Latest / The Ask Mike Reinold Show / Physician Referrals vs. Online Presence: Which One Grows Your Sports PT Clinic Faster? - #AMR390

Transcript

Physician Referrals vs. Online Presence: Which One Grows Your Sports PT Clinic Faster? - #AMR390 · The Ask Mike Reinold Show

• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: On this episode of The Ask Mike Rhineland Show, we talk about if we were going to start champion over from scratch, what would we focus on the most?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships with physicians or our online presence.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: The Ask Mike Rhinald Show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Helping people feel better.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Perform better.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Before we get to the podcast, I wanted to make sure you knew about my free online course on the introduction to performance therapy and training.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn how to get started optimizing and enhancing performance, this is the course for you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Head to micrunnold.com/slash performance to sign up today.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: The latest episode of the Ask Mike Ronald Show.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're here at Champion Pete Performance up in Boston, answering your questions.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anything you want to talk about, head to micronaut.com, click on that podcast link and ask away.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're still here answering questions for over 10 years now.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but if you keep asking them, we'll keep answering, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So uh let's see, who do we have today?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Anthony Vedetto, Brendan Gates, Dave Tidley, Lenny McCrena, Kevin Coughlin, and Mike Scadudo.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: We get a crew of PTs today here for some amazing questions.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Len, who do we have for students today?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: We had some new students.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_05: New students since the last time we were on.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, some really good, good crop of summer students here.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: We have uh Emma Armstrong from Duquesne University, second degree black belt, Caden Johnson from Belmont University, 15 handicap.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe not to go.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_05: Does not own a pair of shorts in her whole wardrobe.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_05: It's amazing.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, we've we've got a crop of anti-Boston accent students right now, Lynn.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's tough for you, right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Kylie and Emmer.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Emmer.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Who's up today for the first question?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Who wants to read it?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see who takes control.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: Read the first one.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Brian from Austin, Texas.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Hey champion.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a new grad PT with plans to open my own hybrid sports performance clinic in a few years.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: Historically, the advice has always been to go out and build relationships with local orthopedic surgeons to get referrals.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: But nowadays it seems like patients ignore their doctor's recommendation anyway and just choose whoever has the best social media content or of online reviews.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: If you were starting a sports clinic from scratch today, would you spend your time shaking hands with doctors or building an online content brand?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Great question, Brian.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Caden, good job.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Caden, that was like that was like reading a bedtime story.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was the opposite of Caden's normal eccect personality.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was so comforted that that was that was just nice.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was nice, but good job, Caden.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think that's a really good question.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um most of us here, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've had a lot of PT students come through our our our clinic the last 10 years that have went on and opened their own clinics and have done some of these these sports practices.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think they all have that the same question, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is like something that comes up all the time, and it's kind of crazy nowadays.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start with this and then and then you guys jump in.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nowadays, I do think this is real.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: You can be a young, inexperienced PT with an amazing online presence and get a ton of referrals.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this might be the first time in the history of our profession that that concept is possible, and not good or bad, right?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just saying, like you could just have a better uh, you know, social media profile or a better online kind of presence, and you will be perceived as being an amazing physical therapist, even though maybe there's clinics around you that are way more experienced.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's you know, take advantage of that as a unique opportunity, but let's go back into this and let's see.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know who wants to start talking about this like you know physician relationship thing.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Dave, you want to go?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I have a fresh story that's relevant here.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um, pretty much I have a whole bunch of gymnasts from one gym.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna keep this very vague on purpose, but a bunch of gymnasts from one gym, and Tuesday they were like, one of our teammates had a really unfortunate, gruesome knee injury at practice, and she might be reaching out.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: So her mom tried to reach out to a bunch of hospitals and has a three and a half week wait for her first appointment to get evaluated by a knee surgeon.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so in that moment, I'm like, man, this girl's high level.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: This is really important.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: She's got a lot going on.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we need to make sure she sees somebody who's high level as well and can do a great great job on her surgery.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I texted a really close uh surgeon friend of ours and I was like, hey, do you have any spots?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: That night, the schedule reached out the next morning.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: She was in to see him the next day.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: She's coming into PT with me.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And like, yes, he probably knows that we do a good job from social media and maybe her friends have come to us because of that referral network or stuff.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, I personally believe that our job as PTs is to be nice and do a good job with PT.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, I want to make sure that this girl has the best outcome possible and has a good experience.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: She's like crying at home.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: She's worried her scholarship's gonna be on the line.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so the fact that we had a close relationship with a really great surgeon from years of referrals back and forth and years of being, you guys being connected to him, um, allowed this girl to get in the next day.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And she's already in a better place because she's getting her questions answered from this doctor about what's gonna happen, what's the timeline.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, the best for it will happen.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I think at the end of the day, at like the base level of what a PT clinic should be, is like you want to have a really good experience and be good at the craft that you deliver.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that, of course, is is bolstered by a great social media presence to show off how great your work is.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: But if the inverse is true, in my opinion, if you have a great, phenomenal$400 camera shooting great content, but when the person comes, they don't have a great experience, or it's this long delayed process to get into PT and they're riddled with hurdles, I think they have a really poor experience.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't really reflect well.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: So personally, for me, I think do a great job, have great connections, get people who need to be seen, and then show off your work on social media is probably the better angle I would go.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great, David.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually, you know, I appreciate the concept you went with that answer to the question, too, because it's not just about like getting new referrals, but it's also about enhancing the quality of care that you give your current caseload of people.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what great referral relationships with physicians can do for you.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can get second opinions, you can get people in faster.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it just enhances the quality of care.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's great.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I can't imagine if we didn't have some of those connections or the ability to do that, how much more like like the our hands would be tied behind our back quite a bit, I feel like.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I like that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who else?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who wants to jump in on this one?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can all answer this one pretty good.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: But Kev, what do you think?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just gonna say I think it kind of depends on what market they want to uh appeal themselves to.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to treat more postoperative patients, I think obviously getting ref uh referrals from surgeons or meeting surgeons and establishing that relationship would be really important.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think online you see a lot of younger PTs that are kind of doing like the telehealth thing.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're attracting clients from all different places, I think that approach makes sense.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I'm kind of on board with Dave.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I would prefer seeing a younger clinician who wants to start their own practice, establishing relationships with physicians first.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then, you know, maybe also doing some things online, but putting the emphasis there.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, I'd be interested what what Lenny thinks because I know his relationship with like Dr.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Asnit in our area has been massive for getting patients in the door.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some of that maybe is what he he's posted online, but some of that is he has gone in person and established a solid relationship.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you see the fruits of it paying off and it just like compounds over time.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like that's more important route to take, uh, in my opinion.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And before Len jumps in, Kev, I would uh just add, like, don't forget, like these post-operative people, I mean those are those are high income patients, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you we're talking about starting a PT business, right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's like that's somebody that you know you're is gonna be under your care for for a certain duration of time.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you need that in your clinic.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to do one-offs, and that's your entire practice, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's people that come in with pain, you know, you do a couple things and then that maybe they check back in in a month.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's a that's a tough business to keep it that way.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like the referral base almost gives you like uh you kind of like you know, a bottom end and a top end of like these referrals, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: You you have the steady, consistent postoperative people that you see from the physicians, but maybe you're also like marketing online to the specific, like, like niche that you really appreciate that that you don't mind coming in a little bit more sporadically.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, great, great answer, Cap.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Len, what do you think?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, no, I I think everybody's had great answers.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, kind of what I would agree with.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think you know, the to go back to the Dr.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_05: Asmus relationship at Mass General Hospital and and um his PA Sean Hazard, um, it all kind of stemmed from me kind of posting stuff online and we had uh like-minded thoughts on you know ACL rehab.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_05: They do a lot of ACL surgeries.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and you know, we just kind of you know back and forth on social media, especially back in the day Twitter, now X.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_05: And then um I went with a patient to her postdoc visit and met uh the PA in person, Sean, and it just kind of established a relationship there.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_05: The patient was doing well, we had met each other uh only virtually online, so it was, you know, we've spoken on the phone, and then it was an in-person visit, and then you know, the rest is history that we've just kind of been at one of their solid referral sources uh for somebody who does a lot of post-op uh you know ACL uh surgeries, and and now we do the rehab.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_05: So um I think you establish it like the guys have said, um if you if you want that online presence where you're seeing somebody from across the world for an injury, great.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um that's probably gonna be your Instagram, you know, if you get a couple hundred thousand followers on Instagram and people think you know you're good.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, or you can be local and build from the ground uh you know with whomever you want, doctors and strength coaches and pitching coaches and gymnastics coaches and anything else.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_05: So oh, I'm I got an unstable connection.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_05: So um I'm I'm gonna cut off now, but that's my answer.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was like a gong that just like took over for you there.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, all right.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Can I comment on that real quick before and then Brendan's gonna jump in here, but real real quick.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So Lenny's like, what are you like 65 years old?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's been a PT for like like almost 70.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: 70 years.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and we've had a practice now for 12 years.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he went to a doctor appointment with a patient to to you know, kind of like, you know, stoke the the the flame of a relationship with a physician.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um keep that in mind, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Again, a lot of the young clinicians are like, oh, I'm not doing that stuff, or that's or that's not gonna get me anywhere, right?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it was probably good.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like they probably thought, like, oh, this is nice.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: The patient's bringing their parents and their grandfather in to kind of come see, and and uh Lenny was there, but anyway, all right, sorry.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, folks.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: But like, like to me, it's it's you have an experienced clinician with an experienced business owner that is still knocking on doors like that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think you can underestimate that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: But Brendan, what do you got?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I think just to hammer home what uh comes from that story is like could you imagine being somebody who tears for ACL and then the PT goes with you to their post op appointment like that?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_04: I would feel like I was in very good hands.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um so to segue off of that, when we opened up our satellite location in Needham, where I work back in December of 2022, uh, I think we started with one client that came from my other job.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: And uh so I, you know, I hadn't started a practice before.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I felt like kind of like Brian here.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, I need to start hammering social media, I gotta get my name out there.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I tried, you know, I spent four hours editing one video, that kind of stuff, and it didn't really do all that much.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember talking to you, Mike, and Lenny, and being like, do we need to market?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_04: Do we need to put out Facebook ads?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_04: Like, what do I do?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember you guys telling me, just do a good job.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_04: We don't really market.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_04: If you do a good job with the people that you get, they'll tell their friends and they'll want to see you, and then you do a good job with their friends, and they'll tell their friends and where to melt spirals like that.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and then you start to make these connections within the community.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think if you do a good job with your clients and you spend most of your mental energy on that, um, for me at least that worked much better than trying to do social media media.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe I'm just bad at social media.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but then through some of those, you know, word of mouth referrals, things like that, uh, then we actually got a little bit more connected with some of the local doctors.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: And that has certainly been more helpful.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, I would say, you know, in short, if I was going to spend time shaking hands with doctors or building an online content brand, um, I take making the connections with the doctors and people in the community 10 out of 10 times.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I I think kind of like Dave said earlier, if you hone your craft early on, you just focus on doing the basics well, um, that seems to be the most helpful, at least in my end of one experience with our satellite location.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh Gates, I think that's that's very common for I think our experience for what what we've seen as well.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, just wrapping it up real quick, I'd say for this one here, it's definitely a hybrid approach, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you go all in in one direction, you know, if you're a standalone PT clinic, you're not connected with a physician office or something like that.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you go in on uh on all in on one of these, I think you'll probably do good.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you kind of double down and try to hit both of these, I think you'll do even better.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the current age, it is what it is, right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Where you know, Google reviews, Yelp reviews are still real, and people read these things.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so we see all the inquiries that come into our from our website, and yes, a lot of them are from social media searches, or now even AI chatbots are recommending us to people, like those sorts of things.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: You you need to have an online presence, but those physician relationships not only help you as a business, but they just help you grow as a clinician.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't like kind of put that away either.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I know it's never a good way to end a podcast episode with saying both, but there's pros and cons to both.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you do them both, you're probably gonna succeed the fastest.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that would kind of be my guess.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you, you know, this is the this is the nature of being a business owner.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: You have to do a lot of stuff, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: You have to do stuff outside of the clinic.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just that, but I would say surgeon relationships still matter, but you cannot skip online.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think you just can't do it these days and age.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, so great question, Brian.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully that helps.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of other people are in your shoes.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you have questions like that, just head to the website, microround.com, click on that podcast link, and ask away.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And please, please, please subscribe so you can get notifications of our upcoming episodes.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.