before where it's not recording.
That's a good idea.
So your background is unique, right?
You come from outside of healthcare.
Walk us through that.
I did a little bit in the intro,
but what's your superhero backstory,
as I like to usually say?
Yeah.
So I haven't had a job since like
Therapy, you know,
physical therapy and chiropractors,
they're all doctors.
Both my partners are doctors.
I'm like the odd man out.
So I've ran sales offices.
I've basically done internet
business of some sort since
two thousand thirteen full time, you know,
teamed up with my wife and
we've been doing coaching and consulting.
I got our two comma club,
if you're familiar with the
ClickFunnels world.
I got that in what was that?
Twenty twenty one, I think.
And so and then now we're
kind of like that business is doing well.
It's like we're getting more
into like legacy,
like these like speakers,
like really big people.
We're going to be teaming up
with people that did this
huge movie back like forever ago.
I'll talk more about it when
it's like finalized.
But yeah.
Yeah, so I'm super pumped about that.
So you connected people.
That's sort of your background, right?
How do I connect this person?
And it sort of doesn't matter the medium.
Is it the internet?
Is it mail?
Is it phone calls and text messages?
This is connecting people on
two ends of a medium.
Yeah, well,
the more important thing is
actually creating systems around it.
So a lot of people are
really good at connecting
people that there's no
system on either side of it.
And so it's like a hot mess.
And so you've got to create
systems on both sides.
So I'm like really good.
I'm like a good connector,
but I'm also a good systems strategy,
visionary side of it.
Not that it's so much the implementing,
like I can create the idea
of what it should look like.
And then I need to hand it
off to somebody else or it's like,
it's not going to work.
Yeah, I heard Marcus Limonis,
I think he said once,
people don't run businesses,
people run processes,
processes run businesses.
And I remember the first time I heard that,
I was like, that's absolutely not true.
People, it's all people.
And then I thought about it and I'm like,
oh no, that's right.
It's because if you have to do everything,
if you had to push the rock
up the hill from the bottom
of the hill every day,
You do it a little bit and
then eventually you
wouldn't because then you'd
have fifty rocks and you're like,
I can't possibly scale this.
I'm just pushing one rock at a time.
But if you have a system that does that.
So let's go backwards.
Let's rewind.
How did the ThriveMed model
come to be like there's a
story on your website has to.
Yeah, I'll give it real quick.
So Ed, our fearless leader,
he's like the guy that ran six offices,
was doing pretty good in the Cairo space,
but then got hit super hard
by an insurance company
that may be going through some
legal stuff currently and he
had to come out of his
pocket a bunch of money to
just keep everything afloat
and did that and he was
like how do I actually make
this like a little bit more
bulletproof right because it's like
They were profitable, but they weren't.
So he basically created,
this was like before a lot
of people were doing the
medical mall situation
where you have a PT, you have a chiro.
He inserted medical services,
which like the needling,
the dry needling and the
trigger point therapy.
They had medical massage.
They had an acu that they didn't own,
but somehow controlled.
I don't get into all the
legalities of that.
Um, but, uh, yeah,
so basically run a super
successful like multi, uh,
like they all referred to
kind of each other and it
just made sense.
Okay.
So he built sort of that, right?
Yeah, he built that.
And then he has a son that
has a mental handicap,
and he was living down in Florida,
and things kind of turned
to not the worst, but not in a good spot.
So he decided to sell the
clinics and came down to Florida,
and he's basically been –
like mulling for like two, three years,
like wishing he could get
back to doing what he was doing,
like helping people and doing all this.
And like, he's like,
he's never ran a online business.
He doesn't know social media.
I don't think he even has any social media,
like any of that.
Um, and then we met, uh, is weird.
Like,
I don't know if you guys believe in
God or anything like that, but like,
I like, it's crazy how like first we,
so my wife always believes
that like when we we just
moved to this area where
we're in florida st
augustine I know our
business is in new york and
you're like how the heck
does that work but um but
we just moved to st
augustine florida and she
was like I know that the
church god will send me
what church I should be
going to so she's driving
to her consulting gig at
this really successful uh
personal development uh
brand that she's consulting at and
the sign reverb church like
on the side of the road oh
that's my church okay got
it we go to the church I've
never done a men's group
ever in my life we go to
the church we walk out
they're like hey you need
to meet so and so and then
and then he's like hey have
you ever done thought about
coming to a men's group I'm
like nope not really ever
wanted to and um and then
I was like something just
kept pulling at me.
I should go.
You should go.
Okay, whatever.
I'll just follow.
And I showed up.
I basically spoke my mind.
I just said how I am,
how things are with me and
told my story a little bit.
And he's like, man, you're so –
this guy comes up to me the
next week he's like you're
so confident I love how you
just set boundaries and
like stick to like stick
how it is he's like they
had a whatsapp group and
they're like we're gonna do
everything in whatsapp I'm
like I'm never gonna be in
there so don't worry about
that and he's like he's
like uh dude I just love
that I I can't do he like
doesn't have that like
capability and he's like I just want to
please everybody and I'm
like okay well um and he's
and I'm like tell me about
you like you're a doctor
and now you're you had some
things in new york
background what what is
what what field is he in so
he's a he's a he's a cairo
but then he owns this
medical company that kind
of owns them all um
I don't know the legalities of it.
I know New York's super
crazy and has all kinds of
rules of things.
But he, the PT office, the chiro office,
the medical massage, they all own.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he was doing this thing.
He had to leave because of
family and family comes first.
And then he sort of
invented this like thrive
med model yeah and then
clinics here something like
add twenty thousand dollars
a month to your bottom line
I'm guessing they probably
get a little skeptical they
want to lean in they want
to say like okay like you
have my attention but like
explain more what's the
actual path to that kind of growth
Yeah.
So the crazy thing is,
is anybody knows in New York,
PTs and carriers cannot do
medical services.
They can't do legally.
They can't do dry needling.
They can't do trigger point therapy.
They can't do any of it.
So what we do is we have an MD on staff,
Dr. Ehrlich,
and he hires a PA to come
into PT and chiro offices to do just that,
dry needling,
trigger point therapy under ultrasound.
And we can get so much more
from insurance than, you know, well,
even states that can do dry needling.
they can only usually do
cash uh they can't do
reimbursement so even when
we do expand to other
states it still kind of
like has some room there
because pts like in new
jersey they can do dry
kneeling but they can only
do cash they're charging
forty to like eighty
dollars and then it takes away a pt
from doing what they were doing,
working with patients.
So, so, all right, let me,
let me explain this back to
make sure if I got it right.
And if not, all right.
So in a state like New York,
and I'm pretty sure California,
you can't do dry needling.
Correct.
Or trigger point therapy.
Yep.
Got it.
So,
but there are practitioners that can
like MDs or physician's assistants.
Correct.
A PT clinic or a chiroclinic
or a business that can't do it.
Doesn't have to hire the
physician's assistant to,
they work with you?
Like,
so now there's three people on the board.
There's the clinic,
there's the PA and there's you,
or how does this work?
Yeah, so they can't own,
so a PT can't own a medical company.
right so there's that part
too um they can't uh even
oversee medical services so
what we do is we bring in a
pa working under an md to
do trigger point therapy
and dry needling and then
we pay the pt a clinical support fee
because we can't do kickbacks, legal,
in any state really.
And so where we'd start is we start a rent,
we do a rental payment,
we see how it's integrating
into the practice,
how the patients are loving it,
and then we set a clinical support fee.
Because there are PT offices
in New York that look like
they have a dry needling or
trigger point.
But what they're doing is a
medical company is renting
space from the PT and
they're paying them like a
thousand dollars a month,
maybe two thousand dollars
a month where our clinical
support fee could be.
of five thousand, ten thousand,
twenty thousand dollars a month.
And those numbers get larger based on what,
traffic and volume?
Unofficially.
Got it.
Okay.
So, so now you're able to, and again,
correct me.
So, all right.
I'm a PT clinic.
I'm somewhere.
I am in New York.
I'm in the state of New York.
If I had a clinic,
I would now be able to say,
you can get this,
this type of treatment here.
Yeah.
If someone were to ask, I would say, well,
I can't do it,
but I have someone who I
bring in and this is this
person there five days a week.
Are they doing, you know, is it,
It really depends on their flow and, like,
how we can stack it.
Like, if a PT office is, like, popping,
right?
And we have all the people
that it totally makes sense
for us to come five days a week.
But ideally what we do is
stack them as much as we can.
Sure.
So we can get it working effective.
Okay.
And now you're able to – now –
That therapy is that type of treatment,
that modality is able to be
offered and everything is
above board because you
said we can't do it, but this person can.
Great.
So we're not going to band together.
We're going to collaborate
and we're going to be able
to offer this to the people that want it.
Yeah.
And like the the flow of it all,
it looks that you guys are
like the PT's office is like hands off.
They're just helping with a
little bit of the the the flow of it.
Just very, very light.
They can't oversee anything.
They don't have to manage this person.
But for the patient,
it looks like this person works for you.
They look like they're part
of your clinic.
They're in your office.
Right.
So to everybody else, they're like, oh,
okay.
They just now have a PA on
staff and they do the service now.
Awesome.
And then now you get this
huge paycheck in the mail
because average PT in New York is,
you know, revenueing, you know, billing,
eighty to a hundred
thousand dollars a month.
But profit wise, it's like seventeen five.
And and so if we can add ten
to the bottom line,
because there's no overhead in this,
they don't have to pay us.
They don't have to do anything.
There's no overhead.
So it's like really,
if they have a high volume practice,
they could double their profit,
double their profit.
So the patient has to pay in cash, right?
No.
They don't.
Okay.
Oh, because it's being provided by the PA.
Understood.
Okay.
So it's going through insurance.
That insurance payment goes to whom?
You?
Has to go to you.
To us.
Yeah.
Can't go to the PT.
Can't go to them.
Got it.
And then you pay the clinic
a fee based on volume or
you come up with a preset?
Yeah.
So that's why we do the rental thing.
We do a rental time.
So we pay them a thousand,
two thousand dollars a
month just for ninety days
just to kind of feel out
how it's integrating,
how the system is integrating in,
how the it's take rate and
all those things.
And then we basically said, OK,
how much of the clinical
support because essentially
we can't pay for flow.
What we have to do is pay for support.
What is flow?
What do you mean by flow?
Patient flow like like we
can't pay for referrals.
like right there's there's
the laws of sure sure
kickback loss out of that
and so what we do pay for
is support right we're
paying for you to hand the
person the your front desk
to hand them the form to
fill out in their
information and to send
them to the pa and those
things and it's but it's
it's very light but it's so
it's like light work for
your team high payout
So as far as the patient is concerned,
I'm getting this service at
this PT clinic, according to insurance.
And they've been writing,
this is going actually to
this person because they
have a different type of
license in the state of New York.
Correct.
But it's happening here.
the clinician suggested the
treatment or how,
how does it go from where's
the handoff from PT to, Hey, I think you,
you would benefit from this treatment.
We offer it, you know, three,
four days a week.
Yeah.
So it's like going to the doctors, right?
Like if you go in the
doctors and your wrist hurts,
the doctor doesn't, um,
sell you on an x-ray, right?
They just say, Hey, you have,
in this case with dry
needling or trigger point therapy,
you have, um,
you have muscle soreness you
have muscle basically
anything with muscles like
if you have a muscular
situation like this helps
uh the inflammation pain
relief um you know they've
also heard about it from
their friends there are
people that I know I live
close enough to new jersey
that will drive to new
jersey to get it because
you can't get it in new
york things like that
people are smart enough
they're savvy enough yeah
so they're starting to get
it's starting to get a thing but
So you just kind of in the onboarding, hey,
it looks like you qualify
for getting dry needling or hey,
I think trigger point
therapy is going to make
sense for your treatment
along with our treatment.
So you create your PT plan
and then you just add it on
and then they just get
moved over after or before.
Maybe before,
like especially like the slam
dunk is if somebody is too
sore or there's too much
pain to treat them.
then you get, you know, some,
some dry needling or some
trigger point therapy to
break up the trigger points
in the muscle before you treat them.
And then that helps.
And if it's really bad, Novocaine,
you can totally do that too.
Okay.
So what are some of the outcomes?
What's the timeline?
How long did you go?
Did you start?
What does it look like for a
clinic or two in terms of
revenue and happy patients?
We want to make sure the
patients are happy and things like that.
What stories have you had?
Well, so...
Brand new business is this long is,
is song is this business, right?
Five minutes brand new, but they ran,
you know, six clinics.
They said the worst part
that like the side effect of this,
the bad side is,
is the patient likes it so much.
They don't want to get off it.
Yeah.
So because it's just like you said,
people drive to New Jersey.
Yeah.
No offense to New Jersey,
but like they drive to New
Jersey to get it done.
They they love it.
So therefore,
it's it's something that they want.
As far as getting started, you know,
we have to we get to hire a PA.
Right.
We we ideally find you, you know,
the flow is there.
They have the patient flow.
one PA, one, one office is ideal.
Sure.
Um, if it's a lower flow,
so if it's a lower flow, we'll split it.
So we, ideally we,
we have one in Brooklyn
that we're starting right now.
And so he doesn't quite have
the insurance types and the
flow isn't quite there.
So we need to find another, uh,
place in Brooklyn.
So if anybody's here in Brooklyn, uh,
we're looking for one, we're,
we're hiring a PA in that
area to do that one.
And then we can get that up
and rolling in the next week or so.
Um,
So does that answer your question?
What, what I'm saying is like,
so how do we have results?
Is there a clinic that you're like, yeah,
we actually did this.
We doubled revenue or we added this.
Like, what's like the, like, what,
what are some,
if someone's still listening, I'm like,
I'm in New York.
Okay.
Like, is there a,
is there anything you could
tell them that makes them go?
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, the biggest thing is it's,
if we can get a hundred
injections a week,
The clinical support fee is
going to be around, you know,
ten to twenty thousand dollars a month.
This business is like brand new.
They I will say that because
with this model of having multiple things,
they were doing about six
times more than other
clinics in their area.
Got it.
OK.
What's the biggest mindset
block clinic owners have
when it comes to adding
like this profitability?
It's like a fear of change.
It's like.
it's like, well,
it's funny that as soon as
I say dry needling, they literally,
I don't know if like
there's somebody from the government,
like poking them with a
stick and they just go into
this automatic,
like it's illegal for a PT
to do dry needling in the
state of New York.
Yes.
I, I know that,
but that's why we bring in
a PA and MD and like, they,
they like put up this like
defensive thing.
Like they can't, they like, they,
we can't do that.
It's like, I don't like,
is there like a stop?
Because as a PT, as you mentioned, so,
and I'm not, you know,
up on the rules and rules.
I can't,
a PT couldn't hire a physician's
assistant to do this
because that would mean,
and then you couldn't even
hire them even if you were
just a business owner
because you'd be overseeing
guess what they call is
medical treatment but this
is a workaround for that to
put the right people on the
right field on the right
positions in the right
field at the right time to
provide the service correct
in a way to go around so so
how would you recommend or
how do you recommend
clinics market these things
once they're integrated
once the people are once
you know that there's the
right patient volume um and
everything's set up what's
the best way to now
communicate this to let
people know it's there things like that
Yeah, I mean, it's easy,
like some pamphlets at the front desk,
the maybe we give you the sign,
we give you pamphlets, we give you signs,
we give you all those things.
But it's really just easy.
It's like,
does your patient have a
muscular situation, like a condition?
Yes.
Ninety five percent of you are saying like,
you know,
ninety five percent of the
patients probably have
something like that.
So it's like they need it.
So it's just we just move them over.
It's like you go into the doctors,
you get your blood pressure.
It's it's just.
It's it's really doesn't
need to be marketed.
It just needs to be like
pointed in the right direction.
Or I would say too,
like probably internal
education to your clinicians.
Now, if you're the clinic owners,
like now we're,
here's how we're able to do this,
map it out for them.
Cause there's, that's where the trust is,
right?
Pamphlets are nice, but the trust is,
this feels like my PT is telling me, Hey,
this is an option.
I'm able to give you the pros and cons.
And then I make suggestions,
you make decisions and we
now offer this service here.
And this is
Yeah,
I think this goes full circle to
where we started this
conversation is the system, right?
Like how can we just plug it
into your system?
right like whatever your
onboarding system is for
new patients we just plug
it into that and boom like
it's it's doesn't nothing
has to really change this
isn't like a heart you're
not like um doing the uh
the vacation rental uh
pitch at uh at the marriott
down here in orlando or something but um
So let's talk challenges
will be the final thing.
You're doing this,
you're trying to
communicate to business
owners specifically in New York and maybe,
I mean, you already sort of hinted,
maybe eventually leaving
just the state of New York, right?
If it's a good model and it scales systems,
what's the hardest part of
maybe scaling this model?
What resistance have you
seen and what have you
learned from that resistance?
Yeah, it's really my partners.
They want to get everything.
They're very conservative in
everything and they want to
make sure that it's working really,
really well before we expand states.
The other thing is I'm so
used to scalable models.
This is really taking a
local business because, okay,
local doctor that has to be
certified in every state that we work in.
Then now we need to hire a
medical coordinator in each
state to train because not
every PA knows how to do
dry needling and trigger points,
so they have to be trained.
Sure.
There's just those local
logistical things where
this seems like this should
be super easy to just
like the offer seems like
it's so easy that like
california I could just
jump into california and
just do it there or
wherever you know there's
other states that the the
legalities make sense for
this and even the ones that
they legally they can do
dry needling it's more
profitable for us to come
in and and you're gonna
make around the same amount
without paying a pt
So when we get to that point.
Understood.
If people want to reach out,
where would you send them
if they wanted to follow up?
Yeah.
Chad Ockstead on LinkedIn is
a great place.
PTrevenueboost.com is a good place.
Those are probably the two
places to reach out.
Perfect.
All right.
Every episode we have this
tradition called the parting shot, Chad.
No pressure.
What's the last thing you'd
want to leave with the audience?
What's your mic drop moment
or soapbox statement?
What's your final thoughts here?
yeah you know I talked to
the guy in brooklyn um the
cairo and he's like why
wouldn't somebody do this
and I'm like they're
they're they're dumb as
hell chad knows how to close baby
That's awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, look into it.
I always say, you know,
is the answer always more patients?
If it is, you're on a treadmill, right?
Yeah.
And I think healthcare
practitioners need to
become more innovative.
And I think you don't need a
specialized degree.
I know we love degrees in healthcare.
I don't think you need a
degree to become innovative
or to ingest or to inject
creativity in models.
Yeah.
Well, it's like, I'm always like,
how can I make more streams
of income from the same asset?
Crypto bros and Forex
scammers really messed up
the idea of passive income.
They pitch that you don't
have to do nothing and you
could just make all this
free money and it's all
going to be passive and
you're never going to have
to do anything and it's just free money.
But the truth is,
is passive streams are actually real
If you have an asset, it's like,
so if you have money,
you can put it into ETF.
If you have an asset like your clinic,
you can do other services
in your thing and make passive streams.
It's real.
It just,
people have to get through this
like block that,
that the passive income is bad,
or I have to work really hard.
I think there's like blocks
internally that I have to
work really hard to make a
bunch to make money.
And so if we can get through that,
it makes sense.
Dude, Thrive Medical.
Chad, appreciate the time, man.
Thanks for explaining this model for us.
Appreciate you, Jimmy.
Appreciate you.