E500 | From Insurance Frustration To Cash Success

Today's episode comes from one of our Clinical Rainmaker Group Coaching calls. The person I am having this conversation with has been a clinician for over 10 years and it's very interesting to hear his story and the almost immediate success he has had venturing to cash PT. Enjoy!

• Maturity & life experience
• Transitioning from Insurance to Cash

www.physicaltherapybiz.com/apply

PT Everywhere: https://pteverywhere.com/

Do you enjoy the podcast?  If so, leave us a 5-star review on iTunes and tell a friend to do the same!

Are you a member of our free PT Entrepreneur Facebook Group? Join today!

Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] So there's all kinds of hidden fees within your business that are just part of doing business. One of those is credit. Processing and for us, we didn't even realize how much we were paying in credit card processing with the first management software we were using for our practice. And when we switched over to PT everywhere, we just realized we were saving literally hundreds of dollars a month with credit card processing with their partner with Card point versus who we were using with our prior.

Software. This has made a massive difference. It's more than paid for itself. It allows us to decrease our overhead. It allows us to have more cash flow to reinvest in our people, in our technology, in our facility, in marketing and everything that's gonna drive the business. So don't get abused by credit card processing companies.

Make sure you're paying what you should pay. And if you're looking for a management software, highly recommend PT everywhere directly integrates. Processor makes it very easy and their rates are super, super competitive. So it's saved us a ton of money and it probably will do the same for you if you don't know what you are getting charged.

So head over to PT everywhere. Take a look at what they've [00:01:00] got. I think you really like it.

Hey, what's going on guys? Doc Danny here with a PT Entrepreneur podcast. And today I've got a rare intro for you on this podcast. This is actually a a pretty cool little audio clip from one of our clinical Rainmaker coaching calls. The guy that. Is is gonna be, talking back and forth with me is somebody that I think has a, an interesting story in regards to, it's very similar to many people in our profession that do not think that the cash [00:02:00] model will work for them.

What I've seen is younger clinicians are much, much more sort of gung-ho on going the cash. They see their peers doing it. They see validity in practices around them that are doing it. They have less to lose typically because they're not as responsible for other people. They may not have a family yet.

Or other responsibilities where they can take a chance on themself and just go for it. And I feel like it, I, people view it as it's a risk to go out and start your own thing. So I I thought this was relevant because this guy. Been a clinician for, well over 10 years had been working with the same insurance practice, was a manager of their clinic.

He tells his story a little bit in here about what happened with him, but I think that's, it's interesting to see how much success he's had in a short period of time because of the intangibles of the amount of time that he'd been in the area. Obviously great clinical skillset and reputation and as maturity and life experience.

I think all those things help with [00:03:00] starting a business. So if you're listening to this and you've got five, 10 plus years in the profession and you're just tired of. Day-to-day, the day-to-day grind of high volume, and maybe you're a clinic director now, and you're in charge of people, but yet your caseload is still pretty much just as high and you're just getting your butt worked off.

This is probably gonna be something that resonates with you and I'm just, I'm thankful that John was open to sharing his story. We'll leave his last name out of it, his clinic and all that stuff just for his sake, but, He, he's a stud and he's gonna crush it, and he's gonna have, he's had fast growth, but I think it's just he'll double his practice in the next, six to 12 months.

Just with where he is at, which is pretty, pretty remarkable to, to think that someone can do that in such a short period of time. But he had the groundwork was laid if. And many of you probably have the same groundwork. It's just a matter of whether you wanna take a chance on yourself or not.

Ultimately, you have to decide that and kinda get over the mental hurdles associated with that. So I hope this helps [00:04:00] you. I hope that you like this little snippet from our clinical rainmaker call. And yeah, if you like these, let us know and we can do more of 'em. Real quick is John, so John I just got a message from Eve about your onboarding call with him for the Mastermind.

And he told me he was like, This might be the greatest onboarding call that he is ever had. And I said, oh, that's cool. I said, why? And what he said was it's just interesting to hear how, and, maybe you can kinda share your background a little bit because I know you've been a c clinician for longer than a lot of people that we work with.

And the cash route wasn't your initial, thought process that you were gonna do, it sounds so I'd love to hear, why you decided to go. This route instead. And then also just see how things are going for you now. Yeah. Perfect.

Rainmaker Member: Thanks G. Danny. Hey everyone.

So yeah, so I've been a PT now almost 15 years in this area. Working for kind of a. Outpatient [00:05:00] group here in town that had the 11 clinics and like coming outta school that was like, everybody's you're gonna go to work for a clinic and start as, a newbie and then work your way up to clinic director level position.

And that's what I did over, the course of 10 years. When that. Company decided to sell to us physical therapy. I saw this like the writing on the wall of where the direction of the company was headed and turning it into a patient mill. And I knew, even as a clinic director, I was always like, Hey, why are we not going after more of a cash route?

Why are we allowing insurance companies to. What our level of care should be for people. Why aren't we putting people first? And the ownership at that time was like the demographic in our area, can't support cash paid practices that it'll never work, and so that was just like beat into my brain, like from early on.

Like cash paid doesn't work. It's not practical. They can't work. Skip ahead. So a buddy and I were [00:06:00] gonna open up and start a company two years ago, and then the pandemic hit like a week before we were gonna start. Open, sign our lease papers and we were gonna do an insurance based model.

And so we put everything on hold while things happen for him that he couldn't continue with the partnerships. Last year I started working on I'm gonna go through and do this on my own. And I think I was wrestling with the insurance versus cash pay, and then I saw a video from you on Instagram and it was like, this dude is saying everything that I like, feel is valuable and have been thinking for a long time.

And what you had to say was just resonated. And I had started to fall on ease on Instagram. At that point, I was looking back at it this morning before his, my call it was July 26th, the last year. I told him like, I don't think cash pay can work. And he convinced me like just to hop on a call and I got on the rainmaker call with John and I was like, okay.

Like what you guys are saying resonates with me. You say it will [00:07:00] work. I'm gonna trust and see what everybody has to say and go with it. And so we opened doors December 1st and I did $26,000 in month four. And I'm on my way to another 20,000 a month, dollar a month, over $20,000 a month again this month.

And now I'm like, Where do I go from here? How do I start like scaling this thing and getting it just past where I'm at for myself. So that's the nutshell of my process. But it's been like, just astronomical. Like I'm so much further ahead in this process than where I thought I was ever gonna be at this point.

And it's all like due to the Rainmaker stuff and then using that knowledge and, mindset. Plus my clinical skills and my relationships of being a therapist in this community for a long time. It's just been able to grow just like crazy.

Danny: Yeah. And you have the [00:08:00] space it sounds like too, to to continue to grow, at least it sounds like probably double.

For where you're at as far as your location. How big is your office now? Yeah, so we've got

Rainmaker Member: 1400 square feet. Standalone

Danny: space looks really good.

Rainmaker Member: That's kind of it. So just open gym floor floor plan one treatment room. Just me right now, but looking over the next couple months or to add another two or three therapists and go from there.

Danny: Yeah. Yeah, that's it's cool to hear that. I hope that The, sometimes we think we've gotta get going right out the gate. We work with a lot of clinicians that are somewhere between. Probably two and four years out of school. But I, I tell you, man, I see over and over again clinicians that have worked in a traditional model for 10 years or so, and they have really strong skillsets.

They have a lot of trust with people in the community. When they make the transition, they tend to. Pop, like really fast because they have all this like [00:09:00] equity essentially that they've built up over long periods of time of trust and relationships. And the funny thing is someone told me once For most people, when they start a business, you need somebody to to believe that you can do what you're trying to do more than you believe you can yourself.

Which the mindset side of it, right? Getting out of your own way. I feel like that's the hardest part sometimes, cuz like on paper, if I look at where you are at and all the skillsets you have and your connections, and the fact that you're. A good communicator and all these other things we see that are necessary early on with marketing, it's it's a no-brainer.

But there was a lot of hesitation there. So I'm interested what do you feel like the biggest hesitation was for you? Because I, like I said, like I see it on paper. I'm like, okay, I'd pick you, I'd pick you for my cash BT team if you were, like, if we were playing against somebody else but you, you didn't feel the same way.

So what was the difference? No, I think, I

Rainmaker Member: think part of it was just having people initially, that I valued their opinion [00:10:00] and trusted tell you that you couldn't do it. Like those things are, like those thoughts are always. In the back of your head and the thought that nobody's gonna pay you, $250 for a session, and just wrapping my mind and making that switch of no, damn it, like I am, I'm totally worth this amount.

There's a difference in what I have to offer versus somebody else. And I think my skills are valuable. And then having some people. Who were business owners in the community go John, why didn't you open like four years ago? Like, why have you waited so long? And like really put their belief in it and be like, dude, you're gonna slay it.

You just have to do it. Stop, pull the trigger on it already and just go. And having a couple people like, basically say that to me. With a little bit more force even, and having my wife is super supportive and is an accountant, and so having her in a, like the, background, like [00:11:00] super supportive and family who's super supportive, like that's I wouldn't be doing it without them as well.

Danny: Yeah, it's huge man. And it's funny, I feel like people in their profession undervalue what we do more than people outside of the profession. I noticed this, like I'm a part of this this mastermind group that it's it's hard to get into. You have to have somebody in it that sponsors you.

There's like a net worth minimum, and there's, so these are a lot of very successful people that, that I get a chance to interact with within this group. And it's just, I'm like on the JV team compared to them, right? But here's what I'll tell you that I notice every time that I'll go to a local meetup or one of their national ones that they have, all the stuff that we've done in business is like whatever.

It's okay. But as soon as somebody finds out I'm a physical therapist, I swear to. Everybody wants to ask me about their knee pain or their daughter's wrist sprain or their back problems or something like that. And here I am in a room full of like [00:12:00] high net worth people and the most valuable thing that I can offer them is to talk to 'em about why their knee hurts.

Now keep that in mind for a second because. These people, like they value their time significantly. And I can talk to about any number of other things, sales and marketing and hiring and scaling teams and online businesses and local businesses. And they don't give a shit. They wanna know why their knee hurts.

That's what they want to know. So when we undervalue ourself, it's because we undervalue ourself and because the profess. Essentially says you're worth a certain amount because insurance says you're worth a certain amount, but in the open market, you could charge $1,500 an hour if you want. I know people that charge that much for an hour of their time and, They have no problem getting people to do it because they're at a certain place where they have the platform to do it in, in, in our profession.

So keep that in mind as you start to think about, number one, can you do it, can you not? I was told by one of my life, I would just consider my very first business mentor [00:13:00] that it wouldn't work, that my practice wouldn't work, and even if it. It would just be by myself. And I'd never be able to grow to another person cause it would all be leveraged off of my own reputation.

So I, so when I started my practice, I was fine with that. I was like, all right, cool. He told me, you're gonna build a cage for yourself. He's you're gonna build a cage for yourself. You're gonna, you're gonna get a job. Basically, you're creating a job. And I said, this job sounds way cooler than the job I have.

I'll take it. That was my trade off. I was fine with it, but he was wrong. And part of it was because he didn't actually think it would work. Like honestly didn't think it would work. And now that he didn't think I could do it, he just didn't see an example of it. And now we see lots of those.

So yeah, I think sometimes it's hard when you hear people you respect that tell you one thing, and then you start to doubt whether you should do it. And then you have real life, responsibilities and things. You have to, people you have to take care of and things like that. But anyway, it was cool to hear what Eeb said and I'm, I'm stoking here.

How you're doing, it's, that's a hell of a lot of growth in a short period of time. But what I want people to also understand is you didn't just come outta nowhere, move to a new city and then boom, all of a sudden you're at $26,000 a month for the it was an overnight [00:14:00] success. 10 years later or whatever.

So I think it's important to keep that in mind and but I appreciate you sharing how things are going. It sounds like they're going really well.

Rainmaker Member: Yeah. I appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks for all your help and advice and I look forward to marching forward with all of you

Danny: guys, honestly.

Yeah, I'll, dude it's so cool to see what's happening now. I think I, I really do think over the next five to 10 years we're gonna see a really big jump and increase in these types of practices. But I'll tell you this, I think at the end of that, at the end of this sort of five to 10 year timeline, I think that you're gonna have to be really good to to grow and succeed because there's gonna be way more competition there's gonna be a lot more of it.

So establishing market share currently establishing your reputation is gonna be really important because there's gonna be a lot of people like you that are gonna graduate. $200,000 in debt and not wanna see 30 patients a day. And what are they gonna do? They're gonna look at John, they're gonna look at any number of you and be like, oh, did it.

We're probably about the same intelligence level. I could probably do that too. And [00:15:00] then they're gonna go for it. And rightly because it's not many good options for them. So when we look at The opportunity now to really grow and capitalize on that. I think it's, I think it's easier than it's gonna be in about five years because of frankly just more people getting into these types of practices and more healthy competition, which is good cuz the best people will grow and stick around and thro and thrive.