The Sports Physical Therapy Podcast

Building a Successful Sports PT Practice with Josh Funk - Episode 23

December 13, 2022 Mike Reinold
The Sports Physical Therapy Podcast
Building a Successful Sports PT Practice with Josh Funk - Episode 23
Show Notes Transcript
I know many people want to open their own clinic one day. It's a great dream to build something the way you want.

I've been really impressed watching Josh Funk, from Rehab 2 Perform, do just this from afar.

R2P is doing a great job focusing on clinical care and the development of their staff, while still working in an insurance-based model.

On this episode, we talk about this model and how R2P sticks to these core values.

Full show notes: https://mikereinold.com/building-a-successful-sports-pt-practice-with-josh-funk

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Introduction:

On this episode of the sports physical therapy podcast, I'm joined by Josh Josh is the founder and CEO of rehab to perform an insurance-based sports, physical therapy practice. He and his team are building an impressive model of clinical care and culture that benefits both as patients and staff. On this episode, we're going to talk about this model and hopefully inspire others to build practices. Just like our TUPE.

Mike:

what's up, Josh? Thanks so much for joining us.

Josh:

Mike, thanks for having me on, uh, it's kind of crazy coming full circle. Uh, I remember my days at university of Maryland Baltimore and, uh, going through your shoulder programs, your blogs, uh, here we are about 12 years later. Uh, and it's truly an honor to be on the podcast.

Mike:

Let's go. That's awesome. Uh, yeah. And, and a heck of privilege for me to be able to, you know, be part of your early education during that, because I've been watching you guys and from a distance R two PS, just doing amazing. It looks like you're building a really great practice. I've been watching your growth and, and loving it. Like I get excited for it. I don't even, you know, I don't know you personally that well, right. But like, I get excited, you know, you, you put up a social media post up there about a. Clinic that you're opening like R two P 42 or whatever number you're on now. It seems like you guys are on so many. I get excited for you. So, um, uh, bring us back to the origin, R two P right? So, uh, this nice sports, physical therapy clinic insurance base, what got you started and, and why, and, and what did you want to do differently with R two P from your past experiences?

Josh:

The biggest thing for me is my roots in athletics, which I know is not. Uh, for a lot of people in our profession, but I, I was a lacrosse athlete at Ohio state and I had my first major injury. Somebody used the word surgery. I had a torn labor. I had a torn rotator cuff, and I went through the rehabilitation process as I played that spring because I was told, Hey, you can continue to play. But if it gets any worse, you know, you might be unable to. So working with my PT at the time, who now is an assistant athletic director there, and really who's my first mentor, Janine Oman, uh, ATC staff, strength and conditioning staff, and putting myself in a situation where not only was I playing, but I was getting better and better and better and better as the season went on. And I got to the point at the end of the year where only my, my shoulder was hurting when I was shooting the ball as hard as possible, or if I was receiving, uh, a blow from somebody else. So very, very high level things were bothering me. And I was like, all right, well, I've been playing all season and doing things that are, are problematic. And instead of that, like, let's go home this summer and just rehab. And I went home. And I was so underwhelmed at my experience, uh, in a regular PT place. And I was like, so this was PT at school, and this is what everybody else gets in gem pop. Like, why is this? And I was doing virtual PT before virtual PT was even a thing. You know, I dis self discharged after two visits turned out, you know, and I'm calling up my, my strength and conditioning coach. I'm calling up PT ATC, and I'm doing my summer program or my summer rehab program too, uh, from afar. And that was where I kind of had it in my head. Like, Hey, I love this profession. But B like why does everybody else have to settle for something that's such a significant deviation, uh, away from what's found in college athletics. And then honestly at that time, um, seeing what was done at athlete's performance, those were the first two places for me. And I realized like Ohio state and an athlete's performance or any kind of other, uh, training facility. I remember Fisher sports places like Batos, um, and other division one athletics environments were all tremendous with regards to environment. The education of the staff and overall the level of individualization and, and personalization that people are receiving. So I went into PT school with the mindset of, at some point I'm gonna do something that is like a micro version of what I had experienced. Myself then going through the process of working your first job, you know, I worked for two other people, uh, some successful private practice owners and in 2014, uh, decided to start rehab to perform. And that was a, a nice little startup space in between two turf fields. Um, at a place called Frederick indoor sports center, it was a low, uh, barrier from a cost standpoint. We were sharing gym equipment with, uh, another personal training company. But, uh, here we are almost eight years later and we're set to actually open up our eighth office and the first one in Virginia next week.

Mike:

That's awesome. And congrats obviously to that, but I, I love that. I love that like kind of that origin story. Cause I think a lot of us that, you know, have had the opportunity to go through that high level system, whether, because you're a collegiate athlete or a professional athlete yourself, or you've gotten an opportunity to work in that environment and then you take a step back and you see all. These, these insurance based just farms that are just churn people out. And it looks like they're making all the decisions just based on numbers versus what's actually probably most appropriate for a person. I think we've, we've all felt that I think that was awesome. Uh, anything in particular when you went back, I kind of wanna harp on that for a sec. When you went back as an athlete and you said you're there two visits, anything in particular, was it, was it the lack of time spent? Was it the lack of. Teased. Did you just feel like they just didn't jive with you because you were an athlete? Like what was it that really stuck out to you?

Josh:

I worked with a PT that was not familiar with some of the exercises on my summer packet, so they could not, uh, personalize or provide me some kind of. Uh, like activity or a regression to the activities found in my summer packet, the equipment in the facility was very, very different than what I was used to at school. It was significantly lower level. I was not challenged after my first day. And I was, you know, I had enough grace to kind. I go back and say, Hey, maybe that was just the first, uh, first visit. And, and maybe I need to feel this out a little bit more. Uh, the individual I was working with really didn't, uh, have a, an idea of, of my sport, the demands of my sport. Um, and I honestly also felt like I sat around a lot more. You know, the, the overall flow of my session was a lot of like this person's over there with somebody else. They're back with me. This person's over there. They're back with me. And I actually remember spending time as somebody who was slightly younger than me that I think had just started working at the place like a week or two. Previously. So all of those different touch points, in addition to just being an environment that honestly looked more like a nursing home than a gym. Um, just letting me be like, you know what, I'm gonna go to my community gym. Uh, I'm gonna modify some stuff on my own. I'm gonna call up every week. The people that I've been working with. And I forgot to add that I ended up avoiding surgery and never having a shoulder problem ever again.

Mike:

Nice.

Josh:

That was the amazing part about that whole process, how I fell in love with, uh, the, you know, the profession and, and just seeing the potentials of the human body and then wanting to look at it from, okay, this is the service side of things, but then how to D how do you differentiate on the business as well?

Mike:

And, you know, I almost feel like you just went through your blueprint as to what you wanted to build your business around almost like your, your core values, your mission is, is the antithesis of all that, right? You wanted to do the exact opposite of all those things and it's those experiences. I think that that really shape people, right? You, you were, you know, and it tells you a lot about yourself, you know, to be honest with you, like the creativity that you have, the entrepreneurship that you have in your head, that you sat there and you said, I think things could be better. Right. And, and, you know, kudos to you for going out and doing that because it's not an easy road to start your own business. And, and it's, it's a lot of hard work that nobody sees. So, um, so tell us a little bit more, so RTP, it's an insurance based model, right? You guys take insurance seems like everybody on social media wants to be cash based now. Right. And I'm, you know, I am so I'm, I'm, you know, I feel like a hypocrite with this con this conversation, but I always tell everybody that I don't recommend most people get into cash. Business. I think there's just, there's a very small, um, opportunity for the right person. I think that can really thrive in there, but there's, there's pros and cons to everything. Um, what made you choose to go insurance? Right outta the gates and not try the cash based environment.

Josh:

think the two biggest things for me were one, the place that I worked at first, um, you know, they, they took insurance and they had a very, very efficient way. Of doing things and it did not seem as problematic. And then I was in a second environment and things were more problematic and I was like, all right, well, what's different about this. You still have, uh, insurance in both places. And it was the processes, right? It's the systems and processes in place that are supporting the business. And then the other thing that I thought of regular. Um, and I still think about it and I'm not saying we're necessarily perfect, but think about barriers to entry. So if we want to deliver as, uh, much quality care as possible, if we wanna pride ourselves on clinical excellence, I really wanna make sure that we can deliver that to as many people as possible and like it or not. But your. You know, people that are gonna be able to most likely rationalize, uh, a cash pay model more often are probably in areas where the median household income is higher and it is probably gonna be similar. To situations where you have a higher amount of people willing to spend money on personal training. So the demographics are gonna be very, very important to set yourself up for success. We cover a wide geographic area in the DMV, which is the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. And I know where the successful cash pay offices are. They're all either in the city. Or directly outside of the city. They're not far out in the burbs and they're definitely not in the rural areas. There is a reason for that, and this is not meant to be, uh, inflammatory towards anybody. Everybody is going to figure out what works best for them, their business, their philosophy, things that they're trying to accomplish. I also had it in mind that I would've wanted to think about. And with the word scale again, I had to be conscious of barriers to entry. So we went in and like anybody, um, struggled to get in network with, uh, you know, a lot of insurances early on, but we've been chipping away, chipping away and chipping away. Uh we're in with all major commercial payers, you know, Medicare, we just recently got in with the veterans of fair community care network, which has been, uh, amazing to, to some of our vets that normally seek care through the VA. Um, and are set to finally, uh, be in with Johns Hopkins healthcare network. So, you know, it's something that's nice where you got a lot of people, they call the office. Um, and, uh, you know, there, there there's no issues other than the fact that our team has to make sure that the processes are in place to support insurance being less, uh, less of this friction, uh, that, that normally people would associate with insurance.

Mike:

I love it. And what you did essentially was you said, I want to take this model that I've seen be successful for other people. And I want to give everybody that ability. Access that, and the accessibility of that is enormous when you start thinking of it that way. So I, I love that. That was part of the process that you put into developing your business model was how do you make that model more accessible to people? And, and I think that's really neat and I, I think you're doing it right. And I think, you know, by, by watching you online, I think a lot of people see how successful you guys are becoming and that you provide really good clinical care, especially athletic. You know, clinical care, which I think not everybody is great at. So it's great to see somebody focusing on this clinical excellence. Right. We talked with, uh, your boy, Zach in a past podcast episode about his whole role and that like, heck his whole role is about clinical excellence in your business. I mean, just so just the fact that you, you have him assuring clinical. Is is amazing. So, you know, again, kudos you guys saying that, that we're gonna build this insurance based model, but it's not because we wanna make money it's because we want to make it accessible in the model that we think is most appropriate. Right.

Josh:

Yes. And, uh, you know, we were talking little bit before we, uh, Here formally, but it is a continual balance between best business practice and best, uh, you know, service. So if, if I'm on the best business end of the spectrum, I'm thinking about pops, PT, or private equity, PT, you know, your mills where numbers, numbers, numbers, and that's the whole. End of the spectrum. And I'll call that more, more of your order end of the spectrum. And then we have the other end of the spectrum where you have chaos and that would be best possible, uh, service that you could provide somebody. And the problem with that is time is usually the, the, the, the ver, uh, variable there that you cannot control when somebody walks in. You don't know what you're gonna need on a given day, especially when you're talking about the rehabilitation process. So, you know, you continually have to find the, the blend of boast, both. You always wanna make sure that you're airing on the side, uh, of what's best for the patients. Um, and at the end of the day, when we're talking about supporting, uh, you know, a, a team and a growing team with regards to ensuring some of the things that we set out are, are gonna are, are gonna be mains. We have to sacrifice, um, sometimes things on a short term level with regards to finance, to support the whole team and their growth. And we continually think about when we add people, how do we bring the floor up as high as possible? You know, um, when we bring the floor up as high as possible, uh, we put everybody in a situation where they're meeting certain expectations and we could jump into clinical dashboard, but you know, you're talking about net promoter score. You're talking about churn rate, you're talking. Average visits per IE, maybe some of your functional outcome measures. And none of those really, really, um, takes hold more than the others. But if we're looking at that clinical dashboard, we can safely say that when we add offices and we add people that we're doing certain things to ensure quality control people could see growth, and it's not growth for the sake of growth it's growth because we're taking care of X, Y, and Z or ads. We add people and add locations. We've done this. Zach's role. We've done this with site directors who also meet with their team regularly throughout the course of the month. We've had a, uh, re residency program. That's like a cup pouring into the rest of the team because although you only have one or two people in a residency, everybody benefits. From the residency because they have access to that same education. And then we used the online platform now that, um, we put a lot of resources, uh, through that are, that are internal. Um, that involve whether or not it's in services. It could be veteran tips. It could be certain areas that the body where there's certain clinical pearls that other clinicians on our team are sharing. And actually, if I. Uh, forget to, to, to mention this as well, but, you know, we've created an external continuing education company and your external ConEd company also is something that pours right back into your team. So, you know, we use the word ecosystem a lot, but it really does. It takes an ecosystem approach. Um, and the more that you're really taking care of your ecosystem, the more that everybody involved in that, uh, thrive, not just for patient. But the people it is, you're trying to attract to your team because they're continually growing in your environment. And the continually growing team, uh, usually puts you in a situation where you have less staff attrition, you have more fulfilled people, um, and they're less likely, uh, to, to deliver substandard care.

Mike:

That's amazing. And, and it shows you why your model's successful, right. Is all the work, all the effort and the background that you've put into it. And, you know, you can kind of do a parallel with what we do as a, as a, as a profession, as a physical therapist, right. You, you built up capacity so you can handle more load. Right. And that's, that's how you essentially did it. And, and I like that order versus chaos, uh, analogy. That's a good one. I like that. But, um, uh, but great stuff. Right. And I've, I've been through one of your online courses myself. I took it. I thought it was great. You guys did a really good job with that. I think you guys should check that out. Um, it's worth going through cuz you get to see, um, Again, it's not just about, you know, how do you rehabilitate someone it's about how is R two people and then often what's some of their clinical models. And I think that's something that hopefully will, will really give people a lot of, of future thoughts, right? Just like you did when you went to athletes performance and you know, people like that to, to keep growing it. So. Um, awesome stuff. Um, tell us a little bit more, cuz again, everybody is, everybody wants to build this amazing insurance based practice that works on sports. If we reverse hack what you told us before, about what you didn't love about your experiences, I can see you've already addressed some of those at RTP, right? It doesn't look like a inpatient hospital place, right? There's no curtains or maybe there are, but you know what I mean? There's no, you know, there's no, you know what I mean? It's, it's a sporty kind of environment. We talk about that all the time. We wanna be more like a training room in a gym than a, than a PT clinic. Right. But it looks good. You have the right equipment. You have the right people. Right? Tell us a little bit more about your model. I think people that maybe work in some of these mills say, how on earth are they pulling that off? So like tell us a little bit, like how many patients per hour do you, do you do, how do you, how do you schedule, how do you schedule vows? Like, you know, some of the basics about just scheduling and handling later stages of rehabs and, and everybody always has that question is like, yeah. How do you work with an ACL when you only have 16 visits, that type of thing. So tell us a little bit more about you handle those sorts of things.

Josh:

Yeah, no. And the beginning part is, and I wanna make sure that I, I communicate this, but like, Healthcare is a grudge purchase for so many people. So I look at healthcare and I look at traditional healthcare environments. And like, what are the places where people feel like this is like, uh, I have to go to PT. and that's when you start to look at some of these other environ, you know, it is it's the environment. It's how people are being communicated to it's how things are operating at the front desk. It's the, uh, deliverables. Um, and you start to look at all of these different areas and you start to go, all right, well, how can I. Do this differently. Is there another industry I can draw a parallel from? Or is there something that's just like right here in front of me, that's really, really simple that just we haven't done because healthcare is, is so archaic. So, you know, you get into everything from the layout of the facility to how home programs are being. Communicated to how the front desk is interacting before session, um, potentially, uh, with them at the end or in between sessions. But to answer your question about scheduling and stuff like that, we're our evals. Uh, 30 minute follow ups provides us with an ample time for us to, you know, get to know people. Make sure that we're aware of what it is they want to do. You know, we think of ourselves as consultants, right? What do you like doing, what are you unable to do right now? What are your personal experiences? The, the, the patient first approach. Um, and then making sure that we're much, like you said, kind of the reverse hack or the reverse engineer from where it is that they want to be and where it is that they are right now, you know, you're not getting a standard niche sheet, you're getting things. Uh, allow you to be in a situation in which if a hundred percent is your baseline and we can do 67.9%. Let's do 67.9%. But you know, we're gonna kind of push that envelope a little bit. We're gonna make sure that you, uh, are, are maintaining your, your levels of conditioning or whatever athletic qualities that you had before your session. And if you mentioned, you know, which, which you did just a moment ago, you know, our foundations of sports rehab course has the principles, phases, progressions that on a macro. Everybody on the team is speaking the same language. There's a similar terminology. There's a similar way of approaching. There's a SIM similar way of communicating things. And that's where we do provide enough order so that when people come in and they're interacting with our environment, there's just so much, same going on. That they have no choice, but to have a lot of the really, really same experiences with regards to insurance, we verify insurance before they come in. They're gonna know what exactly that they're paying. Um, the moment that they walk in on visit one, they're gonna know how many visits. Their PTs gonna know how many visits they have. So from my postoperative standpoint, if I can think about your 30 visit, uh, cap, you know, a lot of people on the, on the lower end might have a, a 30 visit cap. You have some, as you've mentioned that have 16, if we talk, talk about, especially like a, a Tricare, um, but in those situations, you know, what's your relationships with the, the claims adjusters, what's your relationship with the, the, the, the docs and those situations where sometimes you can extend, but the 30 visit person. Maybe you're doing things very, very different than some of these, uh, you know, pops or, or, or PE backed, uh, physical therapy places. You're not three times a week for four weeks, month, one, right out of the gates, because that makes somebody schedule busier. You're looking at a nine month plan. Um, just cuz you need something that's relatively fixed and you're probably mapping out what their 30 visits are gonna look like and it might not be perfect. And they might go ebbs and flows of once a week, twice a week. Maybe they get to certain points at time where there's, uh, more of a template or a sheet that's being provided to them that they're doing in those later stages of rehab, knowing that we're working a lot more on capacity and there's less variability during potentially that, that six to nine month. Maybe they don't have the means. Maybe you're, you're doing things more where you're providing them some things that they can do at home. Maybe you're reaching out to local, uh, trainers. You know, there's a lot of small group sports performance people in our area. We have relationships with a lot of them. We have relationships with the high school coaches. Maybe they're getting more involved in the high school, weight room early on. So again, it's that, it's that patient first or that person first approach. You're getting to know them. You're appreciating all. These factors, uh, that are at play when it comes to delivering quality of care. And you're doing your absolute best to ensure that there's some level of standardization to drive consistent outcomes.

Mike:

I isn't that an amazing concept. If you put the patient first and you help them achieve their goals and you provide an exceptional service that your business will probably make money, right? Isn't that, isn't that an amazing concept?

Josh:

you don't have to focus on three times a week for four visits, because at the end of the day, if that person gets kicked out at three to four months and you were part of them, re RET tearing their, their knee, why would they, why would they come back? And you're, you're

Mike:

you failed them.

Josh:

yeah. You failed them. And you're, you're more likely to develop trust in the individual where you're like straight up. You're like, here's what we have going on. Here's what we're managing. And here's what your options are because we do have some situations where people are like, look. I want whatever I need. I have the means financially, so that person's gonna have a different plan than the other individual. And it it's a constant, um, kind of back and forth about just appreciating all of these different factors, factors, where that person maybe is gonna be more likely to pay a cash pay route early on. Maybe they're paying already at the. The month, four month, five mark. But, um, if we don't get to know the individual because we're time strapped, um, you know, because we're solely focused on the, the, the numbers of the business, then we're most likely gonna miss things. And I think that it's short term or long term and our approach, I think is a lot more long term with regards to relationships and regards to being, uh, being extremely valuable. And I think at the end of the day, when we talk about word of mouth, which is where we all wanna get to business wise, This way of doing things is gonna drive significantly more word of mouth than the short term approach to finances. Um, and, and, and the numbers that you typically see in a lot of places that people don't have good experiences in.

Mike:

And, and I bet if you look at your success, it is happening exponentially. It is, it, it was, it's not a linear progression. It's all those seeds that you planted year 1, 2, 3, 4, all starting to grow and, and bear these amazing, you know, fruits for you. Uh, it's an exponential, uh, uh, word of mouth and an exponential, just, uh, service delivery that you guys are are, are giving the, the population around you guys. That's really amazing. So, uh, again, awesome stuff for you. I, I love the comment. I just wanted to highlight this for the listeners here on this one, but you know, we talk all the time at champion. Like I, I think you and I are a lot, like Josh, we're very systems, maniacal process type people, but like we have, we have systems in place. Right. And if you don't have systems in place, like how, how are you to deliver. Care. Right. And, and, you know, we always, we, we kid around all the time that you go to a typical PT place with low back pain, there's five therapists there. You're gonna get five different evaluations in five different treatment programs with absolutely no parallel. Right. So I don't even know how you go on vacation there for your, one of the PTs, because there's no continuity, but, um, I, I just, I think people, if you're looking to start a business. You have to start thinking that way and get into that system's mindset day one. I think that's really, uh, that's really important stuff. So, uh, it's good to hear that you guys are doing that too. Um,

Josh:

And I think again, when you have people join your team, like people want to deliver high value care. And at this point we have enough veterans on the team that have shown what it takes to deliver high value care, and it's up to them and us and myself to ensure that these new people have what they need. Everybody wants to do well at their. Nobody wants to suck, you know, like nobody wants to show up and like not do well. So when you provide them with a playbook, you know, you provide them with this playbook for success. They're gonna be so much more likely to just buy in. Like, Hey, I'm, I'm happy to be here. I see so many people that I want to eventually, uh, be like from a clinical standpoint, give me everything. And that's the role that I'm in, where I'm like, what do you all need to be successful? And that's largely my job at this point in.

Mike:

Which is such a cool point to be in, because I'm sure you were thinking of some of the, uh, minutia at one point in time. It's great to be able to get to that higher level where you can actually start thinking about evolving versus building, which is truly a fun spot to be in as a business. That's awesome.

Josh:

No, it's been good. Uh, incredibly rewarding. And I I've had to. sometimes shelf my, uh, my missing of the clinic in terms of being on the, on, on regular patient care. And I'm, and I'm not at this point in time, you know, I, I just filled in last week cause we had a, uh, you know, one of our vets out on vacation, but that's a, that's a very rare time. It's an opportunity for me to brush up on things and, um, you know, dive deep into some new relationships or potentially just check in on some old ones. But, um, I have to serve our team and I I'm big on. Uh, you know, servant leadership and, and making sure that your leaders are, are, are serving, um, everyone. And as long as everybody is getting what they need, um, I'm, I'm much more confident than if I was in patient care, potentially like 40 hours a week. That would be, we would be headed in the direction, wanna go going, cuz at this point, when I'm last week on patient care a lot, like stuff doesn't move, you know, like it does not move at quite the, the same level, uh, as when I'm out behind. And, and I'm checking in and checking in with and checking on everybody.

Mike:

Yeah. I, I, I agree. That makes sense. And I think that leads into kind of my next question too, which I think is really good is we, I, we see a lot of students in a lot of early career professionals that are getting started. All they talk about is mentorship. And one of the primary criteria that they're looking at when they're comparing jobs now, cause we get students from all over the country. Right. And they're doing job interviews when. You know, at work, right? They're, they're over in the corner over, they're doing a job interview on the phone and we say, all right, well, let's help. Let's talk through these three opportunities. You have, let's pick the one that, you know, that might be the best fit for you. And they all talk about mentoring and they all don't wanna be stuck on an island. They don't wanna be just thrown into a, a, a mill factory, um, with no mentorship. Um, I really love how this appears to be something that RTP really does well and really emphasizes. And you've touched upon the why, I think quite a bit about that. Uh, but tell us a little bit more about how you do this and maybe more from the lens of if you are a private practice owner, just like Josh, and you're trying to get better at this. Like, like how can they implement a good system that focuses on professional development within your staff? So that way, like you said, you get. The rewards of that.

Josh:

Yeah, and I I'll do my best to explain what we have in place now. Um, and then I'll do my best also to kind of communicate what I would recommend people who are just starting up with. But, um, at this point when we have a, let's say new grad. They're joining our team. They're on a 60% schedule cap for the first three months. So they have 40% of their schedule, at least where they do not have a single patient.

Mike:

And you pay'em full time.

Josh:

and as, and they are paid now they do get a$2,500 raised when they get to the 90 day. Mark. So this is, Hey, go through 90 days. We are training you automatic raise 90 days

Mike:

That's awesome.

Josh:

that 90 day period.

Mike:

Do you art, do you Arti? I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm just super curious about this. So, uh, so do you articulate that when you hire them?

Josh:

Yes.

Mike:

That's awesome. Great.

Josh:

Yep. So during that 90 day period, they have a site director or multiple leaders at that office that are meeting with them. They have our onboarding platform, that's in a, that's in a, uh, an online portal called Kajabi. So they have a mix of in person touchpoint. And they have a mix of things that they are doing online or on demand. Then in addition, they also have Zach popping in that will spend a minimum of two hours with them each month. And he also has a zoom call scheduled with them for an hour each month. Over the course of that 90 days, the time with Zach is every month throughout the remainder of however long they spend with us from a time stand. Zach is tomorrow he's in Frederick county and he's spending time at that clinic the entire day meeting with members of the staff. The other thing that we also have is we have in-services every Tuesday from 12 to one, it's structured on a calendar and it actually mirrors a lot of the structure from the sports residency that we have. In addition, people also have free access to every single thing that we have ConEd. So there are so many different touch points and I bring up the word ecosystem again for people to have formal informal in person online, uh, options, whatever works best for them. And I think the thing that. I'm continually trying to come up with is how do we match people where they're at? How do we do a better needs analysis of when they start with us and also take into account, uh, their learning styles. And those are the things that I'm thinking about more as we move forward, but I would consider what we have in place right now to at least be holistic. And we're getting better and better and better about kind of developing each of those different hubs, uh, in our ecosystem. So for, for, yeah. And, and for the, for the person that thinking about incorporating certain things, um, I'm a big fan of like Google's 80, 20 work role is. Really really good. 80% of your time is dedicated to whatever it is that you're doing potentially from a revenue generation standpoint. And then you have 20% of your time that you're allocating to other things. It's no secret that notes need to get done, but I don't think notes should take 20% of your time, but that other 20% should ideally be allocated towards training mentorship. Relationship. And we've even implemented something called R P masters, where they pull an hour off the schedule and they go to like a community workshop, something that fills them up in a niche that they're interested in. Now, obviously they have to get to a certain point where they've earned that, where they deserve that. Um, you know, you're not doing that necessarily as a new grad within your first 90 days, but business owners should think about a situation in which they're not blocking time to invest in your. Instead of thinking solely about short term about, oh, I'm blocking time on my team. That's non revenue generating. Well, imagine a team that you're not investing in and how that's gonna affect your business. So again, thinking about the short term versus long term, um, benefits or costs associated with those decisions,

Mike:

That's awesome. I, I think you're gonna get an influx of applications to your next job opening after this podcast episode. So be

Josh:

A rolling basis. Just send them in.

Mike:

I mean, I mean, I mean, I'll be honest. I mean, I have like this professional crush on you now, like, like this is a dreamy job. Right. You're, you're a boss that believes in their people in this amazing way. I think it's awesome. Right. And I, I think we need more employers like you, I think we need more people thinking like you, um, to really help the future of this, uh, profession, because we are getting too diluted in a lot of people start thinking of physical therapy as these mills and not some of these centers of excellence like you have. So, um, so again, kudos to you. Yeah, that's amazing. You're gonna, you're gonna get some applications, dude. You can get ready. Get ready.

Josh:

Hey, we are, we are more than ready.

Mike:

um, alright. Before I let you go, we gotta go through the high five, five quick questions. Five quick answers showing a little bit about what's going on in Josh's head a little bit about your growth mindset and stuff, but first question, what are you currently reading or working on for your own ConEd or your own development?

Josh:

I mean, I think the, the biggest thing that I just went through was I went through a program called birthing of giants. So I, I just went through, uh, some, some time where I focused on solely business. I was honestly in a room where I think there was only one other healthcare person, uh, people of all different industries. I was on the smaller side from a revenue and a team standpoint. And I'm still, and I always recommend people to do this after a ConEd course, but like still digesting and trying to make sure that I'm actually implementing. At some point in time, we have to turn off new and we have to just dive into what we've already had access to and really ask ourself about whether or not we are actually learning. Like, are we, we actually learning or do we just get exposed to new information? So, um, that's the biggest thing that I'm, I'm working on, right. Um, outside of that, uh I've uh, you know, from a, if, if you're talking about what, I'm, what I'm reading, um, I I'm re I'm reading a book called growth, hacker marketing. Um, it's just a, another way for me, especially where I'm at, where I'm continually trying to get better at storytelling. Um, and I'm trying to get better at doing that both through online, and everybody's gonna give me chuckles. But through mostly like TikTok, um, and then repurposing elsewhere, uh, and then making sure that our team is also getting a better at storytelling, whether or not it's, um, in the office, uh, through some of our different, uh, email newsletters that we have people have access to on the TVs at the office. Um, but largely doing things again to, to support the, the business as a whole.

Mike:

I love it. That's great. Uh, what's one thing that you've recently changed your mind about.

Josh:

That's a great question.

Mike:

I mean, this could be anything. This could be about game of Thrones. This could be like, I mean, this could be about anything just, but show showing that evolution of your thoughts.

Josh:

I, I, I honestly, I think the biggest thing for me was changing my mind about TikTok and I won't, uh, I won't go down a rabbit hole too much, but if the younger generation that maybe is listening and that maybe wants to, to explore opportunities with us, um, is using TikTok more for search engine optimization than Google. And we went through a phase at some point where Google was very blog and article heavy. And you have people using search engine and it's more video content. Are we potentially putting ourself in a situation where we are missing an opportunity? Early on to be this early adopter. And I still think it's relatively early, um, to carve out personal and company brands in a platform that's going to serve the next generation. It's not just silly dancing stuff anymore. You know, there's a heavy, heavy focus. On education. And I think it's a lot of opportunity. You know, there's a lot of opportunity there for both people, uh, who are individuals and businesses to do what they can to take advantage of market share. Like Instagram is so saturated. It is so saturated. The virality is, is, you know, next to nothing at this point in time, there's so many users and there's such a lower and I'll use this again, like barrier to entry. You just have to post like a cool photo on Instagram. Like it's not that hard, but video creation requires a separate level. Like for anybody who hasn't done it, like go create an account and go look at how many of your friends that you're connected with. Cuz you can see your contacts have created an account and haven't create, and haven't put together a piece of content they're just on there to scroll. So if you're looking to put yourself in a situation, you have thought leadership I'd highly recommend it.

Mike:

Yeah. And, and you could argue that the, I, I agree with you with the barrier of entry concept is, is putting a, a picture out there is what it is. The barrier of entry I think, is getting lower from when I first got, got started, right? You needed like professional equipment. We had to edit everything afterwards. You just do everything directly within the app. Now. Right. You can record everything, add music everything's within the app right now. So I, I, I think the, the future's gonna be crazy. We're gonna see so much creativity outta this generation coming up with some really neat ways to use it. Um, I agree. It's awesome. So good stuff. Um, what's your favorite piece of advice that you give some of your early career clinicians that work for you?

Josh:

Continually reflecting upon yourself in terms of whether or not you're actually making progress. And what you're actually good at. I think those are the two biggest places, um, where I think of the word burnout. And I don't know if it's talked about enough, a lack of progress will burn you out, pouring your time and soul into something that you potentially not great at will also burn you up.

Mike:

Sounds like my golf game. That's like exactly what I'm doing right now, but

Josh:

Somebody just invited me to more like golf and they're like, oh, we're gonna do best ball. I'm like good because my ball's gonna end up on the other course every single time. But, um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I think figuring out ways and ideally again, you're working in an environment where people are touching base with you. They're making sure that there's goal setting. They're making sure that you feel like you are actually. Uh, somebody who, who matters like that, you are genuinely in an environment where people want to see you grow. They want to see you pour into strengths. But if you're not, you have to make sure that you're making time for yourself, whether or not that's on a monthly. Uh, or quarterly basis. And I think that that's probably the two best ways to do it. I think every week can be, uh, potentially a little bit much, but if you're not growing and you're not focusing on areas of strength, I think you're gonna lead yourself down a road where you're hitting these professional roadblocks a lot sooner than others.

Mike:

awesome. That's great advice. That's great stuff. Uh, what's coming up next for you, Josh.

Josh:

Uh, a little bit of a slower period, at least, you know, we're not, we're not having an office in quarter four, so we're, we're honestly just gonna be kind of like stabilizing a little bit. Um, yeah, I, I, I know it sounds crazy, but

Mike:

R two P nine is coming though.

Josh:

we have. Yeah, our two P nine is coming. I, I would, I would lie if, uh, if I said it wasn't, but you know, it, it, it's one of those things where sometimes you gotta sit back, you gotta do an overall, like appraisal of where you're at, where, where are your potential problems in the future? We've done a really, really good job lately of forecasting, um, and making sure that we're preparing solutions. For the future. Uh, and this is a, a period of time where, because we're not having to open offices and stuff. I think we're really gonna be able to sit back on a weekly and monthly basis and our 90 day block of time from October to new year, hopefully we'll build an even better foundation for 2023.

Mike:

Amazing. I love it. And, and again, just people listen to this, listen to the thought process stuff. These are things that you can emulate yourself. I think it's a great way of, of conducting things. Um, all right, Josh, how can we learn more about you? I know there's a bunch of places. I know. There's you RTP RTP academy. Um, we'll put some, some links in the show notes, but anything you wanna, uh, throw out there about what's the best place to come find you and more info about you guys.

Josh:

Absolutely. So at rehab to perform on all major platforms, that's the number two that's from TikTok to Instagram. Uh, Facebook, LinkedIn, you should find it everywhere. Uh, R two P academy is a spinoff that we created in 2020. It is our continuing education arm. You have everything from lower level, uh, offerings, our foundation of sports rehab to some higher, uh, you know, more in depth options. The ACL accelerator comes to mind. Our blueprints course has been in person. We have one coming up this weekend in Fort Lauderdale. We have another one next month out, uh, at Monarch in LA and we'll have a 20, 23 calendar coming soon. Uh, outside of that, I am working with people from a business coaching standpoint. So anybody, um, who wants to, and you don't necessarily have to be in the insurance world. Um, but anybody who's in the business of healthcare, I think I'd be a, uh, a really good fit for, and ideally give you a high, uh, amount of ROI. It's the mix of coaching via zoom, uh, unlimited messaging. And I have an online platform that you go through that kind of carries through our time together and outside of that at Dr. Josh fun. TikTok Instagram, LinkedIn, the whole nine. And I know everybody's gonna laugh about TikTok, but again, hopefully you go on there and you're like, this is actually like valuable and nobody wants to see me dance. Anyway,

Mike:

I cannot wait to go on TikTok and follow you now. I mean, that is, I think that's the first thing I'm doing after this. Um, but awesome. It sounds like an amazing opportunity to get to work with Josh and his team and learn from them. So please check those out. Um, uh, check out the show notes. I'll put some links in there and again, Josh, thanks so much for sharing all this expertise with us.

Josh:

Mike. Thank you, man. This was awesome.