's Future of Rehab Therapy Summit, 2day event in DC and Alexandria, where bold ideas are more than welcome. They're workshopped, pitched, and refined into real world solutions. Think Shark Tank meets continuing ed, but with better posture.

1:22 From learning how to bring your own idea to market, to hearing what's actually working in clinics across the country now, this summit is about action over talk and solutions over sessions. And leading this charge is someone who spent his career at the intersection of science, innovation, and advocacy from serving at the White House to helping steer the vision of the APTA. Today he's here to talk about the future and how PTs can help shape it. Ladies and gents, let's welcome back Drew Contreras. We're here with the future. Drew's here. He is the f- Drew, you're the future. The future. Uh, we're doing, uh, an episode on an event in the future. You've done Now, so, y- this is the future of rehab, Future of Rehab Therapy.

2:05 Yes. Leave it to a military guy to make sure the acronym is FORT. Just saying. I saw what you were doing there. Just saying. Future of Rehab Therapy Summit. This is an APTA event. You've done something like this, though, like, the, during the centennial. Yeah. It, it's similar, right? I mean- So, right, we had a, a future of physical therapy where we've kind of talked about things in the profession, but this time what APTA's trying to do is take more of a broader role and include our rehab brethren in occupational therapy and speech therapy, invite them into the conversation, um, because, look, the, as, as, as the future shows up, right, the world keeps getting smaller and smaller, right? Yeah. And so we need to be working with our colleagues, and that's part of what's gonna happen in this event.

2:49 I call them cousins. Cousins. PT, OT, speech, um Yeah, cousins. You know, it's like if you saw the Venn diagram, there'd be a little crossover, right? It would just sort of- For sure. like mix. Like, it's funny when you see, like, people who work with older adults, a lot of times, like, the PT, the OT, and the speech therapist all show up at the same time like, "What are we supposed to do?" There we go. It's like the It's the, it's the Spider-Man meme where- Yes. the 3 Spider-Mans are just pointing at each other. So what is this summit? Like, walk me through it because- Yeah, sure. not, everybody can come. It's a smaller event, which I- Yeah. sort of like, right? Yes. It's in DC. It's in July. Who should come? What can they expect? Yeah, so the venue, right, is intentionally a couple hundred people.

3:29 That's it, right? It's small on purpose, right? This is not combined sections meeting. This is not a 2,000 person meeting. This is a small event on purpose because realize this, some people don't wa- don't wanna go to an event with 10,000 people, right? Right. So the people who wanna come to this event, right, should be looking for, number one, um, some specific curated topics, which I'm gonna go over, but number 2, a lot of time to interact and network. That's really what this is designed for is to spend time with the other people in the room and with the presenters so that you get a chance to talk with people and kind of engage with them, right? So, um, the It's broken up into 2 days, and the first day, um, just to kind of go over the, ballpark agenda, right?

4:12 Gentle. We have a really interesting clinician who- This is wild. who had an idea one day for a thing, took his idea, and went to Shark Tank and l- and won Shark Tank, like shut it down. Closed Closed the deal. Mark Cuban, right? Like, like, legit, right? And he's a PT, right? So just kind of showing that like, yes, you can do amazing things if you just kind of think about, well, this is where I need to go and these are the things I need to do. So that's just a really interesting kind of conversation to have in the room, right, and to kind of see what was that Um, we're also gonna have a panel with the CEOs of APTA, ASHA, and AOTA, right? The cousins. There's a lot of things going on, right?

4:52 And so all kinds of stuff with reimbursement and billing, but also what's going on with associations and the, and kind of how are things pivoting for the next few years. So it's an important conversation, but also kind of lets you know strategically what is our sector looking for in the broader healthcare image, right? Right. So I think that's super helpful, right? Then we're actually gonna have a, a, a really interesting panel on nontraditional clinical settings. So PTs or OTs who have decided to go in a different direction, left the clinic, doing something else, but are still kind of touching or tangential and related.

5:33 And I found this one really interesting because, you know, not that long ago, it was really frowned upon for clinicians to leave the profession and still, um, be engaged, right? Right. Right? You're the bad guy, right? Case in point, you, right? Like, you're a perfect Me? Yeah, I'm a random podcast guy at my- Exactly, right? Like, oh, you should be slinging patients all day long. Like, but also, right, like, you gotta recognize that so many of our colleagues, right, have gone on to do bigger and better things, m- move into the C-suite, start their own companies, right? Like, just immense opportunity, but normalizing that and having that conversation because some people don't aspire to be in a clinic for 30 years, and that's fine, right?

6:13 But just kind of figuring out how do we use them and how do we leverage that is, is a big portion of that.All right, here's a question. What would you do with an extra hour every day? S- it's not a trick question. That's what a bunch of physical therapists are saying after switching to Empower EMR by MW Therapy. It's built on automation and AI, so basically, it becomes your clinic's copilot. It keeps your schedule full, handles billing like a pro, and cuts way down on paperwork headaches. But here's the kicker. It's not some generic system. It's made for physical therapists by people who know what you deal with day in and day out. You want more patients?

6:53 Done. Easier documentation? Done. Less stress? Yes, please. Empower lets you be the hero of your clinic with happier patients, less burnout, and better profits. Book your demo today at mwtherapy.com and see why switching just might be the easiest win of your year. As Rebecca Griffith, friend of the show, would say, using your familiar skills in non-familiar places. Like, we want everybody to know about PT, and we expect if we stay in a clinic and scream about it, that's one way. But if you leave- Right. and PTs wind up in a C-suite or wind up in a tech company or wind up somewhere else, it's a way to show versus tell, and show beats tell.

7:35 Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's just one of those things that it's, it's the time has come, right, that we understand and truly appreciate, and in some instances uphold it as, like, this is a great opportunity, this is a great thing, right? And so normalizing that, having that be a part of the, kind of the narrative for the profession is really important. So we're gonna, we're gonna spend some time on An event is not an event. I mean, people are smart enough to know you're not throwing this event for the sake of throwing an event, right? You're throwing an event because an event is a way to solve problems- Yeah. or at least get people knowing or talking about these problems. Yep. So here's a, here's a curveball a little bit.

8:15 From your perspective- Mm-hmm. what are the biggest existential challenges facing, uh, I guess not just PT because we've got AOTA and ASHA, right? What are the biggest crises, the biggest problems facing our professions together that hopefully conversations from, uh, from the Futurality Summit will address? Right. Right. And that's, like, literally, right, the thematic of the summit, right- Right. is to, like, address a concern, right? And I think the bigger concern that we have to think about is that, um, if you kinda look at where medicine in general is going, right, we have a significant problem coming with a lack of primary care physicians- Yeah. Yeah. in the system. Like, it's, it is not, like, gonna happen.

8:57 It's here, and it's, it's about to step off a, a significant challenge, right? Correct. And so, right, that's a whole nother conversation about, like, why, why aren't physicians interested in doing primary care, right? Right. Well, there's a whole, there's the whole conversation. I don't wanna get into that. But my point is that as that gap gets wider and as people need to kind of figure out who's then going to step into that role, understanding that, like, as a doctoring profession, we can have a, a slice of that, and we are well-suited to fill a significant, you know, portion of that. Um, the other conversation is, right, is, uh The, the other big conversation on that first day is an AI conversation.

9:43 Yup. And AI is here. We all Like, okay, God. Like, you and I had this AI conversation probably a couple of years ago, right? Correct. But now, right, like, now the question is not what is it gonna how's it gonna be used or utilized, right? Now the question is, like, to what extent, how? Genie's already out of the bottle. Genie's out of the bottle. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is Right? And so, um, you know, uh, there's, there's a that's just a huge conversation, and it's a thing that if you I just went to a, to a meeting at the National Academy of Medicine, and it was summed up as this, right? If you're not in the room ha- at the con- if you're not at the table talking about AI, you're gonna be on the menu, right?

10:24 You're smoked. that's, that's what they said in the room, and I was like, "Man, that's completely true," right? You're smoked. So, right, so like, so the professions have to start to understand, like, we're, we're about to have a- a- another digital revolution. It's really gonna be impacted in healthcare, and we have to be a part of that conversation and make sure that, like, we're leveraging it and we're accepting of it and we're positioning it for the best good for everybody, right? So that's, right, that's a big, huge portion of- of the conversation that we need to have. Uh, I like the fact that it's not a huge event, because what I also like is these are conversation starters. At no point should you think that a solution is gonna come out of a summit. Right. It's not the goal.

11:04 That's not how thing- things are not That's not how problems are solved, right? The spark, the back of the napkin might happen in the hallway at the Future Rehab Summit, and then 2 people who wouldn't other- otherwise have met would meet under these circumstances, and you can't I don't know if you can do that with an 18,000-person CSM. You can do it with something like this. Yeah. So, so let me ask you this. Um, what ideas are you hoping to see a year from now? Like, you're putting together oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen. You're putting elements in the room and saying, "I hope there's a big bang." Like, what are some things that, like, pie-in-the-sky you'd like to see? So here's So that actually flows really well into the second day.

11:46 Okay. So the second day of this, we're having some other curated topics about, so if you have an idea, how do you- What do you do with it? How do- what do you do with it? how do you make a pitch for that? How do you Uh, if you have a product, like, "Hey man, you probably should get a patent," right? So we're gonna go, we have some patent, some people from the patent office. Like, that you need to protect yourself, right? We have people about, "Well, how do you make a pitch?" Right? We have people who have done pitches in the room, like, "Hey, I've done several of these and this is what's good." So that, what I want is people to start to understand that everybody who's in that room has probably had a great idea at some point in time, but maybe didn't know how to capitalize on or didn't know what was the process for it, right?

12:30 Um, and I think that teaching people, "Hey, look, if you've got an idea, here's, here's- here's the opportunities for you," right? And then I also think that, um, the other thing we're gonna talk about is, like, so you, maybe you've already got this idea. Maybe you're already doing a thing. Like, well, how do, how do we get, how do you get funding for that? How do you get investors to believe in you? How communicate 'Cause what I suspect is Yeah, and how do you do it? How do you do it well, right? what I really hope is that some people that are in that room, s- you know, as we're talking about problems and concerns, go like, "You know what? I actually have an idea, and I have, I have a potential solution." And maybe, you know, there's some other people in that room that, "Hey, let- let's- let's have a conversation about that," right?

13:12 So intentionally, there's a lot of networking time for these, for these opportunities and conversations to happen. And I think that the one thing that we really have come full circle on is, you know, during COVID we were like, "Ah, we can do everything online," and like you could do a lot of stuff. Yeah. But at some point, humans are humans. Yeah. And putting a couple of human beings together in a place with some time and some energy brings about great things, and that's really what hoping for. And accountability. Yeah, I mean, you can. Uh, you can do great follow-up. You can maybe meet someone, but always and never. Sky Donovan taught me this. She goes, "Hey, listen, you see an- an always or a never on a test? It's probably not the right answer," right?

13:53 'Cause all you gotta do is find one, and so is everything online always the best? Should you never No, absolutely not. Um, it is harder to scale in-person events, but that's why the right events are the ones to go to. July 9 and 10, Future of Rehab Summit, information@apta, uh, and their website, apta.org. You- you've got a very unique vantage point, right? Your office, we're gonna, like, like a sp- like a literal, like your vantage point in D- you overlook DC. Yup, that's right. It's not an accident where APTA built their building. Nope. There was no metro station when you built it. Nope. There is a metro station now. Look at that. There was no connection. Now there is. Wow. It's almost like you guys planned this. But there's other people in, quite literally, the APTA's neighborhood.

14:35 Mm-hmm. Companies like Amazon. Yup. Companies like Apple, companies like Google. So I'm just- I'm- I'm sort of tipping my hand where I think you're gonna go. Yeah. But where do you hope to see PTs playing a broader healthcare role in the next decade? Like, where should we be but we're not now, but if we're not in 5 to 10 years, we're in trouble? Yeah, and- and the point that you're making is that as healthcare broadens the reach, right, as other companies step into the healthcare space, like we're saying, Apple, Google, Amazon, right? Like, they're all in it, right? They're all in this space, right? And PT, by the fact that we're The profession is the solution for so many problems, if applied.

15:22 The problem is if people would do it themselves, then we wouldn't have to pre- we wouldn't, you wouldn't need anybody who- who does it for a living, right? So every time, like, I see some digital companies, like, "We're gonna replace in-person PT with an avatar," I'm like, "You've clearly never done the profession," right? 'Cause people need people to help them along this- this process. physical therapy also needs to find itself its place in all these other providers that are going to do things at scale, because we provide a solution that not a lot of other disciplines do. And They can bring Amazon and Google and Apple can bring things like scale- Yes, and audience, and PTs, instead of doing us or them I don't know. This is personal. Now I'm just putting my own, I'm not even- I'm not even asking you a question.

16:04 Us and them is the answer, us and them.And like, again, like I don't need to talk to this audience anymore about like the impending onslaught of the over 65-year-old patients- Yeah. that are coming, right? They are coming, and the difference is, right, like, they're not If they're exiting the workforce at 65-ish, whatever, right, they're still planning on living another 25 to 30 years, and they're going to. So like, they're going to continue to use medical resources, and like, other than pills and potions, right, like, we're, we're the ones who are most likely to be able to put our thumb on that and have an impact on the big healthcare scale, and I think that's really important for us to be a, a part of that conversation.

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17:40 2, 2 days, July 9 and 10 I mentioned. Dan Statz, PT, that you mentioned from Shark Tank. You're gonna have the CEOs from all those organizations, APTA, ASHA, AOTA. Industry innovation, we're definitely gonna talk about AI, and then the next day, very tactical. How do you actually do those things? If someone's listening right now and they're saying- Yeah. "I'm glad you're doing this. I can't come to the summit. What should I do to sort of follow? I can't come to the summit." I'm busy, whatever. It, it Again- Yeah. not everybody can s- come. What do you suggest people do to stay engaged, to stay and, and be able to move the needle forward if they don't feel like they're in the club? There is no club- Yeah. just a spoiler. Well, I mean, I think that we're At APTA, we're trying to build out some communities, right, where people can interact, have these interactions, right, with other people of like-minded things, and that's, you know, part of the online APTA community.

18:33 separate from that, right, outside of APTA, what I would say is, whatever it is you're whatever your, your place is, invite us into it and let us, let us come there. Right? I- I'm happy to come talk to anybody who's got questions or they've got their own cohort of people doing their thing. Let's have that conversation. Let me know what I can do to help, right? Let me know what, what my colleagues can do to help leverage what you're doing, right? Like, it's a 2way street, right? And I think that that's the reality of it, which is also why if you, uh, if you come to the event, you're gonna see some industry giving presentations and talking and being a part of it. And then, you know, I got a I was at a separate event, and I got a really pointed question from somebody.

19:15 They were like, "Tell me why APTA is working with this company. Why are you, you know, quote unquote 'in bed with them'?" Yeah. And I said, "Look, man, that's You feel free. Like, ask away. But the reason APTA is working with companies is because companies see the value in physical therapy, they see the value in what we do, and they want to work with us." And of course we do our due diligence and vetting as best as we can, right? But the point is that, like, the future of medicine involves industry, especially when your cousins and brothers and sisters with the same initials are working for industry.

19:55 Like- Yep. to not engage them is silly and foolish. So, right, because they're the ones, right, who then can implement the concepts and the ideas we have. They're the ones- Mm-hmm. who can deliver the things. We've done it a lot on our own. Yeah. And we've gotten some good results. But what's that whole, that African proverb, right? If you wanna go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go together. Like, that is li- that's quite literal. Like, you d- you can't get into some places or scale because you can't be great at everything. Right. Especially, right, when you start talking about, you know, large language models, right? That is not my lane. I have no business even having that conversation, right?

20:35 But I know people that do, and I know some of my colleagues who work with them. So, it's no different, I, I feel, right, than us working with researchers, right? Trying to figure out other problems. Sure. So, like, industry is a portion of the profession that needs to be, um, understood. You need to work with them because, look, they just wanna solve problems too, right? Like, and, and, and that's part of it. And if we can't figure out how to do that together, like you said, we will not go as far. Yeah. So that's a big portion of it as well. All right. So, uh, I'll let you do the parting shot. So, th- this will be the last question before you give your parting shot, right? And we will see you. I'm coming. I'm gonna be doing some interviews on site. And I'm there to learn as well because if you're not, I still think you're behind the 8ball.

21:20 So, last question before parting shot. If someone asks you what is at stake if we don't, as a profession, innovate fast enough, how would you answer? What's at stake if we don't innovate? You know what? There, there's a perfect example that everybody's super, um, fresh in your mind. You will be the restaurant that would not deliver food- Ah. during COVID. That's what you'll be. "No, no, no, I'm not gonna deliver food," or, "No, I'm not gonna adapt to this." Like, how many of those restaurants are still around, Shuttered, thousands and thousands of Feel free, right? Keep, keep saying, "You need to come get my VCR tape at Blockbuster." Right, right, right, right. Feel free, right? Like, and the thing that is hard, there was this great quote that I've used.

22:03 And, and it's really difficult but makes so, so much sense, is that as fast as this is, things will never be this slow again. Correct. Things are just going to get faster. So, if you're struggling or not understanding that, like, this is h- this is fast. This is coming fast. Like, yeah, it is. And you know what? 5 years from now, it'll be 2X, 4X, 8X. Like, it's not going to slow down. So, this is that, that concept that, like, you must start adapting now. Like, it's, it's already too late to think about it. You have to adjust, right? And as the profession needs to adjust, so do the clinicians, you know, the educators, the industry- Yeah.

22:46 because it's coming, right? And it's And you can either be, you can either be at the table or you can be on the menu. Those are your choices. Adapt. Adapt or become extinct, uh, Drew Contreras- Adapt. what I'm hearing. All right, parting shot. Last thing we do. Uh, what would you want to leave people with, specifically about the summit? I want people to understand 'cause there are some spots available still as we record and release this. Um, it's not for everybody, and I think that's what makes it cool and sort of ex- uh, we You wanna be in the room where it happened, right? To drop a Hamilton, uh, quote. Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, my parting shot on that is just that if you can't make it, no worries, right? We will be doing more of these things, right? But if you are interested in these sorts of things, be open to the conversation and be open to the people who will say things that come out of this, right?

23:32 And that's what I really hope is that someth- something somewhere, like you said, somewhere something caught on fire. And it's just a slow burn after You know, look for more of these things. Look for more opportunities like this to kind of push things forward, and I think you're gonna see them. Uh, APTA Future Rehab, uh, Summit. Find out details at apta.org. July 9 and 10. Not a bad place to be in Washington, DC. A couple days in the, uh, in the summer. Pretty good. Yeah. Uh, and, um, know we'll have some evening activities as well. You know, just check the socials. We'll be out. Yeah, absolutely. There'll be Though, you know, and, and again, like, if you do decide to come, be prepared to spend a lot of time networking and talking with other people 'cause that's really what this is designed for. thanks so much for the time.

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