podcastforsmallbusinessowners

Whether you have multiple offices or just one, it’s important to recognize that every successful small business grows through three distinct phases of business development. Most private practice owners are unaware of these phases and what is required to efficiently progress smoothly through each phase for successful business growth and development. It is quite common for unknowing owners to find themselves falling further behind and becoming more and more frustrated with the way things are going due to lack of structure, and lack of standard operating procedures that match their current state of business size and development. These challenges are largely due to a lack of knowledge and lack of available processes to handle staffing and operating needs.

While it is the CEO and executive that has the larger vision, they also need to set into motion the structure and systems of operation necessary for individuals to gain clarity from so they can be successful in their roles and responsibilities.

What took Brian years to learn, develop and implement can now be mastered in a few months if not weeks should the owner set aside just two hours a week for their own professional enhancement. In order for that to happen, owners must consider that we don’t have all the answers and that a coach can help develop us into the owner we want to be – recently Brian shared the four types of common PT Owners, but this week he’s sharing how to build your own ideal practice.

Did you know that there are four types of private practice owners? Each type of owner has their own characteristics. Once you identify which type of owner you are, then you can identify your strengths and weaknesses in order to optimize your abilities. All too often, physical therapy private practice owners struggle to succeed in private practice not because of external influences, but because of internal. In this podcast you will learn how to project your efforts toward pro-survival actions that enable you to achieve your ideal scene across six vital key elements necessary for true success.

Are you living the life that you’ve always envisioned for yourself? This week we’re interviewing Quinn Worden of PT United. Quinn shares how his father (a physical therapy private practice owner) influenced him starting PT United and helping the world of physical therapy. As he grew to understand the private practice world, he wanted to collaborate with owners to improve their business performance.

Some of the benefits PT United offers to the private practice world are sourcing supplies – from therabands to PT Tables at a better value than anyone else. In addition, practice owners can support and become LLC partners by paying a fee and enjoying the benefits of buying together as a coop with a full transparency.

When inquiring about the topic of statistics in private practice, one might get a wide variety of responses depending on who you’re asking.  However, if you are the owner of the practice with any executive training, I believe the responses you get will consistently be positive.   

This week, Brian shares what some of the key metrics and statistics are, and even more importantly how you get your staff on-board.  Running a physical therapy private practice is a team effort, one that will be more successful as you hire and train staff who are more interested in hitting their production targets/stats and quality satisfaction measures/metrics than simply doing the tasks before them. Unfortunately, far too many owners are unware of this critical factor and it becomes overshadowed by the need for more patient visits.

Whether you're treating your patients or your staff, you have to start with your organizational set up. This ensures that your practice functions effectively.

In this week’s episode of Secrets of the Top 10%, Brian talks best practices for the best practice. In order to be the best, you need to know what the best practices are. All professional athletes have their own private coaches and trainers working with them nonstop to always improve their abilities. This week we’re answering questions from startup owners about management best practices and sharing a few success stories from our clients. 

This week we’re talking about social media and internal marketing best practices. After PPS, one of the hot topics was marketing and how to get new patients without going out knocking on doors. I brought in our marketing director, Heidi Schmidt, to talk social media and internal marketing best practices.

Success by one definition is “The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” The secret to success is GIVING. I believe All successful people focus more on what they're giving than what they are getting. In reality what you find is that givers attract more abundance than takers. How does this apply to us in private practice? I believe it applies more to us than many other professions because we are a people focused profession that has to engage with others in a meaningful way over weeks of interaction.  As PT’s we not only need to learn how to lead our patients but also how to educate and motivate them in pro-survival ways that they can easily have. I want to share with you some of the most successful strategies that you can use with your staff to ensure that the bar you set high is able to be met by every staff member you have.

Maybe it was idea of being your own boss or the idea of practicing the way you wanted that sparked your interest in going into private practice. Most likely what quickly followed was the desire to be better off financially or have more free time to spend with your family. Whatever it was that empowered you to take the leap into private practice chances are you were not fully prepared for the challenges that awaited you. Let me share with you how you can overcome the number one challenge that all business owners have in common.

There are now valid reasons to consider changing your business model in order to react to the present-day market and future of PT private practice in your geographical area. There are no Blockbusters stores around anymore and that’s because they ignored what was happening when it was happening and fell behind the industry and as a result went out of business. Don’t fall behind in your area and wait to make a change until it’s too late and you are suffering financially. You need to be true to yourself in business and personally in terms of how you can exchange in abundance with your patients, your staff, and your community if you want to succeed long term.

All too often we have been feed false data like the patient is always right, or never show your emotions with your staff. We try to please everybody and in the end we wind up frustrated with ourselves. It’s a new world out there with more informed people and a disastrous health care system. We need to be aware of the staff training that is needed in order to make a positive change.

You need to consider the type of practice you have in terms of the patient public you are servicing and the employment market you are reaching. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for every type of practice out there today. However, there are some real factors you need to consider when selecting your compensation package if you want it to contribute to the company culture you're trying to develop. There are only two things that truly upset if the physical therapist and that is when you play with their money or you play with their schedule. So let's consider all the options in this podcast and decide what is going to be the best fit for your practice.

Based on what I have observed there is a lot of misinformation being passed along from others interpretation of how one is to appropriately charge and code for a therapy session when those other people have not taken the time to research the topic. As a result, far too many new grads are spending more time worrying about getting into trouble and losing their license due to fraudulent charging than they do getting the information for themselves. Unfortunately, DPT schools are more often than not contributing to these fears by preaching such fears to them while in school. When a practice owner (with decades of experience) tries to educate their young new grad they get looked upon as being unethical and are out just for the money. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes.

It seems everyone I meet today has lost their mind in a sea of rationalization and justification for the most outrageous behaviors from their staff. I get that it is human nature to try and make sanity out of insanity but when you do that you are committing a big mistake. A mistake that doesn’t only affect you but your staff, patients, and your family. Learn how to approach and resolve staff issues

Offering the right bonus structure and/or incentive program can make all the difference in the world to your staff and your practice.  The funny thing is I have found there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to optimizing the performance of your staff because depending on where you are practicing in the country people value different things. As owners, we need to pay attention to the needs and wants of our own particular staff and originate a system of exchanging with them that actually brings about abundance both for them and that practice.

In this ever-changing healthcare system of ours, many are finding that it’s time for them to take back control over their lives and drive the narrative instead of being the effect of the insurance carriers.  Is it better to go all cash-based or stay in-network and continue playing the insurance game?

Maybe it’s time to take back control with a proven HYBRID Model. As insurance carriers continue to reduce reimbursement and the federally funded programs are becoming increasingly more difficult to deal with, start-up owners and others are looking for more viable options today. The newest arrangement that is gaining popularity is the HYBRID model.

Almost every PT private practice owner I have worked with has shared with me their dream that life would be better once they owned their own practice. However, almost one-for-one they didn’t understand the full scope of what they were getting into. Yet, there is one common thing that all successful owners do understand and that is how important it is to be focused, with unwavering commitment, to their goals. Even though they may lack the experience and skills necessary to navigate easily through the enturbulation from their staff and various external market influences, they never give up on wanting to grow and learn what it takes to survive and thrive in PT private practice. My goal has always been to provide practice owners with the help and tools they need along their journey, in order to make it the most rewarding decision of their life. Learn in this episode what it takes to thrive as a PT private practice owner.

All owners are responsible for the quality of their patient’s care, as well as their patient’s overall satisfaction with your practice. Your practice is a reflection of who you are and what is important to you. Your patients shouldn’t be experiencing anything that you wouldn’t want to experience yourself.

All too often practice owners place too much attention on generating more revenue rather than having their attention on what is most important to the viability of your company, which is making sure that you are in exchange in abundance at all times with your patients. Providing your patients with an over-the-top customer experience, while maintaining staff compliance with your company policies and metrics, will ensure that everyone is winning.

As the owner of your own practice, you are not only responsible for the quality of patient care, and satisfaction of your employees, but also the viability of the organization you created. When it comes to your finance division it is important to understand the strategies and concepts necessary for maximizing your Net Revenue. All too often practice owners place their full attention on generating more gross revenue when in fact net revenue is the only thing that really matters when it comes to the viability of your practice.

The year was 2003 and I was losing my shirt financially. I was $85,000 in debt losing $5,000 a month when my wife told me we have $15,000 left our name and that if I had a solution I better put it in play now. Like so many other PT owners, when things are going well we will bury ourselves in patient care. It was not until I was willing to look at the areas of business that I did not have the understanding in that I needed that things began to change. The more I forced myself to learn how to do billing and to hold the line on my business expenses, the more successful my business began to be. Fortunately, being a good therapist and having good therapists work for me led our practice through this difficult time, because of our great reputation. But having a good reputation was not enough for us to pull it out alone. I needed to finally confront my billing department in order to make things right.