The last year of my DPT program was spending about 10 months in an out patient ortho clinic.
This was your traditional high volume clinic. It took basically every insurance and had a decent amount of work comp patients.
I remember the first work comp patient I ever had….because he was still there at the end of my 10 month rotation.
Let’s call him Bill for the sake of this story.
Bill was 22 years old. I was only 24 so it was refreshing to get someone on my schedule under 50 years old!
He worked for a company that built cellphone towers and he had been working for them since he graduated high school 4 years earlier.
When I saw Bill, he was a new patient to me but not a new patient to the practice.
He had already been there for about 6 months.
Bill was there because he had hurt his ankle while building a cellphone tower one day.
He was about 100 feet up when he slipped and fell.
Luckily, he was tethered in with his safety rope other wise I wouldn’t be telling you about him.
He was consistent, diligent and never missed a visit.
He was originally diagnosed with a grade II ankle sprain.
No sign of fracture on imaging and even though he had a little bit of laxity, it wasn’t bad.
When I took over Bill’s case, I thought I would get him turned around in no time.
2-3x a week, every week he and I worked on his ankle.
Everyday after we would get done, I would see how he felt and he always felt the same.
Sometimes it would feel slightly worse but never better.
It took everything in me to work with him and actually give a shit.
It was apparent to me and basically anyone that worked with him that he really didn’t want to get better.
He was enjoying a reduced paycheck and honestly, I get why he didn’t want to go back to work.
He almost died falling off a cellphone tower! I probably wouldn’t want to rush to get back to that either.
He was one of many work comp patients I worked with that just frustrated me as a clinician. The same was true with many of the personal injury cases I was assigned.
When I approached my clinical mentor about it, he said I basically just had to get used to some people playing the game.
Since the day I opened my cash practice almost 8 years ago….I’ve never once questioned if someone actually wanted to get better.
I’ve never questioned if what I was doing was the right thing because I know everyone I work with will be compliant and wants to get better.
The ability to work with highly motivated people is hands down my favorite part of the practice.
Ultimately, I think that’s what we all really want.
I didn’t go to PT school because I wanted to open a business….I went because I wanted to learn how to help people.
There’s nothing better in my opinion than getting to work with highly motivated clients.
Sure, you can make more money and have more autonomy in these practices but I’ll take great patients over more money if I have to choose.
If you’re still dealing with people that drain all of your energy because of lack of motivation on their end, there’s a better way.
If you’re willing to learn a few skills on the business side of things, you can attract and work with your ideal client basically every time.
It helped me go from being a frustrated clinician that was thinking about changing careers to loving seeing patients again.
If you’re interested in making a change like this or growing a cash practice that you have already started…..we should talk.
You’ll talk to a real person, and they will give you customized guidance on your next skills or steps to take to gain momentum in your business.
We don’t sell anything on this call, and you literally couldn’t buy something from us if you wanted to in this call.
We just know we can help, and we want to prove it to you for free.
Select a time that works for you.
It’s time to start making some serious progress in your business/life.
P.S. If you have a practice, check out our friends at PtEverywhere. We switched to their software to run our cash practice and it’s been a game changer!