Summarizing my business experience at Entropy Physiotherapy and Wellness is best described by the following phrase...
"There is no separation between the business and clinical worlds when you are a private practice owner."
Really... there can't be. As we see this shift that everyone keeps talking about in healthcare it comes down to patients demanding cost and quality. (On that note, quit thinking patients are clueless about what their costs are, what they want them to be, what you are doing to them and what they have already looked up. People are smart, don't downplay their role in their ability to help themselves get better... phew, sorry)
Everything you do, business or clinical reflects on your brand. Every day we at Entropy would have this conversation... "What would Entropy say about that?" And every time it comes back to what are the principles that have been established for the business as a brand. Entropy has a set of values that are clear and dictate everything I attempted to do on a daily basis as a #bizPT student.
What does that mean for you as a student? When you establish a personal brand as a PT, and you absolutely should, what principles or values will you abide by on a daily basis? There is a reason Stephen Covey's books are timeless in terms of leadership, they instill principles.
I mentioned it in the previous blog post that time is money in terms for a private practice. Yet, time availability is influenced by how well organized a business is and how effectively a business communicates. A larger role I played at Entropy than I originally anticipated was that of 'how do we get our emails down to single digits' guy. That's a deeper rabbit hole than I realized but as I look back on it, it wasn't the email that was the problem it was how communication and organization occurs. Here at Entropy we have deemed it bucketization. In which bucket does this need to go into to stay organized and be communicated effectively?
The beauty of this is that integration of the appropriate technology maximizes time in every area of the business that allows flexibility of the time with patient. That doesn't mean there has to be more time spent with patients but a mindset that allows the clinician to focus all attention on that patient... this leads to creativity and communication that exceeds expectations. More succinctly put:
"Effective organization and communication instills a culture of creativity."
The below list is what technology has been implemented or utilized more at Entropy:
- Vinitial App Integration for patient communication
- Pocket App for blog posts
- Mendeley App for research organization
- Evernote for organization of thoughts, ideas
- Meet Edgar program for social media automation
- Tweetdeck for utilizing multiple Twitter accounts and tracking hashtags
- Bitly for tracking links to the website and courses
- Google Analytics for, well... analyzing everything about the new website.
- Squarespace for website design
- Stripe for online commerce
- ProCam App for photography
- *Have looked into Intake Q for potential paperwork to be filled out online before evaluation/scheduling but have not implemented it*
These two aspects: 1. Values the brand lives by, 2. Effective organization and communication instilling a culture of creativity, are concepts that I will carry over into my own business, uMove Physiotherapy and Performance. This experience has forced me to have difficult conversations with both the owners of Entropy and myself in what I want to say as a brand for uMove. Finding a voice for uMove that explains the value that it has to offer the community is difficult and ever evolving but was shaped by my experience here. Like any great learning experience... I've simply learned how to use my words better, how to communicate more effectively and when to know when I need to just shut up and listen. All I had to do was relate this to my brand.
All this being said... I hope this provided some value to you students. If even one student begins to look for a similar experience that I have had then I feel that this blog was an absolute success. Some day I believe school and continuing education will realize that business and clinical work are intertwined because both involve the patient experience. As Jeff Moore once quoted to me:
"We will look back in ten years and realize how silly it was that we weren't combining the clinical and business aspects in continuing education courses." See his and Jerry Durham's brain child of a con ed course here.
Appreciate yall reading my ramblings, feel free to connect with me on any of the below channels. Cheers!
-Ryan
@RyanSmith_ATC @uMovePhysio
ryan@umovephysiotherapy.com
Interested in live cases where I apply this approach and integrate it with pain science, manual therapy, repeated motions, IASTM, with emphasis on patient education? Check out Modern Manual Therapy!
Keeping it Eclectic...
 to talk about business in physical therapy during my #biz...){kind=link}
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