You're listening to the PT Pinecast,
where smart people in healthcare come to
make noise.
Here's your host, Jimmy McKay.
All right.
Some people in physical therapy chase
efficiency.
Others chase compliance.
And most clinics are stuck somewhere in
the middle, just going around in circles,
chasing something,
trying to treat patients well while
surviving productivity expectations,
documentation pressure,
and reimbursement changes that seem to
shift every year or every, I don't know,
What if the systems inside healthcare
actually protected the clinicians instead
of burning them out?
What if compliance wasn't something
therapists feared,
but something that gave them confidence
What if business strategy didn't dilute
clinical care at all,
but actually strengthened it?
Today's guest has built a career right at
that intersection that I just described.
She's helped organizations translate
clinical excellence into systems that
work.
turning compliance into clarity,
education into something people actually
use.
Who would have thought?
And how about turning strategy into tools
that help therapists survive modern
healthcare?
She believes it's something simple but
powerful.
Clinical decisions should guide financial
decisions, not the other way around.
And if you do what's right for the
patient, the money will follow.
Let's bring in Katie Holterman.
How'd we do on the intro, Katie?
I think pretty good.
I like to wear a lot of hats.
So as you can see,
they kind of go on and off and
depending on the lens that I'm looking at
and things like that.
But that's good, right?
Because I don't think I talked about silos
more in my life until I became a
physical therapy student and then
graduated.
I don't know that there were silos in
my previous life,
but I definitely recognize them.
And you're talking about...
being able to sit atop the silos and
see what's going on in each and saying,
Hey, you're over here trying to fix this,
but you're doing it this way.
If you just changed it,
it would solve your problem in this
problem.
And that feels like actual efficiency.
Exactly.
And being able to kind of look at
through different lens lenses and jump
around without jumping in,
but jumping around and,
and
pulling what is needed out of each bucket,
so to speak.
Yeah.
Right now,
it might feel like in healthcare and
probably warranted that clinicians are
where the rubber meets the road.
I mean, we have to be, right?
We are a service.
We provide a service, right?
That is what we do in healthcare.
We provide care.
Care is a service.
And it often feels like where the rubber
meets the road or where the brake pads
are, right?
That's where the most friction is.
Unfortunately, that's where our
our humans are who want to give the
most.
So you talk a lot about building systems
that actually protect clinicians instead
of burning them out.
What does that look like or what could
that look like in reality in a clinic?
How can you give me examples of situations
where we're actually able to protect those
people instead of using them as the thing
that we stop the car with?
Exactly.
Well,
I think the first thing that you said
was really important is that
we have a service right but it's our
product correct clinicians don't want to
think that they have a product clinicians
are touchy-feely and loving and want to do
the great thing and a product is stingy
and tangible and not um not something that
people want to grab onto but when you
start to realize that your service is a
product
That's kind of the first system that you
put into place is that understanding
piece.
That in and itself is a system that
works,
just having that clarity of everything.
That to me is strategy number one.
Then when we go forward and say, okay,
now what systems can we put into place
to protect the clinician as far as from
a compliance perspective,
making sure that we are doing something
that is compliant and doing it well
without having to jump through seventeen
hoops to do it.
That's a slam dunk if we can do
that,
where we just put something in place and
have checks and balances that are already
in the workflow for the clinician.
Why don't we do this?
Let's start with there.
I'll give an example.
I bought a bike off eBay because one
day I was going to be a triathlete
and I was riding on that bike.
That was my bike.
And eventually after two or three years,
someone looked at me riding that bike.
It was one of those bikes where you
sort of like lay down like you're super
fast, you know,
the hands in front of you.
And someone said, hey,
why do you sort of curl your wrists
in?
And I'm like, well,
the handlebars are this long and my arms
are longer.
And they go, you know,
there's a screw right there.
You loosen that,
those things telescope out.
You could have them go longer.
I adapted to the bike instead of,
because I didn't know,
I didn't know any better.
I could have the bike adapt to me
and I wouldn't have cocked my wrists for
two and a half years.
Now that's the only way I can ride,
by the way.
So let's start with why doesn't that
happen?
Like,
why do we build systems that actually we
ask the clinician to adapt to instead
of...
making more sense the other way around?
I think there's a number of reasons.
I think our EMR systems are failing us,
but it's not the system itself.
It's how we exactly what you're saying,
how we aren't using the tools within the
EMR systems to help
them adapt to what we need.
Now,
I'll put the EMR companies aside because
there's so many of them.
They all have their limitations.
They all have their benefits.
One is not better than the other.
I take that back.
There are some that are better than the
other.
But I guess they're different tools and
some of them are better in this situation
versus that.
Exactly.
I mean, here's an example.
So I my I'm an SLP by trade.
I just play a really good PT on
TV.
So that's, you know, but that being said,
so many of the EMR systems are built
for PT and OT.
So being an SLP in that world where
you're, you know,
if you're an SLP in a rehab clinic
or something like that,
you have to fit your exactly a circle
into a square anyway on daily life because
clinics are set up for PT.
Clinics are just that's, you know,
SLP is the odd man out anyway.
Then you have a documentation system
that's either built for PT
or built for skilled nursing or built for,
you know, this place.
And so you're already two or three steps
behind in trying to make your
documentation effective, efficient,
compliant,
you're working against that.
So the more that you can work with
the EMR systems to make sure that,
you know,
if there is any flexibility in what you
can do to not have clinicians working
against that day after day and minute
after minute, that's going to be key.
And then the other piece is sometimes,
you know,
clinicians get into their
patterns of treatment that are great
clinically,
but then make it ten times harder for
them to document or for them to audit
their own documentation rather than,
again, like you were saying,
adapt to the bike or have the bike
adapt to you.
Sometimes you need to kind of give a
little to get a little.
Understood.
And it seems like,
because we should follow the money,
and you said,
make it good and the money will follow.
It seems like,
and I don't have a number to this,
but if my day felt better or easier,
or if I wanted to,
if I was spending more time doing the
thing,
being the SLP or the PT or the
OT, the clinic, the hospital,
anything would probably have happier,
more productive therapists who stuck
around longer.
And we know those things cost money.
Absolutely.
The money for hiring and rehiring and
training, it is bananas.
It is so expensive.
It's an entire industrial complex.
Yes, completely.
And the problem is,
if you look at just a general evaluation
that you have to write,
There are sometimes seventeen steps,
clicks, buttons,
boxes that you need to fill in.
And if you click this and then you
make an error,
you have to go back three times.
If we can save clinicians three steps,
five steps, that's a huge difference, too.
But clinicians sometimes don't like to
think outside the box.
And so if we can use education to
help them problem solve in the moment,
that's going to help them in the long
run anyway.
And again, to your point,
save the burnout,
save the frustration that they're feeling
and keep the clinician and keep them
happy.
A lot of therapists might hear the word
efficiency and immediately think it means
cutting corners or I'm sure a lot of
things and emotions jump into someone's
head when they hear efficiency.
How can clinics become more efficient
without compromising clinical standards,
without cutting those corners,
without putting the team in?
So how can they do that?
I think a couple of different ways.
It's not a bad word.
And people do think I always say the
word productivity.
Oh my gosh,
you say that word in front of a
bunch of clinicians and you think that I
just had the mouth of a sailor,
which I do,
but I don't use it on a daily
basis at work.
But it has become this terrible word.
I think taking that terribleness out of it
is step one.
Before you even put into practice any tips
or tricks or things like that,
you need to
to get on the same page with a
clinician and understand why efficiency,
productivity,
whatever word you want to use,
isn't a terrible thing.
It is a thing that the rest of
the world uses as they measure success.
It may not be called productivity,
but yeah, there's a hundred words for it.
Right.
Exactly.
It's, it's your, your product,
your service, your, your efficiency, your,
your success.
I mean,
some industries just call it your measure
of success.
That is what it is.
So I think that's number one is kind
of having laying that groundwork for,
for clinicians to say, you know,
this is the expectation.
It's not all bad.
Let's get on the same page on how
we can make that work.
It's not cutting corners.
And here's why it's not cutting corners
because you,
If you are doing a session and making
the patient at the center of it,
if you are consistently talking to them
about their goals,
consistently talking to them about what's
going to work the best,
consistently asking their feedback,
that is going to make the session run
more efficiently already.
because you're already putting the patient
at the center of it and you're not
putting a lot of fluff in that you
feel as a clinician is better than what
the patient feels.
So I think by starting with the patient's
ears,
that's the first step in becoming an
efficient clinician.
I have observed tens of thousands of
sessions, maybe an exaggeration,
but a lot of sessions where I've watched
clinicians go.
Talk, do, put patients doing X, Y, Z.
Not once asking the patient,
does this work for you?
How is this going to help you in
your daily life?
And if they would have started with those
questions from the get-go,
their sessions would have been ten times
more efficient.
efficiency and quality are not enemies.
That is something that I took away from
a lot of things that I read that
you,
that you had said that those things are
not enemies.
And if you understand that and we can
adapt the system to work towards that,
everybody sort of wins.
The clinician has a better,
has a better feeling when they walk out
at five o'clock or whatever time they're
leaving and the patient has a better
experience and they want to come back and
Efficiency and quality,
they're not enemies.
You've also said something that might
surprise people.
Compliance is also not the enemy.
I mean, geez,
if you see a meeting with compliance
department on your schedule pop up,
I'm sure heart rates generally rise.
But why do so many clinicians see it
that way,
that compliance might be the enemy?
And what are they getting wrong?
I think that the word compliance stirs up
scary images out of compliance.
I mean, you can hear you're in compliance,
but most of the time... Yeah,
no one calls a meeting to tell you
you're in compliance.
You're in compliance, exactly.
No one will say to you...
A perfect example,
I just had this this morning.
I'm never going to tell my son,
you're making your bed correctly.
Right.
I'm going to yell at him that he's
making his bed incorrectly because he's
throwing the sheets on and it's driving me
crazy and he's got...
We never say you're in compliance,
you're doing a great job.
We say you're out of compliance and here's
why.
We say that to help,
but people hear I'm out of compliance and
this is a scary thing.
Now,
it is a scary thing because if you're
out of compliance, it costs money.
And we don't want that.
But I think that if people understood that
compliance is a support system,
that we can, you know, by...
a compliance department or making sure
that you're in compliance, again,
it's making your job a little bit easier
in the end because you don't have to
do any rework.
That's a supportive nature that every
compliance department wants to hold true.
Yeah.
It's a tool that protects you and the
clinics and the care.
Use it as such.
I used to have a meeting once a
week in radio with my boss where we
literally mean this
this went down like nails,
which was we listened to a tape of
me.
Fast forward and play,
and we'd sit there in silence and listen
to me.
And I'm a pretty extroverted guy,
but I started sweating.
And that was a knot in your stomach
until my boss eventually, I think,
saw me squirming in the seat and said,
hey, just so you know,
this is to work on, not penalize.
And the minute I started looking at it
like that,
I actually looked forward to it and it's
probably where I got the best ROI in
terms of improvement,
but it needs to be framed that way.
Or myself included, if you see compliance,
your heart rate goes up and now you're
automatically playing defense,
I guess is what I'm getting at.
Yes, exactly.
And the thing is that you do have
to kind of play defense all the time
to be in compliance
Because you have to be thinking
defensively.
Sure.
Understanding what game you're playing.
Exactly.
And it doesn't have to be that you
are.
There's a difference between.
Between kind of being on the defense and
being in defense of what you're doing.
Yeah.
And I think that that's something that
people need to to kind of.
recognize within themselves.
I have everybody ask three questions of
their documentation whenever they're
trying to assess their documentation or
when I'm trying to get them in practice
as they're documenting.
Three questions.
Would I defend this in court?
How easily?
Would another clinician know exactly what
to do next?
Clarity.
And then did I clearly connect treatment
to function?
And if people are going to answer those
three questions, I always say,
you don't have to worry about compliance.
I mean,
obviously from technical sides and things
like that you do,
but from a documentation perspective,
you can answer those three questions you
haven't made.
And if you can simplify it like that,
I think people feel like, okay,
those are three questions.
I can do that.
I can make sure that happens.
Very, very rarely is the answer,
make it more complicated, right?
Exactly.
So I think what you're saying there is,
I need to see,
can you answer these three?
Let's simplify it.
Now you can do that a hundred different
ways.
Right.
I forget where the study was,
but someone ran an analysis on thousands
of treatment notes.
And we'll say that insurance,
I'm using air quotes here,
insurance requires too much documentation.
And the analysis showed that we actually
over-documented.
I could see that.
Because we probably weren't focused on
what the actual goal was.
We hear documentation and some people,
myself included,
heard write down as much as you can.
And if you want to talk to a
lawyer,
the lawyer will tell you if you're ever
on the stand,
you answer the question asked,
not a word more.
More is not better.
Better is better.
And simpler is the goal.
The goal should be those three.
Do those three things again.
Let me see if I can do it.
Can you answer this?
Would you feel comfortable answering this
in court?
Correct.
If another therapist read your note cold,
could they understand it is clear.
Yeah.
And then the third one,
can you connect what you're doing to a
goal?
Exactly.
Is there a purpose for this?
Why the heck are you doing it?
Because if you can't do that,
then you shouldn't have done it.
And I think that where people get into
this
doing too much or doing more than they
need to or feeling like it's complicated
is because we do state the phrase of,
if you didn't document it,
you didn't do it, which is true,
but there's a way to document it to
answer those three questions and be done.
Efficiently.
Exactly.
See, I came to PT again,
a second career.
Yes, I worked in radio.
before that i had a degree in journalism
and it was so weird going through
undergrad because i took my journalism
classes and i took my core classes english
science whatever and there in those
courses the general classes i had to write
an eight-page paper the goal was length
where in my journalism classes my goal was
clarity and the best
was can you get the most information
transmitted through words or sounds in the
fewest amount of words?
So it was very funny to jump back
and forth between those classes because in
one, I was playing one game,
which was answer the question in eight
pages or more.
And the other was you have a thousand
words, no more.
You cannot use a thousand and one.
So my brain did not brain very well.
So I come to PT where when I'm
learning documentation, I'm saying, well,
I remember having a CI just walking by
my computer, not reading,
seeing physically how many words were
there and being like, it needs more.
And I'm like, why?
And she's like, just,
I can tell from here.
And I'm like,
but you don't know the words.
What if I picked better words?
What if they answered Katie's three,
Katie's big three?
I feel like I feel,
and the answer was always,
I feel I don't want to have this.
Not when I hit submit,
I feel like the more is better.
And I understand that.
Yeah.
And then take it a step further.
Right.
Think about your settings.
So I've started in acute care, acute care.
You write and I'm old.
So I started, you know, way back when,
when we still had paper charts and all
that.
You wrote four sentences and that was it.
I mean, your note was simple, but.
You switch to a different setting.
And if you're not writing a book,
that wasn't acceptable in that setting.
So to me,
those three questions kind of came out of,
I need to find that happy medium for
myself as a documenter.
Yeah.
And then when I got into more of,
you know,
overseeing clinical services and making
sure that the clinical product was good
and it was compliant,
then those three questions really helped
serve in an educational framework when I'm
educating clinicians.
It's just when you can simplify it there.
I remember learning research,
my professor.
oversimplified it.
He was like, Jimmy, just what?
So what?
Now what?
I'm like, oh, I can do that.
My brain can't brain holding ten different
things while I'm reading something.
But if it's like,
what are we talking about?
Can you explain?
And when you're done reading this,
can you explain what happened?
Yeah.
Can you explain why it mattered?
So what?
Yeah.
Can you explain now what?
Now where should we go?
Okay.
What are you going to do with this?
Oh, yeah.
Great.
Do that.
And then research became fun after that.
A hundred percent.
You simplify it down and you think it's
not that hard if I just think of
the end goal.
Yeah.
Do you want to say thanks to U.S.
Physical Therapy, USPH,
a national network of clinics focused on
developing clinicians?
Not burning them out.
They offer leadership tracks, mentorship,
and the stability PTs need to build long
careers in the profession while still
practicing locally.
USPH.com, that's USPH.com.
And our friends at Empower EMR,
built specifically for physical therapists
who are tired of...
doing everything we're talking about.
Documentation, slowing them down.
Empower focuses on speed, clean workflows,
and documentation tools PTs actually ask
for.
Faster notes,
smoother clinical operations,
and support that doesn't disappear when
you need help.
Find them online at Empower, E-M-R.
That is Empower, E-M-R.com.
Katie,
your hot take is that most continuing
education is a waste of time.
I love hot takes.
That's gonna make some people
uncomfortable because going with this more
is better.
More continuation is better than less in
continuation.
So what's broken about continuation right
now in your view?
So continuing education to me,
and I am a nerd that loves to
have continuing education more and more
and more.
In American Speech and Hearing
Association,
we have something called the ACE Award,
which is the achievement for continuing
education.
So it's clinicians who get
X number of CEUs per year.
I have like eighteen of these things.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
All of it's a waste of time because
because at the end of the day,
I'm going to say ninety five percent of
the continuing education courses that you
sit through, you sit through them,
you think you learn something and you
cannot apply it the next day.
And if we're going to make true continuing
education worthwhile for our clinicians,
because every clinician discipline has a
certain number that they need to adhere
to,
make it something that's going to be
applicable the minute you walk out that
door.
And I think ninety five percent of our
CEU courses missed the mark on this.
So how do you spot a good one
before you plunk down money and give up
a weekend?
How do you, what do you,
what's your big, you know,
you've got a big three or a litmus
test or a, you know,
how do you spot those ones that the
juice is going to be worth?
Yeah.
Um,
it's a great question and I wish I
had the direct answer to it because I
haven't figured that out.
Let's put it this way.
What besides like, you know,
people love that phrase, right?
Monday morning applicable.
Can I use this?
Um,
don't have to name it you can but
what's one that you took that you were
like gosh this was great like for every
minute i was in class i got value
and then why like what about it was
so great so i i don't know that
i'm going to answer that question exactly
just because of the way that i think
it depends on what your interest is or
what you're you know what you are doing
on a day-to-day
But I think the thing that gets me
about the continuing ed pieces are each
discipline has certain requirements for
topics or certain hours or things like
that.
And I don't even necessarily subscribe to
the Monday morning applicable.
I want it something that you're going to
walk away and say, I got it.
and it's going to stick with me.
Maybe I won't use it Monday morning,
but I can use it two weeks from
now because I remember it so much.
The problem is we have these instructors
who either are talking research
and aren't able to kind of apply this
or we we have data that's not really
telling a story or you're just not
connecting with the audience so as an
educator my my big thing is i need
to to come with a presentation i need
to come with a slide deck great but
if my audience and i'm looking out and
half of them are at a different spot
in their career or a different wanting a
different thing than i've originally had
prepared
I got to be ready to throw that
PowerPoint out the window and say,
let's just have a chat, you know?
And I think that's where most of these
courses,
because they are such strict guidelines
on, you know, what,
what the course has to meet and the
objectives people are held to their
PowerPoints.
But at the end of the day,
if you just have to have a conversation
or pivot and tell a story,
that's going to actually help the
participant.
Know your audience.
Recognize.
I've said this before.
I could be the world's greatest third
grade teacher.
I could rip through a third grade syllabus
in like three weeks.
We'd be done.
Move along.
Now,
the third graders would have no idea what
I just said.
And one percent of them would have learned
any of it.
The goal isn't to have communicated.
The goal is to have achieved
understanding.
And I always use a third grade analogy
because it's so odd.
Of course,
you're going to get third graders and you
get at thirty of them and they're going
to be there for every topic.
Some are going to be more or less
knowledgeable or more or less excited
about learning or, you know.
And then when we have adults, we like,
well, no, you're all adults.
You need your you should all be exactly
the same and you should.
No, no, no, no.
That's I'm sorry.
That's not how it works.
Exactly, exactly.
And everyone's at different points in
their career,
different points in their interests.
You know,
some people are going to sit through an
ethics class that's required by the
discipline.
And you have maybe three who are actually
factually interested in ethics.
or have an ethical dilemma that they may
have had that they can pull from the
experience that the instructor is talking
about and the others are sitting in the
room going,
I just need to get this continuing
education credit.
There's different reasons.
Yeah.
And so you need to be able to
manage to the listener and change what
you're talking about based on what they
need in that moment.
And I think a lot of that,
the continuing ed is just, you know,
unfortunately can be a waste of time if
you're not able to pivot as an instructor.
Well, you mentioned pivot.
Healthcare used to reward volume.
I mean,
a lot of places it still does.
But things now are shifting towards value,
which is good value.
But if there's a theme that I think
I've picked up from our conversation right
now,
it's understand what game you're playing.
Understand what tools you have and what
good is for this situation.
So what does that actually mean for the
way that therapists, PTs, OTs,
we're all sort of cousins,
practice day to day?
This shift away from volume and towards
value.
A lot of conversations with this VBC
coming up.
Right.
What will that change?
Right.
So how does that actually play out for
for for everybody?
Yeah.
So I think the I think people need
to understand that outcomes,
which used to be just kind of like
this word that we heard in the background.
Right.
outcomes are going to be the driver.
If they aren't already in your clinic,
they are going to be your driver.
It is how well did you see that
patient?
How well did you get that patient back
to their goal?
How quickly did you do it?
How efficiently did you do it?
And how did you do it at the
end of the day?
What worked?
What didn't work?
And I think
that going back to what we were talking
about originally, you know,
listening to the patients,
stopping everything and stopping what you
think your what's the word,
what you think your
goal is going to be or your treatment
plan or your idea in your head when
you walk into that session put that aside
listen to the patient and ask you know
ask the questions that's going to help
with value-based care but it is the
outcomes are really what's going to drive
it and clinicians need to understand that
i don't think they do yeah it's it's
it's playing a slightly different uh well
playing the same game but now the
scoreboard is a little bit it might be
different
yeah i had i had a great former
sales director who would start like these
meetings with clients or whatever and he
would start the certain way i remember
like after ten times hearing him just
being like why are you saying that and
he and he sat me down he said
i want to understand what their version of
good is
Because if I'm playing ice hockey,
but I'm being judged on figure skating,
I'm never going to win.
I just scored nine goals, right?
But you didn't do any triple lutzes.
And so it's just speaking two different
languages.
So when I start with clients or companies,
or even if someone just says,
I want to pick your brain.
And I'm, you know,
what are we solving for here?
Like, what does good look like?
Yeah.
And it makes them often,
it makes them stop and think they don't
have a clear answer right away.
That's good.
They know the answer,
but they haven't maybe asked or they don't
know how to put it in a sentence.
That's step one.
Right.
What does good look like?
And scale this for me.
Is this a five hundred dollar problem,
a fifty thousand dollar problem or a half
a million dollar problem?
Cause I don't like asking like in what
I do,
I don't like asking what's your budget.
That's an objective question.
What I'll do is like, what,
What changes for your organization if we
fix this?
If we fix this right?
And I'm purpose and like,
I haven't told you what we're going to
fix because I don't know what the problem
is yet.
But if we do, what changes?
And that shows me the level of intensity.
Like,
is this a one phone call and done?
What do you think it is?
I want you to fix our entire social
media strategy in the next hour.
My man, that's not going to happen.
Let's get on.
I was taught.
Have you ever heard of the arc triangle?
Yeah.
Affinity, reality, communication,
and then that's the goal.
You have to have those three things to
achieve understanding, right?
We are not in the same reality.
If you think I'm going to overhaul an
entire system in the next forty eight
minutes, not going to happen.
So let's get on the same page there.
Right.
But these types of conversations need to
be had.
A lot of times I feel like productivity
or efficiency or standards are,
this is the number you need to hit.
Without telling clinicians,
how do I affect that number?
How do I do better?
What are the runs or goals or triple
let'ses?
Well, and here's the thing.
I think also it's not just the,
you know, how do I do it?
I always say, you know,
teach the why before the what.
Ask the why before the what.
Don't ask what the end result's going to
be.
Ask, you know, why are we doing it?
Then you get to the how,
then you get to the what.
But if you don't have the why and
the clinician doesn't understand the why,
then you're losing before you've even
started.
You're creating mini MacGyvers though.
Otherwise, it's just following SOP.
If I understand the why and then I
get something unusual,
I can figure out a way to make
this work because I understand where
the... Just listen,
tell me to get to Times Square.
You don't have to tell me what route
to take.
But if the goal is get to Times
Square by noon, I'll figure it out.
Don't worry about it.
But if it's follow these steps,
as soon as I get to five and
there's a traffic jam,
I don't know what to do.
I'm not empowered...
with a goal to know why,
or I don't know what kind of tools
I'm allowed to do.
There's a story that's pretty famous.
The Zappos.com, the online shoe retailer,
the guy who launched it realized they kept
being a bottleneck in customer service.
And he realizes because every customer
service problem went through him as the
CEO.
So finally, he just said,
if the problem requires a solution that's
a thousand dollars or less,
whatever action you think is best take it
up to a thousand dollars and just explain
what i did this because this and this
and then i'll look at it and go
yeah you got it and if there's one
that's like hey man that didn't let's
let's review this case and their amount of
complaints went down and their time to
solve uh problems went down and their
costs went down of course they did you
understood the why the goal was to make
happy people yep understood got it less
than a thousand dollars most of the time
it was probably like a twenty eight dollar
fix
Exactly.
And they were empowered.
So they did it.
They did it better.
They did it more efficiently.
Correct.
And that's exactly how we have to treat
our clinicians and ensure that our
clinicians understand that,
the empowerment, the why,
and the simplicity of it all.
Yeah, I agree.
We'll bring you back for an episode that's
really on a six-step playbook, right?
So how about we'll tease,
let's call it front tease, everybody.
We'll bring you back for the six-step
playbook.
If a clinic owner or rehab director wanted
to create systems that protect clinicians,
we'll bring you back for a full episode
on six because I feel like asking you
that, it's two episodes in one.
So we'll separate that.
So that'll be the second one.
So we'll skip to the parting shot right
now.
This is the parting shot.
One last mic drop moment.
No pressure.
Just your legacy on the line.
All right,
there's your parting shot brought to you
by our friends at Sarah Health.
They help clinics stay connected with
patients between visits using automated
text message check-ins.
Text message that support RTM codes.
Text message.
That means there's no app or login or
thing to forget or password to re-op every
text messages.
It's one of the easiest ways clinics can
improve outcomes while unlocking new
reimbursable care outside the clinic.
Visit sarahhealth.com, S-A-R-A health.com.
So you have two choices.
You can pick your own parting shot and
just do it,
or I can give you a prompt.
Which one do you want?
I'm feeling spicy today.
Let's do a prompt because I...
All right.
So if therapists feel like efficiency
always means cutting corners,
you say that's wrong.
What would you have them do?
What's the first step,
like an action that they should take?
If a clinician's listening, like, okay,
I agree with her.
I'd love that to happen.
But what do I do about it here
in my clinic where Katie's not my boss?
Hmm.
And they're feeling like they have to cut
corners.
Or they're just feeling like,
here I have this metric that I'm measured
to.
What do I do?
Do I talk to my boss and ask
them to walk me through it?
I feel like the answer is always people,
right?
Yes.
I would say if they don't even know
where to start, first step to do is...
is ask the question.
Ask,
what is the main goal for me to
meet?
Is it more visits per week?
Is it better use of my time?
Is it better outcomes?
Is it better documentation?
What is it that's going to make me
a next level clinician or make me able
to meet that goal in a more efficient
way?
Because you can do a lot of them,
but I would say like,
which lever has the most leverage?
Right.
I have twenty choices.
I can't pull all twenty,
but which one should I pull first or
most often or sooner to get that number
to move?
And to what it just sounds like you're
saying,
understand what the North Star really
means,
what is good in this situation look like?
A hundred percent because it could look a
million different ways for different
people,
but every person has the first lever to
try and then they may need to try
different ones.
Yeah.
Or the first one works perfectly.
Yeah.
Katie,
if someone was going to reach out to
you, what's the best place?
Is it the old LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the best place to reach me.
I get messages all the time and I'll
be sure to respond.
All right.
We'll bring you back.
Katie, appreciate the time.
Thanks for talking with us.
Thank you.
That's it for this one.
We're just getting warmed up.
Smash follow, send it to a friend,
or crank up the next episode.
Want to go deeper?
Hit us at pgpinecast.com.
Or find us on YouTube and socials at
pgpinecast.
And legally, none of this was advice.
It's for entertainment purposes only.
Bullshit!
See, Keith?
We read the script.
Happy now?