Brian (00:01.006)
Welcome to Victory Labs. My name is Brian Blevins and I'm the owner and co -founder of Victory Physical Therapy, co -hosted by Todd Sayre, my co -founder and friend. We will dive into topics of healthcare technology, innovation, personal and professional development, business and leadership. We're setting new standards for the patient expectations, workplace engagement, clinical operation and community integration. Our vision is bold. To create a future where cutting edge technology, wisdom and compassionate service
unite to enhance the health and wellbeing of our patients and elevate the fulfillment of our professionals. Join us on Victory Labs as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share inspiring stories and drive the transformation of physical therapy. Hey, why don't you just start, introduce yourself. What got you into PT? Absolutely. My name is Todd Sayre. I've been a physical therapist for 24 years. What got me into physical therapy?
Pretty standard. I like sports a ton and I did not like being injured which had happened a couple times. I also met Really talented physical therapists at a time when I was trying to decide my major and she was very helpful in answering my questions and Really helped steer me in a direction that I found was very helpful. So What was that direction? Well, I knew I couldn't sit still I knew I liked being in a room full of people and I knew I like serving others and so a lot of those things checked out What's your work history like?
I started my career off in New York city and as a staff PT, and then I had my own practice out there for a while. I moved from New York to Chicago and started WisD at the time a small company called ATI physical therapy. So I was there with them from somewhere around clinic seven, somewhere around clinic 10 and was with them through their expansion to 950 plus clinics nationwide. So that was a big part of my physical therapy journey that led me to where I'm at today.
It's very awesome. And so can you expand on that? What was your experiences there? What was what did you take from from that kind of life and professional experience? man, I mean, I think I've done a lot to what I've learned about the physical physical therapy industry at large. You know, there's a there's a lot that goes on. And I think when you come out of school or you're a new graduate, you want to practice, you want to do the things that give you the joy of the job. You want to treat people. You want to make a meaningful be a meaningful part of their life, you know, when they need you most and
Brian (02:23.854)
You know, any practice I've been a part of that's, that's definitely been, you know, the main goal, ATI presented me, presented me with opportunities that, that showed me what that could be like at a larger scale. And so, I think that passion that drove me to be a great PT is what, you know, most physical therapy companies are going to look for their leaders. so was able to move into a leadership track and get exposure to really the business side through that process.
I trained a number of people and used a lot of people underneath me to open up new clinics for ATI, which was interesting in and of itself to see expansion and see how we could serve the larger market and see kind of scale start to happen and sort of success continue forward. But I think it really opened my eyes to what's going on in the industry and really gave me a passion for not only delivering care in the way that we all want to and again, being a meaningful part of people's life when they need you most.
But also showing what the industry and what the profession can do and making it more of a, the first choice for, for addressing, you know, musculoskeletal injuries and pain within, within individuals and within communities. And I just think a lot of the economics of healthcare and what's going on in this country with insurance reimbursement, as well as cost of education is making it a challenge for the profession to thrive in a big way. And so when my eyes were open to that.
It really was a big part of my education over the last 24 years and wanted to do things that can not only make PT more accessible for the broader community, but also do things to allow physical therapy and physical therapists to thrive within the industry. Cause it's a profession that frankly, everyone needs everyone's dealing with pain. I think in order to be successful at first and as a priority has to meet the patients where they're at and it has to address their concerns.
And then it has to do that in a way that makes the, you know, makes the profession viable for the longterm. So, I learned a lot about those things over the years and bringing that to, to victory has been a big part of why we're here. Yeah. Yeah. And so you mentioned, leadership, you care for others and leadership. Can you kind of expand on, how you felt the development of you as a leader has helped your aspect and the views you have.
Brian (04:48.27)
On what the industry needs on a provider scale. Yeah. How's it, how has it impacted my vision of, you know, facilitating good providers and promoting the industry? Yeah. Well, I think at the heart again, I think of every great physical therapist is they want to serve. Right. And I found that being a leader provided me those same opportunities. And I think the best physical therapists are always going to have that within them.
And so when you lead with a similar circumstance, the why behind anything you're asking anyone to do from a work perspective or from a professional perspective really comes down to the patients at the end of the day. And so that becomes the answer to everything. And I think, you know, with all the other things going on and, you know, PT is also having personal lives and everything and the demands on the job that have changed and grown over the years, it's become a real kind of challenge to be able to meet the needs of the
You meet the needs of the patient to lead them in a way that fosters their development for the long term. So I think the main thing is getting them past that initial hurdle when they graduate from physical therapy school and they're putting a lot of effort, a lot of passion into what they do.
those habits that they form in a new graduate PT can form in the first five years, I think are critical for establishing their long -term success. And that was the main thing that I think drove scalable long -term success and relationships within the profession that have lasted for the duration of my career was helping them at the beginning. What do you see as some of the most valuable skill sets for a practitioner? Those first one to five years that you see a need for them to develop?
Brian (06:41.678)
Well, I think the main thing is with new grads, they're always just like anyone learning a sport. You put a lot of effort in until you can refine your energy and the processes that go into it in order to generate success and do it at a higher level and refine your techniques. And you're a new grad, you have all the wisdom and all the education that comes from your schooling, from your teaching, right? And so you get your first diagnosis and you're throwing everything at it that you've learned that you know. But as time goes on,
It actually doesn't, you know, the process gets much more efficient over time. And so teaching them how to go through that decision -making process, especially at initial evaluation, deciding what needs to be there and making, and in doing so, making sure that they know that that process is about the patient. The patient can't be there forever. And frankly, the patients need to trust you, but they don't need to know how much you know. They need to know that you care about them as a priority. And as a part of doing that.
The way you go about the process needs to be geared towards them, which means you don't throw the entire anatomy and physiology book at them. You give them the dialogue that they need. You meet them where they're at. And that's not only with their care and the plan of care you decide, but also the communication that you put forth into delivering their care. And as you get good at that process, it becomes much more efficient. And that saves you, I think, a ton of time to not only for -
lifestyle reasons and burnout reasons, but also to be able to accommodate more patients and I think do more so to meet the patient where they're at. So it was, when I took away that is, for a new grad to develop confidence in themselves, as well as develop that with their patients, they need to make their care delivery patient centric and don't be busy with convincing the patient.
how much they know. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that that is a new grad. Mistake, I guess you should say you could say is is halfway or halfway, right? It's it's it's it's they they pass the test. Now they want to convince the world that they know what they know. Right? There's almost an overflow from being a great student doing all the effort and all the thing you
Brian (09:02.094)
takes to get into PT school and graduate from PT school and then you get to see your first handful of patients and you still have that mentality of do as much as I possibly can. And not that that's bad, but doing as much as you possibly can is now kind of titrated out over a timeline that meets the patient's needs and giving them what they need at the time that they need it versus all the information in your head. Yeah, and then just developing confidence around those interpersonal relationships. Exactly. Yeah, refining that.
refining the data and not, you know, cause what is that analysis paralysis, right? You do a test and there's too much for you to analyze instead of what's pertinent, right? Yeah. I'm really glad you said that actually. So in line with this, I coach a lot more about in the initial evaluation, spending more time on the subjective, listening, listening with the intention of being an influence and making sure the patient knows you're listening is far more valuable than that fifth or sixth, maybe special tests that you feel that you need to do. So if you have an hour for an initial evaluation,
or even 45 minutes, I would recommend you spend almost 40 % of your time doing that subjective until the patient feels like you understand. And without that critical step, and I think a lot of them are quick to just try to figure out what's going on and get to a solution. And you want to be sure of that by throwing a lot of objective measures at it. When you only really need a few, and you need to get them started. Well, I think this speaks to the broader health care environment, right?
you just need to listen to the patient, right? Some of the most important data comes from the history of the history and physical. You know, in a data -driven world now, we're so obsessed with numbers, excluding any other variables that could influence your interpretation of those numbers when the subjectives gives you context for those numbers. And we've forgotten that, right? As an industry and especially in healthcare, right? Is that, and this is where I think
leads into our talk about the greater industry is Western medicine is turning too far algorithmic. And there is x variable, and I have y, z, a, b pathways that I need to analyze in order to get there. And algorithms are efficient, and they can be great. Essentially, what critical prediction rules are
Brian (11:26.638)
but they're increasingly removing the story of the patient. And that's ever more so important in our industry, where there's a knee pain is not a knee pain is not a knee pain. And unfortunately, that's what the rest of Western medicine currently believes it is, because one, they don't have time. They got 60 to 80 patients a day. They don't have time.
to analyze those causalities. So we're stuck with data -driven algorithms, which then lead to what we're suffering with today, right? Is poor outcomes in healthcare. Yeah, largely so. I mean, you need data to make decisions, right? And the data tells us really a lot of like what you said, clinical decision -making. You need to have that as your background. But as a priority, you're treating...
someone's neighbor, someone's mom, someone's brother, someone's friend and prioritizing that I feel like is getting a little bit lost in the shuffle to your point. But yeah, data is important. It's important for us as clinicians. It drives a lot of our decision -making based on our research and what we've done and arriving at a plan of care that we know will be successful based on that data. But the key ingredient right up front is that interpersonal connection and making sure the patient knows that.
you have their interests at heart. And behind all that is the strength of your education and your know -how that comes through. But that connection needs to be there first. Yeah. You mentioned earlier the kind of the greater PT industry and the things you've noticed it needs and what the growing pains has gone through, the regressions we've had. What can you speak to that? Where do you feel the industry is now? Where do you feel like it's going? Both on a patient
Perspective as well as a PT's perspective and even a clinic. I think we can start lumping the clinic and the PT perspective the other Where do you see that going and yeah, we can get there. Absolutely
Brian I'll try to answer that concisely it the easiest way to say it is there's 400 billion dollars a year spent on musculoskeletal injuries a Year spent a year in this country a musculoskeletal and she's for 400 billion dollars five percent of that goes to physical therapy So when you think about what we're capable of doing
Brian (13:48.238)
Those numbers don't seem to line up. So ultimately what we're trying to do is improve the accessibility for the patient. You know, one of the biggest indicators of a successful outcome for any injury or any painful condition is when you start care. And the sooner you start care, the better your outcome is. So I think in the larger industry, there've been a major hurdles that have come into play that make healthcare in general harder to access. You call to get an MRI, you call to get an x -ray, you call to get physical therapy. Sometimes you're waiting three weeks a month. So
Physical therapy is unique in that if you could start right away, you'll start feeling better right away. And I think some of the larger healthcare issues have made it a difficult challenge to kind of just start your care. And so we want to try to eliminate that. And in doing so, bring a larger portion of the patient population to start choosing physical therapy first. Because the vast majority of injuries out there, if they could just start with us sooner.
they'd start feeling better sooner, they'd have a better outcome, better quality of life, and they wouldn't allow injuries to start being more cemented within their motor patterns and whatnot, the way they move. Yeah. So how do we do that? We got some industry. That's the challenge, right? It's a highly interpersonal skill. However, we need to start leveraging technology more. We need to be able to meet the patient where they're at. We need to be able to not only have clinics that...
They can go to the hours that are open at times that are convenient for them, either inside or outside of work, lunch hours, or whatever the case might be. But we also need to start leveraging technology to maintain a course of care. Because the last thing you want is for someone to start therapy, come to a handful of sessions, then miss a couple and then never start coming anymore because the burdens of coming to physical therapy were too much of a challenge. So how can we leverage technology to do that? And that's the major.
I think focus of the industry going on right now, and it's a race to see who can do that the best because there are large parts of what we do that can become challenging. The technology hasn't yet maybe figured out a chance to overcome, but that needs to be the focus. Finding a way to meet, using that technology to meet the patient where they're at, I think is key. Yeah. Yeah. I think the, the greatest challenge is how do we let the patients know.
Brian (16:07.406)
that they need an ET. This is an industry problem. This is a greater discussion as a topic. But we could go on for three hours on this topic. How do we create an informed referral base? Because I think that we have to start treating these referral sources as sources of income instead of
we have to view them as stakeholders in the care process and customers as much as the patient is. Because when I send a patient out to a provider, my referral to them is just as important as my care. My dad once said, you can judge a person by the company they keep. And I firmly believe that
that works even more so professionally. And hey, I'm great at interventions, but if I have a poor referral network, you're hindering your care because they're going to go somewhere. So how do we create a more informed network? I guess, what are the strategies? How do we accomplish that? Yeah.
I don't think there's a fast way to do that. I think the industry needs to change its image overall. What makes one PT different or better? How does someone decide? So how do we inform the population? Because right now the pattern is go to see your doctor. Where now physical therapy is becoming, you know, there's direct access laws in varying ways across every state in the country. Oregon has some of the best direct access. So anyone can come into physical therapy.
But I think it happens over time with the industry changing the focus of its language and its communication, kind of starting to turn in not only one patient at a time as they come in, so it's something that as an industry and as physical therapists of the 300 to 325 ,000 physical therapists in this country, just kind of uniting on that or aligning on that understanding and vision for where it needs to go and becoming more of a first choice for that. Then there's the broader, you know, making use of the internet, making use of
Brian (18:24.878)
marketing, making use of communication, but that all needs to be aligned to start to move physical therapy being towards a preferred provider. If something's going on with your teeth, you go to your dentist. If something's going on, you know, with you have an illness, you're going to go to your primary care physician. But if you have something going on, musculoskeletal that you know is, you know, not urgent, maybe doesn't require an x -ray, wasn't a traumatic injury, it's just something that's been bothering you, go see your physical therapist.
You know, your physical therapist to know if you need additional workups and that's where it comes back to that provider network that you talked about that we need to have that, you know, maintain that kind of camaraderie or collegiality between the healthcare system at large, but making sure that they know that we are a choice and we should be a first choice again to slide more of that because we are still an incredibly viable option. There's no getting around exercise. And as far as healthcare practitioners go, we are the
tip of the spear when it comes to leading that charge. So I think some of the issues you mentioned speaks to the overall fragmentation. Right. There's not only fragmentation and in siloed operations, right. From marketing to service delivery, but there's also fragmentation on the variety of service delivery throughout the industry. Right. And it's, you know, I almost think that the fragmentation is one of our greatest strengths, but it's also our greatest weakness. Right.
because you don't want to have a bunch of cookie cutter PTs. You want to be able to have a lot of PTs live in their strengths, right? Deliver service in their strengths. But I think what we say, like the fragmentation of the marketing portion is we over promise and we're under delivering almost across the board, right? We have all these promises. I think what PTs are really good at is telling other PTs how good we are. Right? Maybe. I mean, that's what our research is doing, right? You know, if you go ask,
The result is clearly, you stated it within the first five minutes, there's 5 % of the overall market of orthopedics is going to PT. That is over promising and under delivering. We're so good. What that means is we're not telling the consumer what we're doing and how good we are. We're telling each other. Right. Right. And so then we walk around, we tell each other, we tell each other these conferences. But the population large has no idea what that is. So there's that fragmentation of.
Brian (20:49.134)
delivery from front end to back end, essentially from injury to discharge. But then how do we address that under delivery clinically and operationally? I think that's one of the biggest challenges that hopefully us, victory, that's what we're trying to accomplish, and transform that service delivery model from front end to back end. But I guess that's one of the reasons.
that were so fragmented, I think is just the variety of clinics and schedules and which is great. It's great that, you know, PTs have this agency to be able to treat how they, what they believe. But I think it all that, that freedom can, you can go off the rails pretty quick. Or you can get locked into certain ways of doing things. Yeah. Right. So we're in, we're in the midst of, I think in a post COVID world and what that, what happened to many industries, but PT.
which is highly interpersonal and you're usually seeing people and treating people with your hands and or in person really challenge that. So I think we're at an age where we really need to start figuring the things out that you just articulated. Yeah. I think in terms of trends, what do you see trend wise? What do you feel is accelerating in the industry itself? The use of technology by far. The use of technology and figuring out a way to make it viable I think is the big challenge. And not only through
digital cameras, but also equipment, things that patients can do at home. Anything that allows the service care delivery to be more in a fluid state. Because if you have to wait until you see the patient the next time versus having another touch point, even if it's over video or having a recorded version of their exercises, if you can have that at touch point, now you maintain momentum on their care and you can maintain sort of
for lack of a better term, like the scientific control that will help guide them to a better outcome. So using the technology to maintain that care continuum, I think is key to getting people to the finish line. Yeah. Yeah. I think currently the players that can leverage technology are leveraging it most on the operations side and the data analytics side, which I understand it has its value.
Brian (23:13.806)
But they're I think overall it's it's allowing them to amplify How we got here not where we're going right? I think this data analytics is essentially allowing you to Attention what I what I call Sauron's eye on the underperforming parts of your organization And that's great. Yes, we were gonna see that but if the coaching that
is being received is overall negative, meaning you start to impact the PT's lifestyle, right? And their job satisfaction, what's your technology worth if you're losing the labor market? Right. Exactly. Right. And so there isn't many solutions that solve all three of the stakeholders, right? The patient problem, the PT problems, and the clinic problems, right? Right now, it's either patients,
or the clinics, right? The PCs don't have a solution, right? It's like, cool, you can get all these, this new measurement technology, fantastic, that's great. What does it mean? How is it improving efficiency? How is it improving data analytics, tracking, and ultimately patient success, right? So I don't think that any current technology needs to solve all three stakeholders or else it's dead in the water, right? It has its upper limits, right? It's great, you can use this. It's fantastic, especially for the high performance.
you know, sports teams, all that stuff where those analytics are so valuable, but on a general practitioner basis, it's difficult, right? On this technology, I completely agree.
And I think that's our goal of victory, right? Yeah, I think what you're talking about, that's why the next five to seven years of the industry and the way technology comes in will really start to shape the future of the industry going forward. And I think that's going to be key. And what you just talked about is a major challenge. And to your point, I would say there's four stakeholders. There's the patients, there's the practitioners, there's the clinic or the clinic owners. But then to the point you made previously, there's also the providers. And those are the four main stakeholders. And all those need to work together.
Brian (25:26.542)
technology needs to make sense for as many of those parties as possible, either in a balanced way or in a fully effective way. But I still feel that the technology needs to prioritize the patient the most. And that's probably the best pathway to success. So we have this window over the next X number of years to decide that. And that's why it's a major focus at Victory. Yeah, no, I completely agree. You know, I want to shift a little bit to the PT specifically. What's the labor market like?
What have you experienced? What are P .T. saying? What are they? What are they doing? Right. I think their actions are demonstrating way more than they're saying. Right. What do you see? What have you seen over the last especially 10 years in the industry? And what is it in response to? Yeah.
This is the toughest labor market I've seen and it's gotten, honestly, it's gotten progressively tough. Nationally? Nationally, yeah, nationally. So I practiced in many of the US markets, predominantly in the Midwest, but I have done out East and I've done large portions of the West coast. So I practiced and managed clinician populations for the last 18 years. The major thing that's making it a challenge is there still is not enough PTs to meet the demand for services. So that's one thing.
But when you look at what a physical therapy education costs these days, and so the loans that they have to take by the time a physical therapist graduates, they are having to pay back upwards of $100 ,000 to $150 ,000 in loans. And when you think about what that does to their net take -home pay, the reimbursement levels haven't kept pace with how much they need to pay for their education. So it's pushing further and further along that demand. And so they feel this major sense of urgency.
to start repaying this major debt that they maybe couldn't have comprehended when they were 18 or 20 years old and got into PT school. And that economic demand is putting more pressure on the industry at large. And so you're seeing more people move more frequently and the competition for labor has gotten incredibly challenging, particularly in areas where there aren't a lot of physical therapists to begin with. So that supply and demand has gotten pretty aggressive. And unfortunately, you know, rates,
Brian (27:41.326)
our reimbursement rates are something we can't control and that continues to go in the direction we don't want it to. So something has to give here. But what it's done to the labor market is it made it as aggressive as I've ever seen it and people more apt to leave for five, 10 ,000 more dollars versus maybe where they'd want to be or somewhere for their long term because of that economic pressure that they feel coming out of school. And then for 15, 20 years after they graduate, they're trying to repay this massive debt.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think which is ironic because was it Stanford did that study 10, maybe 10 years ago about job satisfaction. What makes you stay at your employer and money was like number seven. I know, right? Right. At best. Right. So what that means to me is that the industry at large, the practices themselves aren't satisfying the first six anyways. Right. So then money becomes the only
I guess maybe negotiating tool or anchor point, right? And so what PT's have turned into, I mean, look at the travel industry. It's booming. Right. Right. It is because there's all these spots open and they can't fill them with PT's. Exactly. But all these new grads and everybody's like, hey, I'll just travel and I'll make 20 % more, 30 % more than if I'm static. Right. I'm building my skill set. Right. And so now they're not building a network of patients. Right. They're not staying long enough to stay consistent in these plans of care.
Right. So operationally, there's a whole problem there that what's Jaco Willink's Extreme Ownership book is we want our PTs to utilize that, but we don't use that operationally. Right. It's like you look in the mirror. You're hemorrhaging these PTs, and you can't keep them for what's the average shirt over about three years? Yeah. Right? You got to look in the mirror, and where are you
satisfying those first six items that a PT wants in their job, right? Totally. I agree. I think I still think the main reason someone might leave would be their manager. But the threshold from what takes them to decide that it's their manager, those economic pressures have made it much more tenuous and much more difficult to manage the population. There's only so much you can.
Brian (30:02.158)
even do as an operator sometimes, or even as a leader, as a supervisor to keep someone on board. And to your point, that's why the travel agency is booming. And it just becomes, I think, harder and harder to make their home. And so technology needs to win on that front too somehow, some way. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that speaks to improving the providing lifestyle. Yep. Right? Yep. Absolutely. It's a focus. It needs to be a focus. How do we make them more productive without increasing their especially administrative burden, right?
Yeah. Word at the time. You know, I think P .T.'s. You know, Web P .T. actually, their their state of the rehab industry, right, is fantastic. And I believe they had a section I can look it up here, but they had a section in there that was do you plan to retire as a P .T.? Right. And the percentage that said no was astonishing. Right. Like you spent a decade of your life getting good at this. Right. You went undergrad, you went P .T., you did your
You know, you have three years of PT. You did your rotations. Right. And you're planning not to, you know, I took this as the rest of my life. This is what I'm doing. Right. I chose not to do other things. Right. So how do you we can't just blame the the younger generations and, you know, we have to look, I think, closer as an industry of where are our shortcomings and where do we have to address aggressively and start looking on how to heal our our holes.
then just pump out more patient research. Right. I think we're heading towards a brick wall there. We need to figure those things out. Technology has to help us figure that out. It needs to align to the patient's needs. It needs to align to the labor market. It needs to align to obviously the practice economics as well. That's the big challenge. So what advice would you give a new grad coming out of PT school? What's the number one piece of advice?
the you give. yeah, that's that's a pretty broad answer. I would say right off the bat, learn as much as you possibly can, not only about how to be a great practitioner, which I think is a natural focus, but everything you can become educated about the larger industry, become educated to the economics and always seek to develop kind of lifelong career long relationships with anyone you come into contact with.
Brian (32:30.254)
Learn as much as you possibly can from the get go. I'm on 100 % agreement. I think it's general, right, to get a little more specific. I've been thinking about this for several years because some of my shadow students are now graduating PT school. And I've realized that my only recommendation is see as many patients as you possibly can, right?
One of the number one requests of new grads coming out of school is mentorship. Everyone wants mentorship. They know what that means. Right. Right. And so then we go to these residencies. Fantastic. That's great. They're evidence based. They're getting you ready to sit for the OCS, SCS, whatever you need to do. That's great. Fantastic. But your patients are going to teach you any more, way more than any research can, than any mentor can.
I think a purpose of a mentor in a clinical setting is to accentuate the questions that you gain from the challenges your patients give you. And the more opportunities that you have, it's reps. The more reps you have, the better clinician you are going to be in the long run. Because what's going to happen is you're going to hit that roadblock and you're going to get a Dunning -Kruger effect. Yeah. Right. You're going to hit that that that bottom of I know nothing much earlier than anybody else.
And then you're going to start building out of that a set of clinical skills and interpersonal skills that are going to be invaluable for you on a clinical basis, but also on an operational and a leadership basis because you will be so much more adept at teaching your colleagues and patients than you ever would if you went to a residency or if you went to, you know,
the one out one patient every hour. It also has its incredibly high burnout. Right. Right. And we can talk about burnout. Maybe that's a whole nother. It's another podcast. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I think that that's my one takeaway is that see as many patients as you possibly can. Because in the middle of it, you know, my first job I saw I was seeing on average 14 to 16 average. Right. So I was having days of 24. And that's in Oregon.
Brian (34:43.598)
Right. So there was, I was seeing 24, you know, at most 24, 25, 26 a day, all the way down to sometimes 12. And at the time you're tired, right? I got pictures of coming home. I didn't get to, I get home till 9 PM. I, the only time I got to see my daughter was one shot Moroccan her to sleep, right? I'm a PT, right? I'm not a business owner. I'm just, I'm earning for somebody else. Right. Right. But I, I loved it. I woke, I woke up and I fought the day the next day. Right.
because one, there's responsibility for your patients. You go in those doors, all your other problems are gone. Right. Right. Because someone else has likely a bigger problem. Right. Right.
when you're in it, you're in the storm. All you see is the storm. When you're past it, you learn how to navigate through the storm better, more effectively, and the waters are much calmer on the other side. And I think, again, long -winded way to say that get as much reps in as you can. I agree with you 100%,
Brian. And to put context for anyone listening, it's just you're a great clinician. I've known you a while now. And to a certain degree,
you earned the right to see that 20 and 24. That didn't just happen. It wasn't forced upon you. We're talking about people that wanted to come see you to a certain degree. You were a victim of your own success and your own passion, right? Which a lot of MTs end up there, right? And that's a good thing. And so to anyone listening or a clinician that's listening or a young practitioner that's listening, I want to say that is a good thing. You hear that, it might sound like burnout, but it's not like that happened your third day. You got to the point where you earned those reps.
those patients that wanted to see you and you were a victim of your own success. That was a part of that. And to that point, I had one of my best mentors tell me when I was in year two, I was extremely frustrated. Didn't feel like I could get my patients better. I was debating whether or not I chose the right career. And he came alongside me and he said, you know, this job takes two to three years to get competent. It takes another two to three years to get good. And then the rest of your life to master.
Brian (36:51.918)
So in the context of what you just said, the more reps you can get, the faster that curve is for you and the faster that curve is to you getting to wherever it is that you want to go. And when you're focused on that, having a high volume of patients that want to see you and who you want to accommodate and serve fully, it just becomes a byproduct of that leaning in and that passion that every clinician should have. Yeah, no, I can't agree more. I was interested to hear your response to that as a question I didn't
Yeah, I don't think I've ever answered that one for you, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's one of the most valuable things. So we have all this industry level things. How does Victory PT solve that stuff?
Well, we let
Brian figure it out. I think he's the... Yeah, you sound like my wife. Nah, just kidding. She's the base. I think that's the main thing we have between the two of us. We have some 40 years of experience, let's call it, and seeing not only small scale, large scale and everything going on with the industry, we know the economics, we know the labor market. I think the main thing is to make sure we get it right in the first year.
We know that we want to introduce and leverage, you know, game changing technology for the patient's benefit. How do we align that to the labor market as well? So we've got time to figure that out. We almost need to, I don't know if soft steer is the right word, but we need to steer the overall service delivery method in a way that allows technology to enhance the overall ability to access the market.
but also deliver great care. And so those are the things that we need to figure out over the next year. Yeah, yeah, I think. Plus. Yeah, I think what we're aiming to solve is the perfection of the patient visit. You know, we want to do that without tech, right? But we were blessed to have these opportunities to pilot some of the most innovative clinical technology that there is in the world currently.
Brian (39:03.662)
both on the computer vision side and on the smart apparel side. So I think we'll leave the descriptive analysis of what that technology is until our non -disclosure. Yeah. It's over. OK. That's exactly. That's my plan,
Brian. That's a good business decision. Exactly. But for anybody listening on the patient of the PT side or even the clinic operations side,
Our goal is to solve all three of those stakeholder issues. The benefits that benefit the clinic are not hindering the PT. And the ones that are benefiting the PT are not hindering the clinic. And the ones that help the patients are helping both. Yes. All three, I should say. Very well said.
When you have a good operation, sometimes, like you said, you're a victim of your own success, which then hurts your access. Right? Because most of the time, you can't fill the labor in time to satisfy the patients that you need. Right. So you're not, you know, your conversion rate for your evaluations that you have the referrals you see is poor. So, you know, we're solving that. We're solving the patient optics on what their progress is, how it's happening. Right?
both live and over time. Right. I think what we're also doing, the technology is going to help us justify skilled care better than we ever can. Right. All right. I think with this this longitudinal data tracking, this live clinical day to day, it allows us to bolster our evidence that patient does need more care. Right. Because denials are happening sooner now. Right. You know, these these these payers are now putting caps on insurance. You know, hey, you get six visits and then
Even though my plan of care says this needs 24 in their post -op rotator cuff and you give me four more, just because that's in your standard data algorithm based off of your own insurance analytics from your actuaries. So I think we have some tools now to fight back on some of the headwinds, both in the labor and the patient and the operation side. So I hope anybody that's listening, you guys subscribe and both to.
Brian (41:19.246)
victory as a whole, but also this podcast, you understand what that means and how important this is for the industry. Because I think that we have an opportunity to sincerely transform how PT is perceived, the expectations that patients have, the expectations PT should now have, right? And aim for keep your eye on the target, right? Because as we're developing this, we're going to evolve with successes and the failures.
as long as we keep our eye on the target on what that means and never relinquish our demand that all three stakeholders and of course the provider referrals, right? Those relationships we have the outside relationships but specifically the victory PT stakeholders, we are unwavering our demand that they all succeed how we want them to succeed, right? And how they feel they need to succeed.
Right. How do we meet both the PTs and the patients where they're at and how do we do that over time? I couldn't agree with you more. I'd say it's going to require a lot of out of the box thinking for us because you and I could open up this practice and just practice their traditional way and treat patients. I'm sure we could be successful, but we're trying to do something different here, something meaningful for not only the broader patient population, but the labor market and prove that it can work and try to get out ahead of where we know the industry is going and we want to be a part of that change.
And I think that's going to be critical to do that. And honestly, it's going to take more conversations than you and I are having. So anyone listening, thoughts, ideas, questions, I think would be very helpful for us to, as we move forward with that. But you're right, every decision that we make going forward that's of a workflow or of a purchase, anything, anything we decide to do needs to, it needs to be filtered through those three questions and formatted in a way that allows us to accomplish all those things. And I think that's going to be.
the fun challenge, honestly, over the next year. And I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to working with you and figuring those things out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we've both been blessed with the opportunity to have a variety of professional experiences. Yep. Right. Like, you know, I worked in my first two jobs were in a private, private family -owned spot and then the national practice. And, you know, we could absolutely open, kind of just another PT clinic, but I don't think either one of you or I wanted that in terms of our grand scope of.
Brian (43:42.83)
Yeah. Career trajectory and our experience. I don't think they would they would do the industry a service. Right. And so, you know, when we see the industry and we want to leave it better than how we found it. Right. Right. And now we have the tools to do it. Right. I think it's almost demanded of us to be able to do that and sincerely have the intention on transforming the industry for the better for the PT. Right. Right. Because we've seen the good, we've seen the bad.
And again, we can wade through the storm and see where the goal is in order to get to those calm waters for all three of all. So I'm excited for what where we're going and how we're going to get there. And I hope everybody listening has a has an opportunity to join the journey. So absolutely. I think we can leave it at that. What do you think?
I think we're good. Okay. All right. Bye everybody. I call that a victorious podcast. Victory labs. Later.
