Why Physical Therapy Still Isn’t Reaching 90% of People

0:00 You're listening to the PT Pinecast, where smart people in healthcare come to make noise. Here's your host, Jimmy McKay. Thanks, voiceover guy. David Harris, thanks for joining us here live at Graham Sessions. Great to be here. First question, where are you from? I am from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Awesome. And real quick, superhero backstory. What do you do? What's your role in this very vast profession? I am currently the CEO of ProPT out in the state of California. Awesome. And then ProPT is what? Paint me a picture. ProPT is a private practice. We have about twenty clinics in the Central Valley and looking to expand and grow over the next couple of years.

0:41 Come a little closer. There we go. All right. So we're live streaming here. We're at Graham Sessions. Super secret conference. Absolutely. This is like we're at the top of Avengers Tower here. So we're not supposed to talk about who said what, but we can talk about ideas. With someone from your background, what are you excited to talk about? What still freaks you out? What are you hoping to hear? We're just getting started, so we've only heard a couple different things. So I can't really ask you what have you heard altogether. But what are you looking forward to? What are you afraid of here? You know, really looking forward to networking with this group of individuals, looking at physical therapy and where we go in the future, how we can make an impact. We've known for I've been in this profession for twenty six and a half years for you.

1:23 We've known so much of what we can do. And now it's starting to come to fruition. We're starting to actually realize how impactful physical therapy can be in the medical community. What's getting in our way? You've been here for twenty six years. You got it. You have to at least seen the speed bumps. Where are we? We can't say it's can't say it's payment. You can't do that. You can't say that. What's a we thing? What are where are we getting in our way? We are getting in our way by making excuses. Good. I like that. Good. Own it. I think we have to get out of our own way. We have to embrace our role in the health care spectrum. And we have to actually step up to the front instead of lying in the back and just really letting people run over us.

2:05 OK. What's something that is completely outside of what you do in your everyday that you saw on the agenda that you're saying, ooh, I hadn't thought about that? Is there anything you're looking forward to digging into? know i think i'm looking forward into digging into more of this primary care philosophy and really how we can become that practitioner of msk which we already are we just have to realize our own yeah we're not supposed to say who said what from in the room but i can say it if i said it i said this sounds great guys there's an eighty three word definition for primary care physical therapy. And I know that's an internal definition to our profession.

2:45 And I said, this is awesome. I'm not questioning the research. I'm not questioning the policy. There was just a big policy win in Utah. No notes, except if we don't message it to the public. I made everybody look outside the room, look outside the building at downtown Alexandria, Virginia. I go, if we can't explain it simply, clearly, consistently, primary care doesn't mean anything. You've got to be able to make it make sense to them, not just us. So I think you said it very, very well. How do we make it simple? What is primary care? What is MSK? How do we actually take someone from not functioning at their highest level to functioning at their highest level? I'll say it right now. The practice, the organization, the ones that can do it clearly and consistently and concisely will win.

3:31 And I don't even know what win means, but they're going to have more opportunities for success. I'll put it that way. Yeah, you know, I think when means how do we not only open up access, opening access is one part of it. How do we provide the access? How do we actually bring that to the public? You know, I think I read a paper here a while back that said we're seeing ten to twelve percent of the population of the United States that actually need physical therapy. We're arguing over ten percent. Ten percent. Instead of trying to reach ninety. That's right. Right. So I think we have to get a clear, concise, simplistic message out to the public. And we have to keep re-emphasizing that, re-emphasizing that. You know, it is, yes, we have to talk to our legislators.

4:14 Yes, we have to talk to the public. But ultimately, we have to provide that great quality care. We have to prove ourselves day in and day out that we are the best of the best. We have the skill. We have the knowledge. Let's go get it. Let's get it out there. Do not disagree. If you were to have been... Is this your first time at Graham Sessions? Second. Second. All right. When was the last time? Two years ago. Okay. You've been in this profession twenty-six years. Let's pretend that you were at Graham Sessions fifteen years ago. What's... What are a couple of wins we have put on the board in the last fifteen, twenty six years in your career? Things that were let's paint a picture for people who are entering the profession now or in the next couple of years. What are some what are some victories you've had?

4:54 Let's show them how maybe how far we've come. Not saying we don't have far to go. You know, I think one of the biggest in my career has been, you know, becoming a doctor in profession. Sure. Right. Improving our knowledge base, our research base, understanding what we do and why we do it in a better way. But I think the other one would be direct access, which is truly what we talked about this morning. Primary care. Yeah. Really getting the ability to see a patient directly. without having to go through two, three, four different avenues. Yeah. The door is open. Yes. We got to make sure people understand why they want to walk through our door, our specific clinic or our professions door. Why are they doing that? If you fail to do that, people The phrase is confused people don't.

5:39 Confused people never show up for the first time. Confused people don't come back. Confused people don't insert whatever it is you want them to do there. They just don't. What's on the horizon? What are you still confused at? I've heard some other people say, well, this AI thing's a thing, and I'm looking at everybody else to see where it is and how they're going to play with it. But what's on your dry erase board now that you're still solving practice-wise? Yeah, I think technology has come so far in a very short period of time. It's getting what I said earlier, getting out of our own way. Big time. Really embracing the idea that technology can help us treat patients better, more effectively, more efficiently.

6:25 We also have to simplify that message to our own teams. All the time. How many people are just terrified of AI helping them with their documentation? Yet on the other side, we're like, man, documentation is killing us, burnout, all this stuff. This is one of the things that can help us become so much more effective in what we do on a day-to-day basis, which will bring more people into our practices and allow them to receive the care that they need. How are you adopting that? Because again, even finding a technological solution is step one, then adopting it. What are some of the things that you're like, yes, not only is this nice to have, this is need to have. So what are the things that you're actually putting into play where you work?

7:05 You know, right now we're putting in Scribe. Got to. And I think it's a very effective tool. But the most important thing is how do we actually develop the plan and the rollout? A poor rollout can just really mess up everything. Blow everything. You don't get two bites of the apple with the rollout. You don't. You really don't. And so I think we have to really work with our vendors that are helping us with these new products. Make sure that we have all of the answers that we can going in. Yeah. And we have to really kind of have I think John Maxwell says it very well. We have to have the meetings before the meeting. All right. We have to really get buy in and engagement from that small group in order to kind of bring it out to the larger group.

7:45 How many ballpark? How many clinicians? Like what's your you know, we have currently we have about one hundred and twenty clinicians for you. And, you know, we're piloting this program right now with fifteen. Wow, see, that's smart. Some people listening might be like, well, if it's good, roll it out. Why are you doing it small before big? You never go big before you try small, right? I think it's extremely important that we make sure that we work out any of the unanswered questions before we roll it out to the masses. Correct. And if you find a little bit of failure in that system, now you can adjust before you go company-wide. Will you go small group everybody, or will it be smaller groups?

8:26 A little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger. Yeah, a little bigger, a little bigger. Okay. What are some of the things you're looking for in terms of feedback? And my follow-up is, how would you pick those first fifteen? Were you looking for early adopters? Were you looking for people who were crusty, thinking, hey, if I can flip this person who's a laggard, man, this will be easy. So how did you pick the fifteen, and what are you looking at? What are your sort of KPIs for a small rollout? Yeah, you're looking for a little bit of both. I want my early adopters, and then I want my naysayers, so to speak. Because if you can prove it to both groups, then they're preaching to the masses. Yeah, you know most likely you're going to get those tech forward-leaning people going, yeah, yeah.

9:07 But if you can prove it to, I call them the crusty laggards, if you can prove it to them or get them championing or saying, you know what, I went in thinking this was going to be terrible, and it's not that bad. What are the things you're measuring? Are you measuring documentation time six months ago versus now? Are you measuring quality, speed? What are the different things you look for? A little bit of both. One, quality. Quality of documentation is very important. If you can't tell the story, then it's kind of worthless. So what we want to see is... is the documentation accurate? So when that therapist reads over that scribe, is it accurate? Does it pick up everything that they need? And then the other side is how effective does this, or how does this help them become more efficient?

9:51 Can they do an evaluation now Can they walk in the door in that room, do the evaluation and then walk out of the evaluation? So they're not at home for an hour and a half typing notes at night. Right. And then the other side is, can that help them improve their efficiency throughout the day with their patient care? Can they spend more quality time with that patient? Yep. Looking forward, not back. If people want to get in touch with you, what's the website for the practice right now? propt.com uh and uh they can get in touch with me at david harris at propt.org and you're on the uh you're on the linkedins as we call it these days you're on the linkedin sorry yes i'm on linkedin all right uh we have a tradition on the show live from graham sessions here at apt headquarters this is the parting shot one last mic drop moment no pressure just your legacy on the line No pressure there, just your legacy.

10:48 So parting shot is just, hey, just one idea, one concept. Is there something you repeat to your team, your staff, anything that you're like, don't forget this? What's your parting shot? Yeah, it's twofold. First is be the example. Second is how far can you see? What can you see in front of you? What can you see in front of this profession? And quite honestly, how can we be a part of something that is so much bigger than us? Yeah, I love that. David, appreciate you coming to this, being part of this. It's not just the people on stage. It's the people in the audience. And I got news. If you're not at Graham Sessions, you're still in the audience. We want these ideas to leave this building here in Alexandria and spread to the rest of our profession.

11:28 Thanks for a little insight. This is the first time we're doing this. I usually live stream from my living room. So why not live stream from the top of APTA headquarters? That's right. Thanks for having me. Thanks, man. That's it for this one, but we're just getting warmed up. Smash follow, send it to a friend, or crank up the next episode. Want to go deeper? Hit us at pgpinecast.com or find us on YouTube and socials at pgpinecast. And legally, none of this was advice. It's for entertainment purposes only. Bulls**t! See, Keith? We read the script. Happy now?