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About
When physical therapy meets innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, the result is a transformative career path that challenges industry norms and breaks free from conventional constraints. This is the story of Ray Gorman, a physical therapist who broke away from the confines of traditional clinics to establish a thriving cash practice with Engage Movement.
The road to entrepreneurship is fraught with challenges, from battling self-doubt to facing the specter of imposter syndrome. Ray’s insights into overcoming these emotional hurdles and fostering a growth mindset reveal the significance of business focus refinement. A year after graduating from Physical Therapy school, he launched his cash-based clinic. He quickly recognized the limitations of the traditional in-person model. For Ray, this meant evolving his practice from solely in-person sessions to a blended virtual and in-person service model, using what is now known as the Performance Provider Growth Model™.
In this episode, we will talk about the problems that Ray saw in the in-person model, how that led him to evolve into what his business is today, the emotional landscape of entrepreneurship, the significance of not staying stuck in the status quo but listening to what you want, and how to match what we think is valuable with the unique construction of consumer psychology.
For Ray, pushing for change within the profession is not just about challenging norms; it’s about ensuring physical therapists can fully leverage their valuable skills without leaving the field for better compensation. In conclusion, Ray Gorman’s transition from a traditional clinic to a CrossFit gym setting exemplifies the potential for physical therapists to redefine treatment and succeed financially through innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. His approach serves as a model for others in the wellness industry seeking to align their practices with technological advancements and prioritizing client needs and therapist well-being. By sharing his journey, Ray inspires a new generation of physical therapists to challenge industry norms and explore alternative career paths that lead to professional fulfillment and growth.
Resources
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Transcript
Intro 00:01
Welcome to the Rehab Rebels podcast. Are you a rehab professional ready to transition to an alternative career? Hear inspiring stories from others just like you and learn the best ways to bridge your career gap. This podcast has you covered. Now here’s your host, doctor of physical therapy and podcaster, Tanner Welsh.
Tanner Welsch 00:21
Welcome back to another Rehab Rebels episode. Today’s guest is Ray Gorman. He is the owner of Engage Movement and I’m going to introduce his little bit of bio about him and then what he’s doing now, and then we’ll bring him into the show. Ray has a background in fitness and rehab going back to CrossFit in 2008, and then becoming a strength coach in 2009, which led him to applying to PT school, graduating in 2014. And he practiced in the traditional outpatient clinic for two years, moved to D1 Athletes at the University of Nevada and opened up a cash practice in a gym setting one year out of PT school, he started working with clients virtually in 2016 and then blended the virtual and in-person experience in 2017. Today, ray mentors rehab professionals and coaches to integrate online services into their practices, distinguishing them from other practitioners and strategically advancing their businesses with his performance provider growth model. Welcome to the show, ray.
Ray Gorman 01:31
Tanner, thank you for having me.
Tanner Welsch 01:33
Yeah, it’s a pleasure man, I’m really excited about this pod with you. Same same.
Ray Gorman 01:38
I know it’s been a long time coming. It feels like huh.
Tanner Welsch 01:40
Right, right, yeah. I don’t want to waste any time and just want to dive right into really the start of where your rehab business began, you know, back in 2015,. This cash pay practice in the gym setting. How did all that come to be?
Ray Gorman 01:57
I think like a lot of PTs out there. I always felt there was more to be offered to me from the profession than just being in the traditional clinic you know being in the traditional setting and I knew that I always wanted to blend my passion for fitness, for strength and conditioning with what I was doing as a physical therapist. And I actually had a great job, I worked at a great clinic when I started, but it just wasn’t the patient population that I really wanted to work with and I quickly started to see that there was a demand for people who wanted to work with me within my gym that I was at. So the first evolution of my business, of my model, was really just setting up shop, taking my table in and out of the gym every day that I was treating and working on the gym floor with CrossFit athletes in a CrossFit gym.
Tanner Welsch 02:50
That’s awesome. So I’ve never heard of this gym practice practicing out of a gym. Basically, can you talk to us a little bit about how that was set up, how you utilize the space and what that environment business model was like?
Ray Gorman 03:05
Yeah, I think you know this became popularized probably around 20, between like 2013-2014, Crossfit was hitting its stride. There were these little ecosystems of people who are really starting to invest in their health, and one of the common things that I see when I talk to people who are thinking of venturing into entrepreneurship is they go to PT school or whatever school they’re in chiro school, it doesn’t really matter right, and they go through this business portion, this little glimpse of business course in school, and they build out this business plan that is meant to outfit a traditional model, a traditional clinic, one that has a treadmill, one that has an arm bike, one that has a stationary bike, all this traditional PT equipment and what ends up happening is they start to see the overhead and the capital requirement that’s needed for those businesses.
04:07
What the gym model really provides is it provides you an opportunity to go work in a facility that already has existing infrastructure. I think that’s one of the biggest advantages for me myself. I was able to start working out of there for free. But it comes with a couple of things it comes with existing infrastructure, it comes with existing clientele and it comes with existing marketing, Because for me myself, I was a member of that gym and I was able to go in there and, you know, connect with the clients in classes and whatnot, and really the business just started to build itself.
Tanner Welsch 04:50
What would you say was the first insight into traction with this? You know, when you were going from idea implementation, when did you realize that, okay, yes, this is sustainable, I can do this, I’m generating income? What was going on at that time? Or was there a moment that you were okay, yes, this is doable.
Ray Gorman 05:11
From the in-person side, it was the opposite for me. I saw a lot more of the problems with the model, and that led me to evolve. I did the math of you know. If I’m charging $150 a session, okay, that means I only need to work 10, 15 hours a week to replace my salary. That was great, but the problem that still existed for me was my business was still reliant on volume, my business was still reliant on in-person sessions, and so I knew that this problem existed, and as I got busier, I felt it more and more and more.
05:51
Now I don’t want to fast forward too much, but I had started working with a company where everything that we did was online, and that started to open my eyes a little bit to expanding the in-person model to not keep the operations separate from you know. Okay, my in-person business operates in a silo over here and my virtual business operates in a silo over here. What if I just offered this blended experience to my clients? And that was the clicking factor that allowed me to start to transition out of my PRN jobs, transition out of my part-time job and really start investing a little bit more into the business.
Tanner Welsch 06:32
So were you going and doing your own rehab practice out of the gym while also working with this online company at the same time, or what did that look like? What did your work schedule look like?
Ray Gorman 06:45
Yeah, transition strategy is a huge topic for people and you know you can go from this you’re never quite doing enough versus this all in really risky strategy. So basically for me, you know I had started working 40 hours in a traditional clinic and then I started picking up time in a nursing home. I started to work per diem and then I quickly realized there goes my half day on Friday, there goes a half of my day on Saturday and I started to just chase revenue with more time. That popped the idea in my head where, well, if I’m going to be making $50 an hour in the nursing home, I might as well figure out a way to make $60 an hour in my own business. Luckily, I got some good advice and I ended up charging more for my initial sessions.
07:37
I didn’t just settle on a $60 an hour rate and then I had actually gotten an offer to work in Division I athletics. That was only part-time, so what I was able to do was I was able to transition out of full-time work with them two days a week. I was able to fill up my schedule with the demand from the PRN work, the SNF, and then, as my business built, I was able to pull back on the PRN work and that’s really where things started to ramp up for me with the online stuff, Because I had some space to do it and I had some opportunities that came my way. But we talk a lot about transition strategies with people that we’re talking with with For sure.
Tanner Welsch 08:26
This is a question that I think we touched on already, but I want to allow space for deep diving into it, or really clarifying and getting into the thick of it. How did your 2015 cash-based private practice business evolve into what it is today?
Ray Gorman 08:41
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question, man Through a lot of mistakes and a lot of failures, right, that’s the part that a lot of people who want to be entrepreneurs are a little hesitant on. They don’t want to feel like they fail, but it’s part of the necessary journey. Basically, what had happened is there was an opportunity for me to work a little bit more with the company that I was working with online. Through that, I had built some education around the model that I was using and the model that we were using online, and layering that with a lot of the skillset that I had from the sports medicine world. I saw this need in the population that I was working with, which was healthy, active individuals CrossFitters, powerlifters, Olympic weightlifters. They were a subsect of the population that was already doing a lot of the right things. They’re already working out, they’re already investing in their nutrition. They’re already thinking that they’re optimizing their recovery. It felt counterintuitive for me to sell them more and more sessions that were heavily exercise-based when really they just needed the management aspect of the process Fast forward.
10:00
We had then started selling a version of education to the fitness realm, and so I had really been able to put these things together I had been able to figure out the process for me that I was testing within my clinic of what I knew worked and that then eventually led to a point where you know I was no longer working with that company. They were going a different direction of who they were trying to help and I was. I want to get back to my roots working with performance clients, working with performance providers. Why don’t I formalize the stuff that I was doing in my clinic that made it unique on the rehab and wellness realm, and why don’t I package that into an education process? And why don’t I package that into an education process and be able to teach providers not only a clinical model, but one that also operates as a business model within their facility, within their operations? And that’s what’s known as the performance provider growth model today.
Tanner Welsch 11:00
Awesome man. How do you define performance client and performance provider?
Ray Gorman 11:05
Yeah, for us. Most of our clients are working with a subsect of the population that is investing a little bit more in their health than the general American. We’re working with people who the stakes for them are losing their performance or losing their athleticism, are losing the benefits that going to the gym provides for them. Maybe they used to be overweight and now they’ve gotten into CrossFit or they’ve gotten into running, and running is the thing that keeps them healthy. You know, maybe they used to be addicted to a substance and training is their new coping mechanism, and so if they lose access to that training capacity and so if they lose access to that training capacity, what’s actually at risk for those people? So the clients that we generally work with are those that are working with healthy, active individuals. They typically have musculoskeletal injuries that are either from overtraining, under recovery or they’re coming back from an injury, maybe a surgery or something like that, and traditional physical therapy doesn’t really do the trick for them, getting them back to the volume, getting them back to their old self.
Tanner Welsch 12:23
Thanks for the clarification because I’ve seen it. But I got an idea of what he means, but I really would like clarity on what patient population or what group. So thank you for clarifying.
Ray Gorman 12:33
Yeah, our model can be scaled all the way back to the beginning. You know, fitness consumer it’s just generally not who we’re working with now on that lower end of the spectrum there, where we would start to see that person is, you know, maybe they have made the change of getting into healthier habits, getting into a healthier lifestyle, and they start to get the exercise bug, the training bug, where now they’re not just going to the gym five days a week but, for whatever reason, started running a mile three times a week. They started to just do too much, too fast. A lot of our system really educates the client around appropriate volume, appropriate recovery and appropriate lifestyle factors that affect those things as well.
Tanner Welsch 13:21
For sure, remembering back to a time when you nearly gave up on this rehab business venture. What was happening around this? Can you paint a picture about how you were feeling, what was going on, and then we can lead down how you resolve that?
Ray Gorman 13:38
You’re always going to get these little monsters that pop up. You’re always going to get these little ideas in your head imposter syndrome, whatever you want to call it that are going to have you question who am I to be doing this? Who am I to be deserving this? Wouldn’t it just be easier to go back and work with somebody else? That stuff doesn’t go away. The further along you go, I think you just get a shorter lag time of how long it lasts and you often get more confirmation that you’re on the right track after you have that little bout right.
14:18
So I think anyone who says they’ve never had doubts along the way, they’ve never questioned the model, they’ve never questioned if they should be doing this, they’re probably lying to themselves in some capacity.
14:30
But the other thing that’s helped me is we focus really on one thing. When something isn’t working, we iterate around that one thing and that has, you know, three years into this current venture, that has really allowed us to form the product that we have today. That’s really allowed us to get very clear on who we help, the problems that our clients have, and I know what’s at stake for them, because those things were at stake for me, right, everything that people felt about being bogged down in the clinic, being burnt out, thinking about leaving the profession, regretting going to PT school not because you didn’t love what you were doing, but you didn’t actually get to do the cool stuff that you got to do when you were a tech. I felt all that stuff you know, and so I go back to those reminders of our mission is to make sure that we can keep great providers in the profession.
Tanner Welsch 15:29
Throughout this business journey and growing out your business, what resource, whatever it is, what would you say has really been either a go-to or, throughout the majority of this journey there that you’ve gained a lot of value, a lot of insight, a lot of support from?
Ray Gorman 15:46
I think it’s having a growth mindset around what I will allow my business to become, and what I mean by that is I think a lot of times people enter into something with. This is what it’s going to look like, this is how it’s going to operate. This is going to be the size of the business. I’m going to operate solo forever, and I thought that as well. What I’ve allowed myself to do is just go overseeing the general business, and it was a lot of stress and I told myself I didn’t want that anymore.
16:40
But the thing that was really stressful for me in that capacity was not having the actual control that I needed to be able to make the decisions that I wanted to make. I needed to be able to make the decisions that I wanted to make. So as I learned that about myself throughout the journey, as I learned that, okay, you’re in control of this, this is your destiny, it allowed me to be open to expanding our team. It allowed me to be open to bringing people on to help us grow. It allowed me to say, hey, what if we did bring on a marketing department? What if we did train somebody to do sales with us? What if we did start to get other faces involved in fulfillment and that’s just been a really cool evolution for me of really something that I didn’t think I wanted initially. That eventually evolved over time.
Tanner Welsch 17:28
Let’s take another step further into that, because I totally can get that. You got this stress. You not want to be in this position again, but basically it sounds like you’re in some level or another in your own business in a very similar position. So what was it that shifted or changed, or was it not as stressful?
Ray Gorman 17:47
There were a lot of things that were outside of my control in the initial setup, and I don’t do well, from a nervous system perspective, in a state of constant chaos and that’s what it felt like for me than dedicating energy and resource to something, getting it 90% of the way there and then saying, oh yeah, we’re not doing that anymore, and a lot of that was happening for me.
18:21
Now it’s something that I’m highly sensitive to when it’s my job to protect my team. It’s my job to put my team in the best position possible to succeed. It’s my job to ask my team what they need to succeed. It’s my job to make sure that I’m not causing problems for them and I delegate clear enough that they don’t cause problems for me, and so, in a lot of ways, I learned a lot of the things that I didn’t want to do. I learned a lot of the things about who I didn’t want to become, and ultimately, that shaped me into the leader that I’ve become today of. This is our mission, this is our offer, this is what we do Simple, easy, clean, effective. One thing let’s nail it and let’s change the profession.
Tanner Welsch 19:07
Love it. What is, would you say, obvious to you now that maybe you struggled with in the past or in the moment of being in the traditional PT realm?
Ray Gorman 19:35
at one point, but no longer do. Now I think we see a lot of people get stuck in the status quo because this is how we’ve always done things, that’s how their parents have done it. Why would you leave your job and go do something for somebody else? Isn’t that risky? You just do your time, put your head down, stay miserable, retire.
19:49
No, not a thing for me, and sometimes part of our role is helping people do things that they know they need to do but they’re hesitant to do them. Sometimes it’s having them question the way that they think, having them question the way that they’re currently auditing the process, the way that they’re viewing it, and that’s really the most effective part, I think, of the coaching that we can provide is we’ve got to make sure that we get some of these personal things out of the way so that you can actually show up in your business. When we can get you to show up as a better person for both yourself, the business stuff starts to happen as a byproduct. I think that’s just a really powerful thing that I’ve caught on to.
Tanner Welsch 20:32
I love that, which brings another follow-up question. I think we’ve all been in situations where you can easily look at relationships. You know whether it’s romantic or friends that change, but we’ve always been in it. I think many of us have been in situations where it’s okay, this is no longer serving either of us, but we’re going through the motions and, for whatever reason, we’re not choosing to have a mutual break off and go our separate ways and we’re just keep going through the motions. So I want to use that similar framework towards owning and operating a business. So my question for you is how do you know when it’s time to keep moving forwards with your business or change, or none of it’s working and you need a completely new business? How do you know when to keep versus giving up or changing?
Ray Gorman 21:17
So I think we first got to outline a couple of concepts that the staying in a situation that is familiar is safer than moving into the unknown. That is true in relationships, that is true in work life, that is true in business. But keeps you in your comfort zone. And who grows in their comfort zone? Nobody.
21:42
Discomfort is something that can either be a good thing or be a bad thing. It’s just a sensation before we do something, because something can be uncomfortable and good for us or something can be uncomfortable and bad for us. So if I’m feeling uncomfortable and the decision that I’m looking to make aligns with my values and my beliefs and I say no to that decision, I end up feeling regret. I should have done it. If I say yes to that decision, I end up trending towards growth.
22:21
Now let’s flip that around. If I feel the sensation of discomfort, the thing that I’m doing doesn’t align with my values and beliefs and I do it just because I feel like I should, that takes me to a path of regret. But if I say no in that situation, that provides me with personal growth. So I think what happens is we get so conditioned to discomfort being a bad thing Instead of saying when I do something scary that’s worth it. I’m supposed to feel uncomfortable because I care. And you don’t go far by making easy decisions. Every decision that people have made that’s been uncomfortable has been something that has propelled them in the right direction. If it was easy, everyone would do it.
Tanner Welsch 23:08
Yeah, I agree, man, and I think it goes back to something similar that we were talking about, which is you know these challenges that you face going down the business or entrepreneurial path. You know imposter syndrome or am I doing the right thing? Or you know analysis, paralysis, and no matter which choice we make, there’s pros and cons to either one, and I love how you gave a few examples there of regret and whatnot. I want to change to a few more specific questions related to business owners. One is just a general all businesses. The next one is going to be about more towards the rehab private practice business owners. The first one, that’s more general, is how do you implement your schedule to focus on all the business aspects of your business and not just the service part, for example?
Ray Gorman 23:56
Good question. I think you’ve got to figure out what works for you structurally. What we generally have our clients do is, you know, write down all the things that you need to do and block them into admin fulfillment sales and then start to arrange them within your schedule. So this concept of time blocking isn’t new. But if you were doing one task over here and then the phone rang and you had to go do switch to this task, you probably wouldn’t do the initial task super well if you kept getting interrupted, right? So me personally, what I do is my week is scheduled into Monday and Fridays. Are these build the business type days?
24:41
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are really the fulfillment days for me, where I’m doing a lot of stuff with and for my clients, and so my Monday actually starts out with a meeting with my assistant where we go over what are the things that we’ve got in progress. Are we just operating a status quo because things are moving along? What are things that are coming down the pipeline? What are changes that we’re looking to make? From that meeting I go into more of my visionary type work, so I block out 90 to 120 minutes and that’s where I’m thinking about things that we’re working on the business. I’m strategically planning what is the next quarter going to look like, what are the months going to look like within that quarter, so that we can hit these specific objectives. I’m writing any of my content during that time because it is a time when I am very focused and that gets me through my Monday and then the rest of the day is you know, I generally meet with my marketing team of what are the changes that we’re going to make over this next two-week period, four-week period, so that you know they can do the things that they need to do throughout the week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, fulfillment, client stuff, maybe some sales calls, connection calls with people, and then Fridays are really used for building some of the business resources.
25:59
So any trainings that we’re going to put out a lot of the time, I do those on Fridays. Any of the courses that we’re creating or revamping or things that we’re working on, those generally go on Fridays. I’m typically done. My day is usually done anywhere between 4 and 6 pm. I usually start around 10. That’s when I try to start. I don’t do much work at night After I’m done. I don’t really do any work on the weekends. That’s not my jam man, I’ve done that already 100% man.
Tanner Welsch 26:30
Something that I love about being your own boss and the control, like we mentioned before, was you get to make your own schedule and you also get to see and serve ideally the clients that you want to serve, like that patient population.
Ray Gorman 26:45
I think that can really help with energy levels and motivation and day-to-day stuff can really help with energy levels and motivation and day-to-day stuff Blessing and a curse right, because there are plenty of people who and myself, the prior version of myself included who don’t know or didn’t know how to put boundaries around my energy and I made myself too accessible, not thinking that was a big deal.
27:11
I used to have clients texting me seven, eight, nine o’clock at night and even if you say don’t worry about reading or responding to this till tomorrow, I still read it. It still triggers the work response in me and what I noticed is nervous system spikes up, difficulty going to sleep, difficulty staying asleep because now I’m already thinking about the next day. It literally kicks your body into that work mode, that fight or flight mode. So for anyone out there listening who is constantly extending your boundaries, just remember your clients won’t get mad when you create boundaries. You just believe that they will. Your clients won’t get mad when you create boundaries, you just believe that they will. And also your boundaries will allow you to show up as the best version of yourself for those following days, because you’ve got to recover energetically as well.
Tanner Welsch 28:00
100% For rehab private practice owners who are interested in diversifying their services or maybe even offering products. How would you recommend going about this?
Ray Gorman 28:12
When you say offering products, because that can be a wide range what do you mean by that?
Tanner Welsch 28:20
So this is just an example. This is not something I’m doing. It’s just something I’ve heard somebody that’s they’re brainstorming things, so adding additional, maybe health products like CBD oils or things like that that would implement into the rehab practice and what they’re offering.
Ray Gorman 28:38
That productization you know, full transparency isn’t really that physical product, isn’t really my realm. Speaking on it from a general sense, though, I think that it’s important to layer into how that would become part of their experience. For example, I think it works really well in the gym space and the fitness space, and then I think people can take that example and work it into their practice. If you are a trainer or a gym owner that is doing fitness consults, you have a client come in, you’re selling them personal training, you’re selling them a membership. You could also kind of layer on. Most of our clients who get these optimal results are also taking these supplements that are X, y and Z fish oil, creatine. It’d be actual things that you had to believe in. Now we have a version of our offer that actually includes that, where you get this all encompassed. Oh, by the way, it also includes nutrition. I know that you said you were looking to do X, y and Z. Now I can actually present a solution that combos all those things.
29:44
I think what happens with businesses and this is with virtual products or physical products with businesses and this is with virtual products or physical products If I have it, people will buy it. If I just stock the shelves with CBD, people are going to inquire and buy that. But a lot of times you have to educate your consumer around how we use it. Why we use it. Why should they buy this one from you? Instead of going on Amazon and buying it like a commodity, you maybe want to present it with a little familiarity. We see clients all the time say oh yeah, we have this low ticket template offer that we’ve created, but nobody’s buying it. Yeah, why would they? We’re not presenting it in a way that’s valuable to them.
Tanner Welsch 30:24
That leads into a great question that I have, that came up in the beta mastermind group for rehab private practice owners that we’re going through right now, and that is this value. When you’re going to increase your prices or you’re going to make this sale, how do you understand and or get really the customer to understand the value that you’re giving them and that you’re offering them, and that this price is really worth this?
Ray Gorman 30:52
I think the biggest problem people have is we assume what the consumer thinks is valuable. So, for example, if you told me I was getting one-on-one attention and support, I don’t know that I would find the same amount of value in that as somebody who had a really bad experience with physical therapy. There was seven other clients and they’re being managed. But if you ask, well, what would you be looking for from your physical therapist or from the clinic that you’d actually be working with, and they tell you, well, I’d be looking for an aspect of one-on-one support. I’d be looking for an aspect of a little bit more of a relationship with my PT. Well, now I know what that person finds valuable.
31:38
So the biggest thing that we have changed in our process is, instead of saying, here’s all the things that make our offer valuable, we structure language around asking that consumer what they’re actually looking for and why those things would be valuable to them. When you can tie features and benefits into an outcome, into a result that makes things valuable, you get this so that you can do that. We do this so that you don’t experience that. That’s really, I think, what providers are missing. Businesses in general are missing when it comes to talking about value. We have these pillars of what we know is valuable, but we need to make sure that we’re matching it appropriately to the unique construction of that consumer psychology.
Tanner Welsch 32:26
And that even goes into, I mean, I think, all aspects of businesses, and it reminds me of a little bit of the story brand book. You’re trying to figure out your customer, your avatar, and figure out where are they in the journey and how you align with them, making that transformation and figuring out those details, with the language that they use, what’s important to them, really placing yourself where they are and figuring out how best to communicate what it is you’re offering and how that’s going to solve their problem.
Ray Gorman 32:57
I’ll tell a quick story on one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in a sales combo. I was meeting with a chiropractor and she was in a gym just like I was. I was saying one of the biggest value adds for me when we add our virtual process, what we call a prescriptive exercise program alongside the in-person sessions was I no longer had to work with clients in person for an hour anymore and you won’t have to do that either. And she was like I love working in person with my clients for an hour. That’s exactly what I mean about making that assumption right. I was assuming that because I had that same feeling, that she would have that same feeling, that other providers would have that same feeling, but that’s just not true. So why would I say something that was valuable to me, that’s valuable for maybe 80% of our other consumers, but is not the one thing that what we provide would make it valuable for them?
33:54
I put myself behind the eight ball in that position, and I think a lot of people do that. And then they get hit with what are called value objections, where the consumer is eh, I don’t know if I’d do it. Eh, that’s expensive, money aside, would you do it and they’re like, eh, I don’t know, maybe I’ll, I could try my other physical therapist. Okay, we got a problem there. Right, we got a big problem there, for sure.
Tanner Welsch 34:17
What would you say? The future of rehab private practice looks like.
Ray Gorman 34:21
Oh man, it’s evolving. I think we are going through a really big evolution right now. I think we’re very early in the digitalization of the profession and I think that there are things that are happening that are getting better, but they’re still not enough. For example, in the insurance realm we have remote therapeutic monitoring that’s coming up. However, bang for buck. I just don’t see how even integrating that into your clinic really even makes sense. It seems not reimbursed high enough. It seems there’s too many criteria for it to really trigger where there’s meaningful revenue coming through. But I think it’s an acknowledgement in the right direction that providers, especially in the allied health field, need processes that are more scalable and allow us to get paid without a direct trade for time. We seem to be the one group of professions that is lagging behind in any sort of efficiency metric. That’s making sense for us to really elevate our earnings. So that’s what I see on the virtual side, our earnings. So that’s what I see on the virtual side, what I see on the employee side.
35:35
As far as what physical therapists are going to start looking for, keep in mind my realm is more the outpatient orthopedic realm. I know that this doesn’t apply to a lot of other facets, but I think you have PTs graduating in this generation that they want variety. They grew up with technology. They don’t want to be thrown into a clinic where technology isn’t a thing. They saw how efficient technology can make life and now we’re saying, oh yeah, but we don’t really use technology here, only to document.
36:06
You’re not going to keep as a business owner. You’re not going to keep young physical therapists around for very long. They’re going to document. You’re not going to keep as a business owner. You’re not going to keep young physical therapists around for very long. They’re going to leave. So what I think needs to happen is the field needs to evolve a little bit. It needs to be more open to flexibility. It needs to be open to more ideas. You’re going to have providers that come in that aren’t going to want to be put in a box 40 hours full time, that come in that aren’t going to want to be put in a box 40 hours full time. From the consumer end, I just think care is getting more accessible, right? You’ve got people working with clients all over the world helping them solve problems that in-person physical therapy couldn’t help them solve, and the consumer is also becoming more educated, they’re catching up with these options that you know are going to exclude solely in-person mechanisms.
Tanner Welsch 36:56
That was something that I really liked about what you were doing is this hybrid model and implementing tech and virtual and being on that verge. You know, I think that’s exciting. What is a question you wish you were asked more?
Ray Gorman 37:22
Why are you doing this? You can look at that from a micro perspective. What is a question you wish you were asked? More PT school, there’s no wrong intervention there’s. Just why are we doing this specific one? We tell our clients all the time there’s no wrong exercise that you select. Every exercise corrects something. But I think a lot of times we do things, we add volume, we add tasks, we add things to our plate. We don’t actually know why. If we ask that question a little bit more, we’d start to protect our energy a little bit, We’d start to get more clear on why we’re doing the things that we’re doing, how we’re doing the things that we’re doing, and we’d be able to put the right amount of resource into it as well.
Tanner Welsch 38:00
So, Ray, why are you doing what you’re doing, man?
Ray Gorman 38:04
Because I see a big problem in the profession and I experienced it myself. Problem in the profession and I experienced it myself, and I see something that is outdated and I see something that has so much potential to help people but we are positioned very poorly in the market. We’re not really known well for what we do. Right, when you tell somebody you’re a physical therapist, they say oh so what do you like? Stretch people?
Tanner Welsch 38:28
No, no, no, you give them massages.
Ray Gorman 38:30
Yeah, yeah, oh cool, I got to come see you for a massage, right? We’re not known for getting people’s lives back. We’re not known for protecting people from the downside of losing their fitness. We’re not known for having somebody come to us and ending up further along in their performance than when they started, even if they had an injury. And in a lot of cases, we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot because we can’t control a lot of the things that dictate our profession, like reimbursement, the rules around seeing clients and what you can be reimbursed for, and so we do it, like I said, in clients and what you can be reimbursed for. And so we do it, like I said, man, to make sure that there is a mechanism for PTs who want to use their $150,000, $200,000 skill set that they invested in and not leave the profession to make more money. That’s why we do it.
Tanner Welsch 39:25
I love that, man Ray. Thank you for coming on the show, man. I really appreciate your insights and sharing your experience and your stories. Yeah, Thank you for having on the show and I really appreciate your insights and sharing your experience and your stories.
Ray Gorman 39:33
Yeah, thank you for having me, man.
Tanner Welsch 39:35
Anytime.
Outro 39:35
Thank you for listening to the Rehab Rebels podcast. If this podcast was useful, make sure to hit that subscribe button and leave a review. For more information about transitioning to alternative careers, head to rehabrebels.org or follow us on Instagram at Rehab Rebels podcast. We’ll see you next time.
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