The PT Explorer's Mindset

Dana will be teaching a live webinar after business hours Eastern Time on September 25, 2025 on the TEAM Model. It’s for PTs, OTs, and case managers for CEUs, but it can be attended by anyone, of course. Just click “live webinars” in the navigation bar and register there. I’d love to see you! And if you are reading this after September 25, 2025, it will be available to attend later as an asynchronous CEU choice.

If you aren’t a Medbridge subscriber but want to be, use Dana’s link* and code DanaStraussDPT for $101 off your annual subscription. The course is being approved for CEUs for PTs, OTs, and case managers. These live webinars meet in-person CEU requirements in many states, including my state of NJ.

Do you ever listen to a podcast because you like being a “fly on the wall” when two or more people are talking? These are some of our favorite pods to listen to.

In the days leading up to recording Episode 16, we were chatting about a few things on text and then carried them into this recording as more fulsome conversations. Here are some of the topics we touch on this week:

• Absolute, relative, and personal sources of truth, and why we should question long-held beliefs

• Toyota’s “5 whys”

• Alex’s weekly research process (don’t miss his weekly emails sharing his best finds!)

• Two types of research and news content for healthcare professionals to devote some small amount of time to—medical and health policy. Keep up with both whether you are clinical, non-clinical, or both

• Clinic revenue and growth through addition vs. growth through subtraction. Check out this quick video by Dr. Eric Bricker, MD, on that concept and what Ochsner Health accomplished! 👇️ 

• Why innovators are disrupting our profession and what we can do about it

• Annual reviews and strategies to track your career accomplishments month over month

• Individual contributors vs. management roles

As we reflected on our conversation after we hit “stop” in recording the episode, we noted some top takeaways for our community here. Our discussion ventures beyond even typical practice management topics to examine what it truly means to adopt an explorer's mindset as a therapist and why it matters.

Early in our conversation, Alex highlights emerging research at the cellular level about mitochondrial DNA's influence on movement disorders. This cutting-edge science exemplifies the explorer's perspective we advocate throughout the episode - one that looks beyond conventional approaches to fundamentally reimagine treatment possibilities. We love the idea of creating a culture of curiosity within your practice or work setting. This could and should be more than therapy-focused research. It should cover research on medical research writ large as well as health policy research and news.

We also talked about therapy practices’ level of preparedness for “beginner” value-based care contracts and give examples of what might be included in a first agreement. Throughout our discussion, we explore the gap between theory and implementation and what the gap means, offering insights on how practices might begin bridging the gaps.

In one part, we examine the tension between traditional care models and more empowering patient-centered approaches. When Alex contrasts "holding a patient's hand" through dozens of visits versus transitioning to a guided self-management approach after fewer sessions, we're asking all of us to examine our value proposition. Are we providing care progression based genuinely on patient needs, or sometimes perpetuating dependence to sustain traditional business models?

Alex's scenario of two demographically identical patients with lower back pain receiving dramatically different care paths perfectly illustrates the paradigm shift happening in healthcare. We explore whether these divergent approaches can coexist within a single practice - a strategic question many practice owners now face.

Can you simultaneously operate under multiple care models with different incentives, or does transformation require fully committing to a new approach? This is something providers along the continuum are facing. Hospitals, in particular, struggle to balance “heads in beds” with preventing hospitalizations and re-hospitalizations as part of value-based care participation and goals. Yes, that’s as hard a straddle as it seems. It’s less difficult for PTs and OTs in outpatient practice.

Alex also tells a parable about buying a lottery ticket that captures our profession's historical hesitation to proactively engage with healthcare transformation. For too long, many therapists have been spectators rather than participants in designing the future of care delivery. Your "lottery ticket" today might be investing time to understand risk-based contracts, exploring digital health partnerships, or redesigning practice workflows to better demonstrate value.

Perhaps most important is our observation about the irony that therapists expertly help patients recognize and build upon their strengths, yet we collectively struggle to do the same for our profession. The gap between the actual value therapists provide and our awareness of that value creates the perfect opportunity for disruption - either from outside forces or, ideally, from innovative thinkers within our profession.

As we discuss throughout the episode, external disruptors aren't succeeding because they provide better clinical care or achieve better outcomes than therapists. They're succeeding because they've packaged therapy expertise in ways that solve (or seek to solve) specific problems for stakeholders, speaking the language of value, efficiency, and outcomes that resonates with payers and health systems. We have the clinical expertise these companies are trying to replicate, but we need to develop the business and innovation mindset to leverage that knowledge effectively.

The explorer's mindset we advocate requires questioning established practices, reimagining care delivery, and having the courage to venture into unfamiliar territory. We believe this approach is essential for ensuring our profession remains central to healthcare's future.

Are you ready to join us as explorers?