E699 | Why Plan Of Care Packages Are So Important

In this episode, Doc Danny delves into the importance of implementing a plan of care package in cash-based physical therapy practices. He explains that many patients tend to drop out of care after just a few visits, even if their symptoms have temporarily improved. This can be problematic as it may not fully address the underlying issue, causing symptoms to return later on. Not only does this perception of ineffective treatment impact patient referrals, but it also affects the overall outcomes for the patient.

Doc Danny highlights the benefits of having patients commit to a plan of care package upfront. Firstly, it provides a predictable cash flow for the clinic, allowing for better financial forecasting. Secondly, patients who complete the full plan of care are more likely to achieve improved outcomes as the therapist can fully address the underlying issue. Furthermore, these satisfied patients are more inclined to refer friends and family, leading to increased referrals. Lastly, patients who successfully complete a plan of care package are more open to continuing with additional services such as small group training or remote coaching.

The main barrier to implementing plan of care packages is a lack of sales training for clinicians. Doc Danny recommends the "Clinical Rainmaker" program offered by Physical Therapy Business Solutions, which teaches therapists how to sell these packages in an ethical and seamless manner during the initial evaluation process. With the right training, clinicians can effectively sell plan of care packages ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 with minimal pushback from patients.

Throughout the episode, Doc Danny emphasizes the critical role that plan of care packages play in running a successful cash-based physical therapy practice. He strongly encourages listeners to implement this strategy if they haven't already, as it not only improves clinical outcomes but also financial results.

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: You're going to have far more predictable cashflow in terms of, what a patient is worth based off of, the number of plan of care packages that you're selling and the percentage of those based on the number of new people. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skillset in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family?

If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matei and over the last 15 years, I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession. I've been a staff PT. I've been an active duty military officer, physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice. I've sold that cash practice. And to date, my company physical therapy business has helped over a thousand clinicians start growing scale, their own cash practices.

So if this sounds like something you want to do, listen up, cause I'm here to help you. What's going on? Dr. Danny here with the PT entrepreneur podcast. And. Today we are going back to the basics and that is the importance of your plan of care package and where it fits in the sales process and why we really highly recommend that people implement this within their cash based practices.

So a plan of care package is literally just A package of visits that you sell upfront to a client that you're going to work with. This can range from anywhere between six visits and 30 visits. It depends what you do and your niche and how often you're working with people. If you're doing post op ACL work a plan of, six visits is probably not going to do you a whole lot.

You're probably going to need something like, 20, 30 depending on what stage of rehab process you get them in. Now let's say that you're working with more acute, um, like short term athletic injuries a younger population that maybe is going to heal a lot faster.

Yeah. So maybe, you have a, like a six and a 10 visit package or something that's a smaller like that. And the reason that these are an important part of the sales process and why I really do think for the vast majority of clinics, it makes a lot of sense, not all of them. But I would say the vast majority of clinics that we see, it makes a lot of sense is historically the data that we've seen is if somebody does not commit to a plan of care.

In one of the clinics that, that, we work with, then the average drop off rate for them is going to be around two and a half visits. So somewhere between visit two and three and what you have to think through or keep in mind is when people have symptomatic changes in an injury, they assume that it is better.

So even though you might tell them like, okay this is. We expect this is going to take three months and we have to do this and this if you're you know Pretty decent with some manual techniques and you can help them modify some things and all of a sudden the symptoms are resolved in a fairly short period of time.

They're like sweet. I'm done. I don't think I need to come back in I don't have any symptoms anymore and that's logical, right? It's okay. It doesn't hurt anymore I we know that's not really how the body works and not the way it heals. And also you haven't really probably fixed the root cause, mechanical maybe movement issues that maybe drove that problem in the first place.

So you have a lot of work left to do. And if people drop off around visit two to three and you haven't finished the job, the likelihood of those symptoms coming back goes up and get, what do you think they think? They think, You didn't, you're not that good at what you do. So here's what happens. You have a decreased, outcome.

You have a decreased likelihood that somebody is going to refer friends and family your way because you didn't get them a really great longterm outcome. You had short term symptom benefit. And when they talk to their friends, then they're like, Oh yeah. How did you like working with whoever, at whatever the name of the clinic is.

And yeah, they were great. They're really nice. I felt better, but it was short term. I felt better for a couple of weeks and then it came back. So I don't know if it really worked or not. They're not going to say I stopped going. Cause it, the pain stopped. Cause they don't know any different typically.

So for you, the reason that we like these plans of care is twofold. Number one, you're going to have far more predictable cashflow in terms of, what a patient is worth based off of, the number of plan of care packages that you're selling and the percentage of those based on the number of new people.

So let's say seven out of 10 people come in to see you, they buy a package, right? So the other three don't and seven of them do. Very predictably how many visits that's going to generate because they're committing to it and paying for it upfront. So it's going to help you increase a, your average visit rate, be your outcome with them.

And as a by product of that, they get a better longterm outcome and are more likely to send. A friend, family member, colleague your way as a direct referral. So it snowballs in a very positive direction. The only reason that people are unable to implement these into their pack or into their clinics from what I've seen, unless they have no issues with drop off whatsoever, which I have seen this, usually this happens in women's health practices or Pelvic health practices, because it's such a sensitive problem.

It's affecting so many areas of their life that they're like completely bought in as soon as they find somebody that could help them with that problem. Normally if it's more of a performance based clinic in any number of different niches, if the buy in is a little harder people want to get back to activities faster.

So getting them on a plan of care is going to help with that. You're going to have a positive snowball effect on the referral side with all the people that you see. They're going to get a better outcome and you're going to have more predictability in your cashflow. The other thing is if somebody completes a plan of care with you, it actually increases the likelihood that they're going to move over to some sort of continuity offer that you might have.

Not everybody's a good fit for it, but ongoing work, some percentage of people you work with are going to want to do that. And if you have completed a plan of care with them, they're much more likely to want to move on to the next step with you, which might be, some sort of Ongoing visit.

It could be some sort of small group training. It could be remote coaching any number of things that you could add in on a recurring revenue basis that are really going to be great for the business side of things and stability of the business. But also if you can really help them live a healthier, life, in a longer period of time that they can do that and they can stay active for longer.

That's a huge win for them and really a great thing to add to their life as well. The cat, the package, the plan of care packages is in a lot of ways, it is a very unique and I would say very simple, elegant way of allowing your business to get great outcomes for people, taking the pressure off you and your providers from people dropping off and you having to chase them down.

And improving the financials, but also increasing the likelihood that they're going to tell other people about what you do and work with you for longer. So the real question is, why would you not do it? You probably aren't doing it is you don't know how to sell. No one's ever taught you how to sell.

You've never had any sort of coaching on that. You never had any mentorship on sales training. And that's because you went to school to become a physical therapist or a clinician of some sort, and no one ever taught you how to sell. So it's not your fault, but if done correctly, it should feel very natural.

It should feel very much as a part of the initial evaluation. It really is. The initial evaluation is, it's 85 percent of the sales process, a good initial evaluation where people feel very clear on what's going on and what the next steps are. And if you can do that, you can sell packages of visits for between, on the very low end, a thousand dollars and on the higher end, 5, 000 upfront visit one and, get pushback from people because.

If you can legitimately help them, it's a steal for them to avoid things like surgery or activities that they like to do with with their kids or their spouse or their family or their friends, and to be able to stay in those communities and to live a healthy life and active life that they want to live and not necessarily have to get into a surgical center to do and, or just avoid those longterm. So you got to understand the value of that. And if you don't have any sales training. You're talking to the right people. We've trained over a thousand clinicians how to sell ethically and seamlessly within their their clinical visit. The actual clinical ability to sell is something that I think you can't just do this and do sales training in general and understand how the supplies in the clinic, you have to understand how the clinical visit goes and how to layer in sales the right way.

Otherwise it can backfire on you and you can feel very salesy. And the people you work with are going to be very off put by it from what we've seen. So if you are not good at selling, you got to head over to physicaltherapybiz. com and check out what we have going on. As far as our clinical rainmaker program and our mastermind program.

If you're new to this, the clinical rainmaker program is your key to success on the sales and marketing side. We, it's a six month program. We take people through that. And by, even the end of month one, most people in that program are selling 70 percent plus new visits into plans of care between one to 5, 000 and feeling really good about it.

And it's not a sleazy way of going about it. It's a very. ethical, seamless way to really bolt on proven sales techniques with how you work with people in a clinical setting. So if that's you head over to physicaltherapybiz. com, get on a call with one of our advisors, and we can see if you're a good fit for us to help you start to add these plan of care packages into your practice.

And frankly, if you're not doing it, we can change your practice in a very positive way. For the duration of time that you have this business. It's a linchpin. You got to do it You got to do it, if you'd help on that we can help you with that So as always thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week.

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