Listen to it here! – “The Three Issues Negatively Impacting PT Clinic Owners And How To Address Them with Dr. Dimitrios Kostopoulos”
“Dr. Dimitrios Kostopoulos passion for physical therapy is obvious, and his vision is unique and outside-the-box. He has a number of PT businesses and is successful in each one of them, thus he has a unique perspective on the state of physical therapy and the issues negatively impacting PT clinic owners and the profession today.”
One of our founders had the opportunity to be a part of the Physical Therapy Owners Club Podcast.
Dr. Kostopoulos explains the flourishing of his business and the struggles he faced as a Private Practice Owner. He describes the routes he took to ensure he was ready and fully prepared to take on the responsibilities of being a successful practice owner. In the early 2000’s “90% of insurance companies in New York State end up slashing their rates by 50% to 60% at least”, these were the obstacles physical therapists and practice owners now faced. This decision created a ripple impact that affects many people to this day. This is why people with pains that can be helped through physical therapy treatment decide to rely on pain killers instead, it is easier, faster, and above all- cheaper. With an opioid crisis now occurring, getting treatment for long term benefits and results was more important than ever.
The Three Top Problems Physical Therapists Face
- Reimbursement
- Staffing and maintaining staff
- Staffing is an issue because of two main reasons. Reason number one, the number of available physical therapists in the country is much lesser than the demand for physical therapists.
- The second reason why it becomes more difficult to hold staff in a practice is because as reimbursement goes down, you have a lesser ability to pay staff bonuses and higher salaries as a private practitioner. No matter how much staff members love you and they have been with you forever, if somebody next door can offer them $15,000, $20,000 more per year, many people will take that offer.
- Competition either from other physical therapy practices or competition from physician-owned physical therapy practices and from hospitals
Solutions
There are three solutions I will give you about the staffing problem.
- Number one, create a team environment. People will look at the money, but number one, they will look at the way they get treated. If people are treated well, they are not going to start looking for another place to be hired.
- Number two solution, create a program where people can grow professionally by helping them with continuing education. This can have many different forms. You can seek continuing education from various organizations out there like Hands-on Seminars or you can do in services within the organization, something that makes people feel that they are growing professionally.
- Number three is creating an appropriate bonus system where people can be bonus for production.
The rest of Doctor Kostopoulos’s insightful commentary can be heard here!
