Do's and Don'ts of Training Your Pelvic Health Clinic Team

Welcome to pelibiz podcast. I'm Dr. Kelly Alhui. I've grown my pelvic health practice, orthopelvic physical therapy, and now I'm helping pelvic health professionals do the same. Each week I give you the knowledge you need to grow your practice. Let's get into today's episode.

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Today I'm going to talk about the pros and cons of training. A pt, ot, pta, a coda, all the things how, what are the pros, what are the cons, what are the do's and don'ts? So first, let's just start out with the do's. The number one thing is you must have systems. Systems are key. So you're probably asking me, Kelly, well, what kind of systems? All right, so you want systems on how they actually do notes, how they check people and how they pay for the visit. You want systems on handling objections and then you want systems on how to treat. Like, what is your method to treat? Most of us are like, oh, we just like do what they. What they taught us in school. No, but really, like you've got to come up with a method of every single thing for every single diagnoses. What is that? How do you do those things? You know, for us, that's why I created Pelby Biz, is I have my methods and everything for everyone I coach and that's what I use in my clinic as well. Like, it is very symbiotic of what we're doing in clinic, is what I also coach. So it's real life things that I know actually worked. And I've trained a fair amount of therapists that have come onto my clinic how to do this stuff. And I've used all these systems. So systems is the number one thing you must have when actually trying to train a therapist.

Okay.

Number two, I would pre record everything. So if you are teaching or if you are doing a workshop or you are doing whatever, I would record it and make sure that that person has a recording of it so that they know what they need to be doing and they can watch that. And I would say this part, number three, I would say they need to watch that before they actually come on with you. Okay. As like a mentorship where they actually watch the videos to say, okay, this is kind of what I'm getting into. This is what I need to know. And then clearly probably have to do some in person training as well. But at least that can get them started now. Now, let's just say whoever you hire is from out of town. I personally like to get them on a zoom call beforehand before they come in and start training them. Then start talking to them, start talking to them about handling objections or how to do some kind of treatment. You can do everything over the computer screen. They don't have to actually be in person. So there's so much value in that. And you can start like three months out, seven months out, however long you think. I can tell you this. My first hire probably took me about six months to actually, like get them onboarded. So I did this whole, like slowly ramping up thing where they would only see like a minimum of four patients a day. I did that for like a month. Then I had, you know, 15 minute to 30 minutes breaks in between. And I started to realize this is too crazy. It is too much of a slow onboarding process. What I actually realized is I was actually hindering them instead of just filling the schedule, having them start immediately the first day, what do we have to do? When we started, we basically had a full schedule the second we started, right? Any company I ever worked for, they had a full schedule. I was actually able then to pick up on things quicker because it was a repetition of doing the thing, doing the thing, doing the thing, doing the thing.

Right.

So because of that, it just made me be able to do the actual thing better and quicker rather than taking a therapist six months to slowly ramp up. It just wasn't ideal. And each hire that I hired as a therapist, I realized, takes less and less time because you actually start to develop those systems and start to know like, oh, okay, it doesn't take me as long, or, oh, I could do this in a shorter way. So I'm all you always should be thinking about, like, how can I train this therapist in a condensed period of time but still provide massive value to that therapist? And so I think that's very important when training people. I think also this is very important that no one really talks about is setting the expectations very clearly. Now, as a new therapist, hiring your first hire, it is super scary because you're like, I can't even pay my salary. How am I going to pay someone else's salary? I waited a whole year, saw 50 patients a week for three months straight, because I couldn't. I couldn't fathom paying someone an 80 to $90,000 salary. And I wasn't even getting paid that first off. I mean, I came out making 62,000, seeing 14 patients a day. Okay, two, three hours of notes at night. So I could not even fathom that on how was I going to be responsible for someone's crazy salary? It was, like, so out there. I couldn't. It was so overwhelming.

I didn't do it.

And I basically just, like, killed my body because I was like, can't hire. It's not worth it. But the reality was, it was really worth it. It was definitely really worth it. Um, but when I hired, guess what happened? My first hire, she quit. Two weeks. No, two months in, she quit. And you know why? Because I didn't set the expectation clear enough. I told her one thing, and then I did something else. I told her this thing. Maybe it didn't happen to the way that she maybe thought. I just didn't know. So it was very hard to set the expectation because I just didn't know. I've never been in a situation, so at that point, I really should have leaned on my coach to be like, hey, how does this hiring thing go? What am I supposed to say to her? And set, like, all those rules and lay it all out there, because it would have saved me a lot of headache, and she probably wouldn't have left. Be honest. Okay, so setting expectations, clear on what, like, the rules are in the clinic, and then also setting expectations of, like, what's required of the person. Like, what is. What's their schedule gonna be like? Like, simple stuff. What's their schedule gonna be? Like, what are the do's and don'ts of the clinic? What happens if there's a snow day? What happens if there's an earthquake or a hurricane? Like, just really clearly defining what happens with pto, how do they request pto, all that stuff, and how is that defined? So I think that's you know, just really important to break down and understand and sometimes just know it can be very, very hard. If you are a PT looking to hire, it could be very, very hard to figure that out. And you're going to need guidance for sure. Okay? And I always say, just hire a mentor. They'll tell you what to say, what to do, all the things, and, like, really help show you the path so you don't have to go through, like, all the pain of you have no energy. I mean, imagine this for real. I know energy. I've seen 50 patients a week who does that. No one. Okay. And now I come to hire. Now I got to give all my energy to the new hire. But I had none. I was done. I was literally done. And then I put all my freaking energy, like, every ounce of my freaking day into this person. And then she quits two months later, says, good luck. And I had all these patients. I put myself back into the clinic, and it was just. It was a nightmare. It was a freaking nightmare. So, again, learn from our mistakes.

Okay?

The other thing I would do is, like I said, train on objections and treatment, have weekly staff meetings, and in the weekly staff meetings, go over treatments, build the therapist confidence. So go over, like, okay, we had Joe come in today. Joe had erectile dysfunction. Okay, let's talk about how each visit a Joe comes in, how you're actually going to progress Joe, and that helps build up the therapist's confidence. They're like, oh, my God, yes, I can do this. I can get better at this. You know? And then they feel amazing, and they actually help the clients out. I think that's very important to note. Pay another PT or OT or pta, whoever, coda to come in. And you can also pay them to train a therapist so that you don't have to put the time into it if they're. They know how you would actually train them. Okay. I think that's important. So. So again, not trying to put it on. You take all your energy, can someone else do it besides you? And that is correct. Someone else can do it. You can train someone else to do it, and they can do it. The don'ts of training, don't just expect someone to come into your clinic and be like, I'm gonna schedule, and I know exactly what to do. I'm gonna feel the confidence. And don't expect there not to be hiccups. Don't expect there not to be. Of handling objections. And there's gonna be people that you're gonna be like, man, I spent forever to get that eval in and then she just came in for one visit cuz the person didn't know how to treat this condition. And it's frustrating, it's very frustrating to watch the schedule go from up here to down, down, down, down, down. And you're just like oh my gosh, what can I do to help this patient out or help this therapist out? And that's when you gotta have a conversation with them and you gotta figure out how can I help you learn better? What do you need from me? Those are the questions you would ask. Okay, but what I would say don't do is get frustrated. It's easier said than done. Don't get frustrated and then be like they suck, you suck. And then they end up going bye bye. Because they're just getting negative input. You know, just FYI. Don't just have them come in and feel that they know exactly what to do and what the culture is and all that kind of stuff. Don't just expect that. You got to show them what the culture is. Don't even just tell them what the culture is. You gotta show em like this is how we operate around here and this is how it is. So I think that's important. But I think those are like really the big lessons of training therapists, the pros, the cons. I mean I would say the, the ugly part of it is potentially they wouldn't pick up on the training or potentially maybe their personality wasn't a good fit for the patients that we actually treat. Because trust me, doing pelvic floor is not for the faint heart and it can't be for everyone. You have to have the personality to like connect with people and be like really open with them and, and all that kind of stuff. And if someone can't connect, that's a problem. This is another whole subject. But when you're hiring, see if the person can actually connect.

Okay?

See if the person can actually connect. That's massively important. I'll take that over skills any day. So hopefully you guys learn some good lessons and learn from, from all the pain of hen through. It's amazing. I want to finish this out by saying if you guys are thinking about hiring and you're on the fence of do I just want it to be me? I know most of us came and dream past just me because you think it's going to be like headache, but it's truly not. Yes there's hard times, yes there are annoying times, but the reality is if you build out a team, they actually can help you, especially the right one. And you'll only be more thankful because you'll be able to get your time back and, you know, really help continue to grow if that's what you want, or spend time with your family or whatever else you want to do. So hopefully this was helpful. Bye guys. I consider myself a business and life coach. Are you ready to live the life of your dreams as an entrepreneur? If so, let's chat that see the episode notes below and go ahead and book a call. See you all next week.