Physical Therapy Billing | Practice Growth

An Interview with Shaun Kirk, President of Measurable Solutions
BestPT Physical Therapy practice management software partnered with Measurable Solutions to help clients grow their practices, manage staff and improve overall efficiency and net profits. Dave Macolino reached out to Shaun Kirk, President and Co–Founder of Measurable Solutions. Shaun wanted to know more about our products and services and presented his methodology. We were pleased to discover how Measurable Solutions is a perfect fit for BestPT Physical Therapy Billing Software. Read the press release of the partnership here. 

Dave: What is “Measurable Solutions?” 

Shaun: Measurable Solutions is a management training company. We train private practice owners to better manage their practice, increase their referrals and ultimately their overall net profit. 

Dave: Shaun, you’re a physical therapist, is that right?

Shaun: That’s right. 

Dave: How does being a physical therapist give your company an advantage when working with private practitioners? 

Shaun: We understand this profession. When I first started out as a private practitioner I was a complete failure. I thought that if I kept adding initials after my name my practice would grow. It did not. I realized that the problems I experienced in private practice were not related to treating “Bob Smith’s” back condition. The problems I had were related to getting more new patients, hiring or firing staff, getting paid, billing correctly and more. Clinical skills were not my problem, my lack of administrative skills were definitely creating all my problems. I had to dig myself out of it. I was able to grow my practice by 9–fold and ultimately worked 18 hours a week in my practice. Measurable Solutions takes the knowledge that I gained in growing my practice and we use that knowledge to help other practice owners. 

Dave: You’ve got a line you said when we first met that made me laugh. It’s something like, “When the going gets tough, the owner treats patients.” What do you mean by that? 

Shaun: People are like water. They tend to run in the path of least resistance. The easiest thing to do when all else fails is to go with what you know. What most private practitioners know is how to treat patients. 

It’s like a captain of a ship who is a passionate well–trained chef. He knows how to cook 5–star meals and prefers to do so as his ship runs aground. A practice owner who is also a clinician MUST man the helm of his or her ship if one intends to right that ship. 

Dave: That makes sense. It’s tough to handle office problems when you are treating patient morning to night. Let me ask you, when you begin working with a practice owner to make him or her into a better “captain”, is there a particular format you follow?

Shaun: Sure. We first help the owner drive patients to his or her door. The first part of our Executive Training Program has this as its primary focus. The second step of our Executive Training Program is designed to show you how you can get other staff to get their statistics up. The third step of our Executive Training Program will show you how to get distance from the practice. 

Dave: What do you mean by “distance from the practice?” 

Shaun: Once you have systems in place to drive in new patients, get patients to become more compliant with their treatment program regardless of out of pocket expenses and are able to get large percentages of your new patients referring their friends and family, you’ve really got the results of the first step. 

In the second step, you now have intelligent statistical management throughout your organization. You have an organizational structure and staff who know who does what. You will know who to hire when and for what position and most importantly how to get them as productive as possible in the shortest period of time. The net profit begins to soar. This step is vital. If you have done step one very well and have more new patient rolling in but failed this step, you could have all your profits eaten up by inefficient staff placed into the wrong position, even with a great rise in patient volume. 

In the third step, “distance from the practice”, we focus on financial and remote statistical management so you can find precise problems in your practice without having to be there to “e;put the fire out.” Distance from the practice means the ability to expand the practice without having to be there. At this point the practice owner has a machine that can operate without his direct supervision. 

Dave: Wow! Ok, here’s a tough one: bestPT works with practice owners all the time and many are just plain buried with patient care and fires to put out. What you just covered here seems like it would just overwhelm many practice owners. How do you get all this put into their practice? 

Shaun: When a new client comes into our Executive Training Program the MOST important thing we ask them to do is find a 5-hour block of time during the work week to EXCLUSIVELY work on our Implementation Programs. 

Upon completion of any executive training course at Measurable Solutions, a client is put on an Implementation Program that lays out step–by–step what needs to be put into the practice when he returns home. These Implementation Programs are kept on–line with the client having a login and password to his Implementation Programs. We find that when a client puts in 5–hours a week on the programs the practice begins to run more efficiently, the owner’s time is freed up even more and he or she will begin to find even more time to implement the programs or maybe take a day off. 

Dave: How do you follow up with a client once they return home from your training?

Each client is assigned a consultant. The client’s consultant has a dashboard of all his or her clients and their progress on their Implementation Programs in real–time. If their client is behind schedule the consultant will nudge them along. The emphasis is to push the client to implement the programs. We know that in the beginning, most clients have many “fires” to put out and the consultant really rolls up their sleeves and helps the client. As time moves on the consultant pushes the clients to implement his or her training and the consulting time is more focused in that direction and the client’s need for regularly scheduled consulting reduces and the client becomes his own consultant to their own practice. 

Besides the managing of the clients’ Implementation Programs on–line we also have a cloud-based statistical management program where the consultant can help the client manage by statistics. Their consultant can view the client’s weekly statistics in real–time. There is accountability with our program. This method has produced multi–million dollar growth in many of our clients. Paying for a program and not doing it is a waste of money. We work to ensure your return on investment and pushing you to implement. 

Our “consulting” is mostly geared toward getting the client to implement the tools necessary to better manage their practice. We find that when our consultants spend too much time trying to help a client deal with “Susie” who runs with scissors or doesn’t play well with others, time is lost on implementation and the implementation alone most likely would handle the problem with “Susie.” 

Dave: This was educational. If one of our bestPT clients wanted to work with you guys, how would they go about it? 

Shaun: They would take our New Patient Course. The New Patient Course shows you how to make your practice broadly known for its results in a way that doctors use to evaluate a patient’s results. The course then shows you how to take the conditions you treat the most and make you broadly known as the best in town in the treatment of those conditions. The New Patient Course doesn’t require an owner, who does not have any time anyway, to have to go out and knock on doors to get referrals. 

The New Patient Course stands separate from our Executive Training Program. Someone can do the New Patient Course, apply its Implementation Program and get new patients without doing our Executive Training Program. 

Dave: Can my clients skip the New Patient Course and go straight to your Executive Training Program? 

Shaun: No. Our Executive Training Program is for those who have attended the New Patient Course, have bigger goals and want to grow their organization and have a life and would like our help. The New Patient Course is a requirement to be considered for acceptance into our Executive Training Program. 

Dave: So what’s next? How can our clients contact you? 

Shaun: They can schedule a webinar with one of my New Patient Course consultants. Our consultants can go over the subjects of PR and Marketing as it pertains to the individual’s practice and go over how the New Patient Course could help the competent clinical practice increase its market share and referrals. 

Dave: Thank you Shaun.

Shaun: Thank you.