Clinician or CEO? Why You Must Choose to Grow Your Practice

If you’re a physical therapist running your own clinic—or dreaming about it—there’s one shift you absolutely must make to scale your business.

According to Danny Matta, DPT and founder of PT Biz, the difference between struggling and thriving comes down to this:

You’re either a physical therapist who owns a business… or a business owner who happens to be a physical therapist.

It may sound like semantics, but this mindset shift is massive—and it determines whether you build a job or a sellable business.

Why Most PTs Stay Stuck

Clinicians are wired to obsess over outcomes. You know the feeling when a patient isn’t getting better. You spend your night deep in research, reaching out to mentors, adjusting your treatment plan. That obsession makes you great at what you do.

But it also makes it hard to let go.

Danny admits he struggled with this himself. He stayed too long in the clinician seat, even while running a successful clinic. It wasn’t until he fully embraced being a business owner that things really took off.

“You can’t be elite at both,” Danny says. “Eventually, you have to choose.”

What It Means to Be a Business Owner First

Shifting from clinician to CEO isn’t about abandoning your values—it’s about scaling your impact.

When you commit to becoming a business owner, you:

• Learn sales, marketing, finance, and leadership

• Build systems that don’t depend on you to function

• Hire and mentor amazing PTs who get incredible outcomes

• Create time and financial freedom for your family

• Reach more people than you ever could alone

Danny explains that this doesn’t mean you never treat again. But holding onto patient care out of guilt, fear, or identity can actually limit your clinic’s growth and your personal freedom.

Lifestyle Clinic vs. Scalable Clinic

There’s nothing wrong with being a clinician who happens to own a business. That model can lead to a great lifestyle and solid income.

But if you want to build a seven-figure clinic, a scalable business, or something you can eventually sell, you have to step back from treatment and step into leadership.

“I didn’t want to be the worst clinician in my own clinic,” Danny admits. “So I stopped treating. That was hard—but it unlocked everything.”

Transfer Your Obsession

Here’s the good news: you already have what it takes.

That same drive to master clinical skills? You can transfer it to mastering business. Instead of chasing down treatment techniques, you’ll chase systems, people, and strategy. It’s a different skillset—but the same energy.

And when you get it right, you build something bigger than yourself.

Final Thought

You can’t sell your job—but you can build a business that changes your life, your team’s lives, and your community. The earlier you make this mindset shift, the faster you grow.

So what are you?

A physical therapist who owns a business?

Or a business owner who happens to be a physical therapist?

The difference isn’t just mental. It’s transformational.

Want help navigating these phases?
Visit physicaltherapybiz.com or book a free strategy call to talk through your goals with someone who’s helped over 1,000 practices do the same.

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Ready to elevate your practice? Book a call at the link below with one of our expert consultants today and start your journey to delivering unparalleled physical therapy.

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Alright, let's talk about the number one mindset shift that you're gonna have to make as a physical therapist if you want to have success in business. I'm Danny Matta. I'm the founder of PT Bz and for the last decade I've been involved in starting, growing, scaling, selling clinics as well as helping to date over a thousand physical therapists, start, grow, uh, and even sell.

Their own clinics and you know, when you do something so many times, like, like, think about this. How many times have you seen somebody with lower back pain? How many times have you seen somebody with anterior knee pain? You know? How many times have you seen somebody with some shoulder impingement? I know I've been there.

Uh, because I'm actually a physical therapist. I've seen all of these, I've seen thousands of patients, thousands of the same types of injuries come in, the same types of archetype problems that we may diagnose. And, and one of the things [00:01:00] that happens as you start to work with a lot of patients is that you start to have better pattern recognition.

Oh, I remember with this, this, and this. This happened and we did this and this, this worked. Right? And that comes from. Reps in mentorship and many other things, but to, to get the reps in you, you can't fake that. And you know when, when you start to notice patterns and you start to become more focused about how you treat a problem, you become a better provider.

Well, for me, one thing that I've noticed, and, and this is a, a pattern that I've recognized now for a while. Is that there's one big mindset shift that the most successful clinicians that we've worked with have made, and the ones that are not as successful either are unwilling to make or don't know that they need to make that transition.

And I, I'm gonna speak to this from personal experience because, uh, I like to think of myself as a clinician first. [00:02:00] I introduce myself as a physical therapist, even though I'm not actively treating patients right now. I, I feel like it's, uh, the, the one of the most personally rewarding professions in, in existence is fantastic.

Uh, you know, I look at my degrees every time I sit down and, uh, for a very long time I held onto the fact that I was a physical therapist first, even though I was running a business. And this is the shift that you're gonna have to make. You are either a physical therapist that. Owns a business or you're a business owner that happens to be a physical therapist.

Now that, that may sound nuanced and you may say, what's the difference? Massive, massive difference. Most people are physical therapists that happen to have started their own clinic. There are a physical therapist that happen to have a business now, and that will get you pretty successful. You know, a a, a fairly successful clinic.

Um. And this is where we see a lot of people settle in, in, in what we would consider [00:03:00] more like lifestyle clinics. Maybe you never hire anybody else. Maybe, uh, you, you have a very small team of other clinicians. Uh, you and maybe one or two other people may, maybe it's a little bit more, but either way you are.

Your mindset is that you're a physical therapist first, and what you have to realize is that if you really wanna be successful in business, you have to become a business owner. And you being a physical therapist is secondary to that. And here's, here's where I struggled with this, and I drug my feet on this for a long time, is I never quite turned my attention to being obsessed and focused on being a business owner the way that I had for.

Years and years as a clinician. You know, like if you're like me, you. If you can't get some, some of the outcomes that they want or can't get somebody better, it might ruin your weekend. It's gonna ruin your night because you're gonna look up every article, or you're gonna reach out to mentors. [00:04:00] You're, you're gonna, you're gonna try to figure out what are you missing that's not working with this person?

Is there something, what, what? Don't, you know, what, what's the limitation in your skillset you didn't know existed until now you have this person that you, you're unable to help? And it's frustrating that obsession is a very positive thing if you're trying to become world class at anything. You have to turn that same desire to be fantastic at your career, to becoming fantastic at becoming a business owner, and it is a different skillset and it can feel.

Hard because you have to learn this new thing that you kind of suck at when you start like anything. And you're already probably really good as a physical therapist and it's comfortable for you to continue to be really good as a physical therapist. So you, you focus on that, you focus on the clinical side, which is important, don't get me wrong.

Like the product is important. The service is incredibly important, uh, but you're owning the business. You're the person that has to build the business so that you can employ other people like yourself that are [00:05:00] obsessed with being great physical therapists. What a fantastic thing to do. Talk about the expansion of your reach, of, of your, of your impact on your community.

Now all of a sudden you get to hire 3, 4, 5, 6. Like legit ninja PTs that can come in your per into your, your clinic and help way more people than just you. But letting go of that identity is tough. And letting go of the identity of being a clinician first is really hard. But if you want to grow a great clinic.

If you wanna grow a, a fantastic business that supports a lot of other people, a lot of other clinicians, and helps a lot of people in your community and honestly, uh, creates time and financial freedom for yourself and your family, you must make the transition to becoming a business owner first and turning that amazing ability to learn, that amazing ability to, you know, like you passed a lot of tests, you got into hard schools, you learn really challenging information.

You're smart. All you gotta do [00:06:00] is take that deep skillset you already have and you you've built and you have to redirect it towards something else. And, and not just something else. Many things actually, sales, marketing, people, processing, becoming a better leader, understanding finance, these things, maybe they're not as cool to you as, uh, as whatever, helping somebody with their back pain.

And I agree. Listen. Net net if we didn't have to make money to live in the world, your ability to help somebody with their lower back pain is more valuable than my ability to help somebody grow a business. But we live in a, in a world where, you know, we need money to buy. G reason and to, to pay for our rent and pay our student loans off and all that, right?

So if you want to have a big impact and you want to be able to generate time and financial freedom for yourself and and for your family, this is the path that many people find themself on. Um. And now all of a sudden you have all these other people that you can employ to then help get great outcomes for everybody else, [00:07:00] and you have a bigger impact.

And it's a really cool thing. And this is also why maybe growing a a, a bigger clinic isn't for everybody. And that's okay too because if you want to be a clinic owner. There a physical therapist that happens to own a business and cool, you'll be able to generate great income, have a great lifestyle business, and, and really still treat people on your, you know, your terms and, uh, when you wanna do it and, and have a, have a small team of other people like that.

And there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to be able to grow a seven figure business or more multis, seven figure business, you gotta turn your attention to becoming a business owner. Not a clinician, you know, you're a business owner, happens to be a clinician, and that's a subtle change. But from a mindset standpoint, it's a massive difference, massive difference.

And, and for me, what became very hard for me was the fact that you can't be world class at both. You can't, I don't know, a single person. It, maybe it's possible. I haven't met him yet, and I couldn't do this. I couldn't [00:08:00] focus my attention in a way that I wanted to, to continue to be a sharp, like very, very elite clinician and an elite business owner.

I don't have the mental bandwidth for it. I don't have the time to learn these things. Uh, it was, it was hard for me to switch my, my role back and forth, and I would lose a lot of mental bandwidth and concentration. And I gotta the point where I just stopped treating patients because I didn't wanna be mediocre.

I, I. I didn't wanna be the worst. Clinician in my clinic. That's what it ended up being, which is a great place to be, by the way. 'cause you are hiring a bunch of bad asses. But I didn't wanna do that. I, I wanted to be either great at it or I wanna let other people do it. I didn't wanna hang on to some, some patients I had pre-existing relationships with that that just wanted to, you know, work with me ongoing.

Uh, and, and my skill slowly deteriorate as I was focusing somewhere else. So eventually you have to let go of that. Most people end up having to do that at some point. Most of us hold onto it for too long. I know I did. And you know, it's funny, like people are your patients, they realize it too. You're like, dude, you're just not, you're not in it the way you used to be.

This [00:09:00] isn't your sole focus. And that's okay. Uh, because my goal was to do other things. I wanted to accomplish other things. And the only way I could do that was to focus on the business. And you may have to make the same exact decision because if you wanna be an elite business owner. You have to focus on being a business owner exclusively.

You have to focus on those skills. You have to build that, that, that sort of, uh, skill set up. Uh, and, and you, you can't be fantastic at both of those. I just, I don't think it's possible. And at a certain point, I see everybody make a decision one way or the other. And, uh, you're gonna have to make a decision yourself.

But if you want to grow an elite business, a fantastic business, you want to build a really cool culture, you want to help a lot of people, uh, and you have that. Desire inside of you to really see what you're made of, uh, made of. On the entrepreneurial side, maybe you've feel like you've sort of plateaued as a clinician, right?

You're like, guy, I got this. I can do this. My eyes closed. I want a new challenge. Right? That's where a lot of people end up going, and it's a big ass challenge, don't get me wrong. Huge challenge, very rewarding, fantastic [00:10:00] lessons that you'll learn, a fantastic opportunity to change your family's life forever.

Uh, but. You cannot be elite at both. You have to pick one. And if you want to be a a, a person that grows a big business, you gotta be a business owner first.