Why Now Is the BEST Time to Become a Physical Therapy Owner with Tim Spooner

Welcome to today's show, Rockstars. And I have to start by asking, have you ever worried about the future of physical therapy? Like, if you want to practice, have you ever worried about the future of your investment and whether or not you should stay in it? Well, this is the episode for you because we're going to be talking to Tim Spooner, the CEO and founder of Spooner Physical Therapy, the largest privately owned independent physical therapy practice in the state of Arizona. He believes, as I do, that this is the single best time to be a physical therapist and to own a private practice. I'm not going to explain why here, because he's going to do a much better job than I could of helping you understand why. The big problems we face as an industry are huge opportunities for us to grow, not just our income, but our impact in the healthcare system at large. Enjoy the show. All right, Tim, so let's get right into it. Last year, 20,000 physical therapists leave our profession. So why is it that you say this is the best time in the history of our profession to become a physical therapist?

That's a great question, and it really creates an oxymoron for us. But let's look at the facts. We're in an industry that is a $600 billion industry. And annually in America, the musculoskeletal industry, of which we are a part of, is a $600 billion industry. And they estimate that 25 to 45% of that is waste. And the reason that there's a lot of waste in it is that people don't access the medical system through a primary care musculoskeletal specialist. And as a result, there's a ton of waste when we know that 85% of the musculoskeletal conditions could be taken care of conservatively by a medical practitioner that knows biomechanics and can help those injuries and save a lot of costs. Now, why are people leaving the profession? They haven't been told that they haven't been shown the door. They've been shown into a system or shoved into a system and given a protocol that takes away their creativity, takes away their brain power, and takes away all of the service attitude that most therapists get into the profession to have. They're looking at this going, I don't think I want to do this for 30 years. And I have to agree with them that those systems are not conducive. I wouldn't want to work in that system. And that's why I don't, because I did work in one of those systems. It doesn't encourage us to be the passionate professionals that we went to school to be.

Yeah, I love that answer, you know, because I think to your point, from the perspective of 20,000 people leaving because they've bought into this narrative that the only way I can be a physical therapist if I want to be a business owner or a leader in an outpatient setting is I have to go make $75,000 a year and see 80 visits a week and that's it. Like maybe if I want to earn more money, I have to take on the nightmare of owning a practice, which also is a narrative that isn't true. There's lots of resources now to open practices. But that's the entire perspective. And what you're saying is there's $600 billion of demand and we are the experts.

Yep.

And so you're saying just that fact alone is, is more than enough reason to establish that if we understood what was possible that we could really write our own futures if we just knew what the possibilities were.

Sure. And I tell new grads and doctorate that are getting ready to graduate that you're going to have a successful career, but it won't be like mine. And by that I mean you won't work in just an insurance world. You will find another way to be compensated because the people that are paying the bill today are frustrated with that waste and we will have to find different ways to communicate and different payment systems that they agree with. And so it's not the typical insurance model. It will be a different population health strategy that is becoming more and more common. Because the problem with health care is that it's becoming unsustainable for the employer to provide that for their employees in a cost effective manner. And so they want solutions that that do exist and so we need to bring those to the market.

Yeah, there's other solutions out there besides the insurance based business, which is what most of us I know, I do primarily think of. But that's ironic too because you have a very successful multi location. You're the largest independent private practice owner in the state of Arizona. So saying that it makes me feel like you have some secrets of success within the traditional commercial world and you have some concept around what growth looks like outside of that. What are your secrets around the commercial side of things? Because from what you just said, it makes me wonder is there any hope for that?

I don't think there's secrets. First of all, I think one of the things I tell anyone who's graduating.

From their program is, congratulations on getting your doctorate in manual labor. And they look at me and go, no, I'm getting a doctorate in physical therapy. And I'm like, well, then obviously you don't understand the profession because we do manual labor for a living. It is work. And because it is work, it requires work ethic. And that work ethic means you have to prepare your mind, your body, your spirit to be able to take care of someone else's mind, body and spirit. And so it's not something you can just casually roll up to because you have to gain the skill and the experience to be able to effectively do that. We have this tremendous knowledge base that gets built upon and built upon year over year with, you know, taking more classes or following your passion into what you really want to do. And as you do that, you're learning and moving down a path. It's not something that happens passively. You have to actively go, go after that. And so.

It is work. There's no secret sauce to that. But if you read books on people that become millionaires and people that become very successful, they don't develop a widget on Friday, they do something consistently well over a period of time, and they sock a little bit away and they manage their money well. The good news is that therapists, as a heart service forward business, get to do that. And we get to do that where people come to see us and pay us money to do what we went to school to do, which is, quite frankly, a gift. Now we just have to change a little bit of how we get reimbursed. And that's happening today. We're making it happen. But it is. It is something that we have to understand what is possible and not just accept, you know, the norm of, you know, these insurance issues and problems that come about.

Agreed. I think, you know, Rockstar, as you're listening to this, one thing I want you to highlight, really focus on, is that there's this almost dark depression around the future of reimbursement for our industry. People think, and this is why people are leaving in part, is because they think, oh my gosh, how could this ever get better with the reimbursements declining over time? But what they're not seeing are the fighters. They're not seeing this beginning of a movement that maybe, Tim, you and I are more privileged to see because we spend time outside of our practices more in the industry. But there is a movement and it's coming and it's. It's not small pts more and more are getting fed up. PT owners are picking up, picking themselves up by their bootstraps and getting really serious about fighting insurances and they're starting to win. There's an organization in Arkansas called Rehab Net that's a completely like private practice for private practice owners kind of network and they are consistently fighting and winning against lowering their reimbursements or getting higher and higher reimbursements. So on the insurance side, you know, there's, there's more good news coming. I think that's the thing. I see on social media, Tim, a ton of these Facebook groups. It's just massive complaining sessions about how this industry is worthless. I have people on my YouTube videos all the time respond angrily. These are PTs by the way, who are angry saying, yeah, you're just in it for the money. And like if you see, if you see more than one person an hour, you are the biggest hypocrite of all time. Like, you know, not like we're out there promoting five visits per hour. It's not like we're doing that. It's just one of those things where the mindset needs to shift. So when you're talking to someone who's new, Tim, and they're coming up and you're trying to explain to them why this is going to be better for them, obviously you mentioned that there's reimbursements are going to start getting better as people fight it. But what else would you tell someone who's coming out, who's scared about becoming a physical therapist or someone who's scared to become a PT owner? What would you tell them that would help encourage them?

There's a lot of different things and part of it is just understand where the negativity comes from. If someone says, well I can't do that, I got to understand why they can't and what the limit is. And if they say it's an insurance limitation, well then that's pretty easy. Eliminate the insurance. Eliminate that from your business. We fired the major insurance company last year from our company because they didn't value us. We've done this a couple times. It's painful. But if they're not going to value us in what service we're providing, then they need me more than I need them. I'd rather be a smaller, better company than a larger, less profitable or company where I'm not able to keep my doors open and pay my people well. I want to be a well run company as well. So when I look at those issues on insurance, there's several things and let's take a step back and just say, what is insurance and why does it exist? And why do they hate therapists so much? Let's understand the equation. Pain drives claims, drives premiums. Pain drives claims, drives premiums. Insurance companies make money by charging premiums and every year they want their premiums to go up.

So they purposely drive higher claims.

Everything on that insurance card is a barrier to seeing me.

High deductible, co pays, visit limits, authorization, all of that adds cost and waste to the system. To see a primary care person who should help that musculoskeletal condition and relieve it from the medical community, you know, get those people well and do that faster. But if I don't take care of those primary care needs, then they become higher cost issues down the road. And what does an insurance company want? They want higher costs. No matter what billboard you're going to see, they want. And this is the sick care system that we live in today. And that's why it needs to change, is that people want to be healthier, but we have to help them along the way. We have to understand what their needs are and provide that primary care musculoskeletal treatment that they need. So understanding the equation for insurance is really key. And once you understand that everything on that insurance card is a barrier to seeing us, now you have to ask, well, who does care about lowering costs? Who's paying the bill? Well, individuals are. They're paying some of this, but a lot of them can't afford it. Well, over 50% of Americans get their insurance from their employer. Well, shockingly enough, employers are very concerned about lowering their healthcare costs, which is a top three to four on their P and L nowadays. And if they're self insured and paying those claims, or even if they're fully insured and getting these 7 to 12, 13, 14% increases. I met a physical therapist that got a 30% increase in his premiums. That was a $400,000 increase in his expenses. That's a astronomical amount. And it's not like I can go and charge more for that. So what is that person supposed to do? You know, so there are, these are the problems that exist. But every problem we have to understand creates an opportunity. And the opportunities are immense. And that's why I feel it's the golden age of physical therapy, that if you're getting into the profession now, get excited, get excited, but get around people who are excited because the people who are leaving the profession, they aren't excited about the profession, they're bored they're thinking this is a dead end job. And my only wish is I was 30 years younger, man.

I agree, and I will tell you, I feel the same way. But I think what would really serve the audience because I can almost hear them in my head, the rock stars going, what opportunities are you talking about? You know, and you've got some really cool things that you're doing, I think would be cool to share. But let's talk globally about these opportunities because you just hit it on the head, right? You've got this huge issue where I don't know if it's like intentional. It might sound a little conspiracy theory if it's true. But I'm also one of those guys, the older I get, where it's like, how can it not be true? You follow the money. Insurance companies know what physical therapists could prevent, which would really take them out of their profits. If we could prevent a lot of these things that are causing claims and premiums, they know that we're going to suppress their growth in their finances. And I don't want to think that they're intentionally doing it, but maybe they are, who knows? The point is though, is that when you're talking about all these people who are being pitched, who are in pain, who want to get the care they need and maybe prevent these things, you're saying that we as a profession, being musculoskeletal, not so much physical therapists, but being musculoskeletal experts, positions us in the $600 billion industry. And I gotta just say quickly, you know, I've always heard that, you know, we're a 30 to $40 billion industry, physical therapy, but you just did something I was, I never considered. The musculoskeletal industry is $600 billion.

Well, we're a primary care musculoskeletal specialist, so you should see us first. This is what happens in the military and in several other industrialized nations. You see the PT first. Okay, so why wouldn't we do it here? We have the resource, we have pts. But we want, you know, we have to understand.

The powers that be in the five, four and a half, $5 trillion industry that is healthcare in America. The people at the top don't really want it to change. The industry's at the top. And why would you? You're making gobs of money off of it. But we have to look at that and say, is that good for us? Is that good for the economy if we're paying this much more for healthcare? Are Americans that Much more healthy. Do we get 10% healthier every year? Oh man, I don't know. Walk by a grade school nowadays? I don't think so. It's dangerous. And we walk by an average mall and look around and go, ooh, that's, that doesn't look healthy either. So I think we're not getting what we pay for. Number one. That's gotta be a wake up call. But those industries, they're not going to change. It's just go think any analogy you want. But I always like to use the guy that had a large stable of horses when Henry Ford rolled out automobile. They go, that's not going to last. Somebody was first, somebody developed it. And eventually we changed how we commuted from horseback and buggy to this motorized vehicle's got some options. Healthcare too will evolve. Nothing stays the same forever. And we have great healthcare in America. But the reality is.

A couple numbers here. What is the PT expenditure? It's only 3 to 4%.

You know, it's negligible. When we look at every dollar spent in healthcare, only 27 cents goes to a physician.

73 cents of overhead, folks. What other business survives that way than the primary person delivering the service? Not getting some of that. And we're wasting all this on administrative and overhead. And just look at the bloated healthcare hospital systems that we have. Those are sick care systems. We need them, but we don't need that many of them.

And getting people healthy on the preventative side is the huge opportunity. That was what you were saying before I hit record was this idea that like we are positioned because we're musculoskeletal experts to get ahead of this sick care system that's promoting people to remain sick. And so the pivot is the opportunity. It's the pivot because the whole, you're saying the whole industry of healthcare, this multi trillion dollar industry that, you know, musculoskeletal is not a small piece of that, by the way, $600 billion. But the whole industry's gotta pivot into this new methodology that's gonna serve people better, which it always has to do for survival. Right? And you're saying that pivot is our opportunity. So how are you serving that opportunity now? How, what, what opportunities do you see?

Talk to me about that.

How do people consume things.

They want to consume? You got to be convenient. You have to be open for business. If I've got a question, I'd like to have it answered by a professional. And if I'm available that way. So we have A subscription system that we utilize to, you know, for people with high deductibles and stuff like that, that they can contact us directly, get answers to their questions, even do a virtual session or, and, or, you know, get recommended and come into a clinic if hands on care is needed at that point. The key for that is saying, you know, for therapists that say, I only get paid when I do something in a slot by an insurance company, well, you have pigeonholed yourself into a slot by an insurance company. So let's think outside that box and say, well, what is possibility? Well, I have great knowledge, I have preventative ideas. Can I get paid for those? And the answer is yes. In the right system, you can. Okay. In the right system, you can provide expertise not only for rehab, which is a lot of what people. People think that's all PT does. But we have the skills to do prevention, we have the skills to do wellness. We have the skills to do performance training and not performance training, just when we think of like sports performance. But Mrs. Jones, who does a one set max rep of getting out of a sit to stand out of a chair in a nursing home, helping her perform better decreases her overall spend, decreases the overall spend on the system. If I can keep her healthier and moving better and moving longer, are there ways to do that? Absolutely. Do we have the skills as a profession to do that? Yes. The problem is we need to take our PT mindset and leave it over in the corner. Bring your PT skill set to the table and now show me your creativity.

Man, I got moved by that. I think it's, keep that PT mindset in the corner, but bring your skill set and open your mind to what's possible.

Absolutely.

I see people, Tim. I've got younger generations are figuring it out. I've got this one girl I was talking to, girl, she's a new grad. As you get older, they all see me.

It's gonna stay easy, Grandpa.

She was married with two kids. And I'm like, oh, that little girl. She came out of her degree, she already knew she wanted to specialize in pelvic health. And she had been building since her college days a social media presence where she was showing her journey. With two kids, she had literally tens of thousands of followers. She launched. I took her to lunch because she wanted some guidance, right? And I'm like, I should be taking lunch from you because she had this follower group. And she's like, yeah, I'm going to do these courses and then I'm going to have a Physical location. She had this totally different model. And, you know, I think a lot of times in our industry, there's this new growing trend of, like, cash pay, outpatient services. But I think even that is so limited because we're still staying in that sick mindset. Like, we're all rehab, you know, what you're talking about is, like, this shift of, like, taking that skill set. Yeah, we can apply it to rehab when people are hurt or sick, but the greatest opportunity lies. And where people are willing to pay cash services for is the endless number of ways we can apply that skillset to help people take control of their health. And think about how we would feel as a profession, rock stars, if we occurred to ourselves as people who maximized the health of the people around us instead of just being on the receiving end of a referral. Because if we were the front leaders on the musculoskeletal front and we were preventing these things and maximizing people's function. I always think of dentistry. Tim. I have a friend. You know, dentists obviously handle a lot of cavities. A lot of what they do is rehabilitative in a sense, because they're taking sickness and healing. It's. But where do they make most of their money? It's in the cosmetic side of things, or any of these. Or even, like, the preventative side if you think of orthodontics. Right. Like, just. I have a friend, for example, who's a cosmetic dentist, and he tells me it's like, yeah, it's about improving their confidence. You know, it might look a little superficial on the outside, but people are willing to pay to build their confidence and their capability. And that's the parallel I want to make, is that if we became like the dentists in that regard and made our focus about improving people's confidence and capabilities, whatever that looks like for us, that's where the big bucks lie. Which, again, it's not about the money. It's about helping these millions of people not need something in the first place.

The only challenge with that is that we'd have to agree on something. And that's the challenge for our profession, is we don't like to agree on much. So if you tell someone to go in and get their teeth cleaned, they kind of know what that is. And so they're going to do it twice a year to keep their preventative maintenance up, keep their teeth and their oral structure and all the things healthy. And, you know, there's some very strong parallels in.

Periodontal disease, gum disease, and heart Disease and health issues.

Oh, big time.

And so very much that we could say, what are the parallels in not moving? Well, what we prescribe as movement professionals is movement. That's what we prescribe. We don't prescribe exercise, we prescribe movement. And when I prescribe movement, do I know how to dose it? Well, do I know how to lead somebody from a debilitated state into a strong, healthy state? And do I possess the skills? Could we get 100 therapists into a room and put a total knee patient in front of them and say, let's do something consistent for all of us that all of us would agree would be great for this person? Boy, that'd be a tough call to get all of us to agree. And I say this because there's this push to say everybody should get a checkup with their physical therapist. Great idea. What are we going to measure?

Yeah. And how are you going to measure it?

And how are we going to measure it? And show me the duplicity on that or the, or the, you know, how that is going to be valuable. And I think if we started doing a true functional screen, a true movement assessment, if you will, of a total body, not just a range of motion of an elbow. Who cares? Yes, you care if your elbow's broken. But, you know, how does that allow me to do what I want to do with my whole body movement? And I think, you know, if we could agree on something like that, then we could very easily devise a way to capture that information. And now we could start a database where every therapist was doing this all across the country. Throw a database into it, and we'd know what the true norms are. We'd have the information that we need to compare it against to say this person's out of whack. We could go into elementary schools and say, let me take little Johnny in the beginning of the year, test him, and then have him retested at the end of the year because I gave him movement training to have him be healthier. Do you think we could prevent some of the low back issues that we have by teaching health related things down in the elementary school when people are learning habits? Absolutely we could. And I think that is the responsibility of this profession to take and do that. The challenge we have is we are very much an autonomous group that likes to work independently.

Yeah.

You know, so how do we work together while we're working independently to gather information that would benefit the profession as a whole? That's a challenge.

Yeah. I think at the end of the day, Tim, you know the short answer in my opinion to that, like I've got the answer, but is. Well, the obvious short answer is, is the network, if we can, if we can spend time really building connections like we're doing here together and other people do, but very proportionally, very few members of our industry do. If we could spend time talking about the bigger picture and get aligned to that, that would hopefully create some space for us to do, do that. And I think obviously that's the role supposedly of like the APTA and other elements. And I'm not going to go on that at all. I just think it's a matter of, of like to your point, there's so, so much endless opportunity if we can get together. You know, when you're talking about the elementary school piece, my thought went to my mom, she's 80 years old, she just fell last week. I've been trying to get her to pt. I had gotten her a few times to pt. She won't work with me. Right. Like it's one of those things. And I kept thinking as you're talking, I'm like, there is an entire, we're talking billions of dollars of opportunity to get with the geriatric population to help teach them the movements that they don't know. Like when they're sitting in their chair all day, they kind of know it's not good for them, but they have no idea how simple it would be to do some closed change functional activities on a semi regular basis that would greatly eliminate their fall risk. And you know, the mortality rate of people who fall and break their femurs is astronomically high above a certain age point. So like for us to get ahead of that would be an incredible opportunity and their kids would be willing to pay for that. For their parents there'd be so much. But we just gotta get out of the mindset of like what we do is we work with insurance and this is how we get paid. And, and, and I have to do my way, I have to get trained in my little certification, which makes me feel special because that's where my value is, you know, because your certification in whatever your specialty is, you know, back treating backs, for example, you know, all the different certifications that exist out there and they all get results. So if we could just agree upon some sort of preventative measure that would allow us to measure these things into a database like other industries do, our opportunity could be endless. Tim, tell us a little bit about your current project with Solve Global. I think that company is a wonderful example of how you're looking at the end at the healthcare industry. As someone who's empowered to make a difference, can you tell us a little bit about Solve Global?

Sure. Solve Global is a complete musculoskeletal solution for employers. So we are a tech enabled human maintenance solution is kind of a, is what we, is what we act on. We go into an employer.

We have the technology to gather on a regular basis information from every employee. And then using predictive analytics program and a kind of a computer aided thing, we can analyze the risk within that employee base. So the reason that Solve Global exists is we know that the costs of musculoskeletal injuries for an employer are their number one cost. It's the number one cost in their workman's comp, it's 20% and the number one cost on their group health spend. Leading cause of disability, leading cause of chronic pain and the leading driver of opioid use. And over 50% of employees at any one time have a musculoskeletal thing that we could help.

Tim, I don't know. I didn't know any of this. Just like being transparent as you're talking, this, this is kind of blowing my mind.

Yeah, these are all research validated statistical things that exist. Knowing that then if I'm an employer, if I'm going to put in a solution to help my employees, why wouldn't I go after something that affects them the most employees and provides the biggest bang for my buck? Absolutely. Let's go after musculoskeletal. What solution should I put in? Should I put in a virtual Hinge Swartz solution? Well, I can tell you that the state of New Jersey just in their state budget minutes just got rid of all of those because they showed low engagement and didn't do any good. You know, people weren't healthier and they didn't really, didn't really, didn't really have any cost, didn't really have any benefit. So why have them? We need a better solution for our problem. And SALT Global is that solution because we do a hybrid of both on site, near site and virtual to take care of that. And what we do is once we have that information, it's self reported and these people are asking for help. They're saying that my back hurts. What can you do for me? And so if we look at something, let's say, and this is the reality, is that things have been getting pushed down the conveyor belt in the health care system for so long that people now have more Chronic issues. We find that 50 to 60% of people that we check in with have chronic issues. Should they all go get a surgery? No. Should they? You know, is there something that we can do to help? Absolutely. We can. We can give them a little tune up. They may have an arthritic back or neck. That's okay. We can do things to tune them up and let them feel better and then give them something to do to unload that system, to unwind that system that gets them a little better. And you know what I'm gonna see in two weeks? I'm gonna see you in three weeks. Our current insurance system wouldn't warrant that. That'd be called maintenance.

And that's, you know. Yeah. Person may have a chronic issue. Okay. They need a little help all the time. Other issues are that we can prevent. You know, my shoulder's starting to get sore from this work I've been doing. Pulling on this lever or reaching and moving these packages. And let me check that out, Let me see what's going on and give you a few preventative exercises. Let me prescribe some movements to help you be more fit for work. And so there are a lot of things that we can do for that employer for that. Excuse me, for that employee that keep them from becoming a claim. And if I keep them from becoming a claim, who's that benefit? Well, the employee got taken care of. They're happy. They need that paycheck. They want to work. The employer benefit by not getting claims, but also benefit by higher productivity, higher retention, higher recruitment, because they have a culture of taking care of their people.

Yeah, I mean, that first thing, I was like, yeah, that's all we need to know is that the people get covered. You're like, who wins? The people don't end up developing. I mean, it's so funny because I forget what it's like to be a patient until I hurt myself. And the older I get, the more I'm doing. Like, I went to the gym to lift for the first time in a while and I really messed up my neck. And like, it ruined. Not to be dramatic, but it felt like it ruined my life for a couple weeks because, like, I couldn't do anything. And gratefully I knew what to do for it. But it was just this idea of, like, I knew better, I knew better. I knew what to do. But most people have no clue. They just live life. They. They make decisions and they caught. They have these consequences. So your company, Solve Global gets in there, and these companies are willing to pay for it, because you're getting people better before they get super ill, but you're preventing a whole ton of other issues.

They don't necessarily have to pay for it because the program pays for itself. Here's what happens is Today you're spending 100% on medical spend. You're still going to have medical spend. You're still going to have surgeries, you're still going to have things you need to do, injections, MRIs, et cetera. But that 50% that we change, that is mostly waste. We're going to divide that in two. Part of it's going to be for the program, part of it is going to go back into the employer's pocket. So we're just taking what you're spending today and reallocating it. And by reallocating it and saying, I'm going to use a MSK solution that is comprehensive and, and take care of my employees, and I'm gonna benefit from that. Who wouldn't wanna sign up for that? We see it in the companies that we've been working with. There are companies we've been working with for 17, 18 years, and we have the data to prove that it works.

It's not rocket science. It's just taking care of people when they need it.

Yeah. It also requires that different mindset, though. Again, like, it's. It really. It's kind of silly to me how simple that is. Like, when I hear that, I'm like, oh, man, of course.

Who.

As an employer, I really get at being a business owner. You know, with employees, if someone gets hurt, the amount of expense and waste and trauma that occurs across the board is very sizable. And so one of the biggest problems I have as a business owner, and, you know, this, being a business owner is just that thing you're talking about, which is, how can we invest in people's health and deal with these things in a way that would attract the right talent? Because that's a number one thing for most people is having their health benefits covered. So if the company is able to invest in their people in a way that is preventative, I love the message that sends this idea of like, hey, we think differently. We want you to never get hurt in the first place. We're spending and it feels. It's ironic because it probably feels to the employees like they're spending additional money trying to prevent these things from happening because they care about their people so much. But in truth, they're saving so much money because they're not spending that 50% on waste. They're not spending all that time dealing with all the injuries and helping them. You know, those are problems that are solved before they even even have them.

Yeah. And I would challenge any business owner out there with, you know, especially in our field, if you're frustrated with an insurance company.

Yet you have said insurance companies as your benefits, what are you doing? I mean, that's. You can't have it both ways.

You have to understand, educate yourself. And once you educate yourself, there are a lot of different ways to get health care benefits to your employees. And notice I said health care benefits, not health insurance. There's a two totally different things. And understand that health insurance is not health care. Not in the least bit. In fact, it's sick care for the most part. So we have to understand that once we understand that, the solutions become. There's a myriad of different solutions. We probably don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

But I, yeah, I was thinking of companies. I'm like, oh, I could mention this company or that company, because there's these other systems that are out there now that are solving it. Like the problem is the beginning of getting addressed. And so for people just to feel disillusioned and thinking this is all going downhill permanently, they're not seeing what's happening. A lot of cool things are coming.

The reality is that people are putting healthcare back into their companies, and when they do that, they stop shipping their profits and their resources to Wall Street. And when they stop doing that, they actually take better care of their employees.

Man. Okay, so what advice would you give a physical therapist who wants to become an owner? Like, start a practice? Or maybe there, maybe it's. Maybe there are two different people, but also maybe an owner who's got a practice, but they're just super, like, overwhelmed. Like, you talk about educating yourself. What are some of the ways that you would recommend, recommend these individuals get dialed in with this new way of thinking?

It's a great question, and I think there's a ton of different resources out there. I've read a lot. I've looked at it. I've networked, really. And that's probably the biggest thing that I've done, is network with people who are on the right side of change. It's very easy for me now, within two or three statements or questions with an individual to know if they are on the right side of change or they're. They're going to exist in the sick care system. So once you understand who's on the right care side, who's on the right side of change. Then there are, then there. Then you start asking your questions, how do I lower my health care premiums? How do I do these things? I, for one, I always thought my insurance broker was my best buddy. He got me insurance, he kept bringing me increases. But then at a certain point I go, I've never written that guy a check. And so I asked him, I said, where do you get your commissions from? And he goes, what do you mean? You know, And I said, how do you get paid? And it was a very, I'd read a book and it asked, you know, this is one of the appendix they said is have them disclose their fees. And they refused to disclose to me, their client, how much they were making off of my premium. And so I'm like, huh. So you're obviously on the take. So there's things that I've done along the ways to help educate myself. But you can post my number up here in my email. I'm happy to talk to anyone because this movement, as you said, is growing. There are very few of us. I go to several conferences a year and I'm the only therapist.

Sure.

And so we need to be better represented. We can go to our own conferences where everyone just kind of bitches and moans about insurance rates, or we can go to the solution side where we can take our skill set and actually bring it to employers, physician groups and other things that are wanting to take better care of their clients and their people. So there's lots of resources out there. I am happy to talk with people and.

If you ever do a call in session, be kind of fun just to do a call in session one time.

You know, it's funny, not only do I have plans to do that, I already bought the number. It's going to be 1-877-Welpower. I've already bought that number. So you'll be my first guest. You'll be my first guest for the call in show. Because the main, the main focus of this podcast is, and it says it at the intro, is that your network is your net worth. The biggest thing that I've told my sons and anyone who asks what's the best advice I could ever give is who you know, determines your value of impact and your financial income. So rockstars, as you're listening to this, I just want to validate something about Tim. I've known of Tim for decades. This is a man with an incredible reputation. He's incredibly generous. So please take him up on that. Whether you're looking for advice to network on how you can take advantage of this huge opportunity in the industry. This is coming from me, not from him. If you're looking for a good place to get your feet grounded in the industry as an employee or a PT business owner who's looking to partner with someone, this is the guy that I recommend. He's a phenomenal influence and wants to make the industry a better place. So please take him up on his offer to at least pick his brain and build him into your network. Because the most successful people I know are just like Tim, they are the most generous with their networking and their knowledge because their focus isn't about personal gain, it's about global gain. And so, Tim, thank you so much for your time and for being on the show. It's been phenomenal.

I appreciate it. No, and we are growing, so we are always looking for like minded colleagues and I need someone to come and take my job so I can go and fix health care. So, you know, we're, we're always looking to grow. And I know that my job is to develop people and develop people underneath me that have, that'll come and take my spot because I do have greater aspirations to really make a difference in our community and healthcare as a whole.

Without a doubt, you know, your focus on helping it, helping the global healthcare situation, I think that's where you get a lot of your ideas. Tim, just before we sign off is this idea that part of the reason you see the big picture is because your desire to serve has grown to that amount. So my last two cents to the audience, rock stars, is just if you have a passion to help people in the way that physical therapists are usually born with, like it's a real innate desire to connect with people personally and, and help them physically, spiritually and emotionally. If you have that desire, don't give up. Just be willing to accept the fact that like, these challenges provide incredible opportunities if we network and are willing to stay committed to everyone's success, not other people's success above ours, like all of our success that we can all grow together. All right, Tim, thank you so much, man. We're going to have you back for sure. Thanks for your time. I appreciate you.

You got it. Thank you.

Thank you for listening, rockstars. And if you're one of the many medical professionals and leaders who have had it dealing with the drama of hiring and training people that you think are overpriced, then let's think about how virtual assistants can offload you to do what you love, which is changing people's lives in the show notes. There's a link to jump on our calendar so that we can show you why LinkedIn shows that virtual assistants is the second fastest growing trend in healthcare next to artificial intelligence at no obligation. We'll see if this is a fit for you. I hope to talk to you soon.