How I Diversified My Patient Population

    At the beginning of every journey as a professional in healthcare, your clientele may not always been what you dreamed of during your time in school. I absolutely imagined working with people like me, high level athletes striving to beat injury and return to the top of their game. However, as I discuss in earlier posts, I did not wish to sacrifice my sanity and stress levels by taking the open positions in places that would overwork and underpay, simply for the "carrot" of treating athletes everyday. 
Instead, I started with what I was given - an opportunity to evaluate and treat patients in acute care and inpatient rehabilitation (IPR).

   The Background Story

    After working for several months in acute and IPR settings, I was offered a position in outpatient physical therapy at a chronic pain management facility one day per week. That was my chance to get my foot back in the door in the outpatient orthopedic setting while being paid fairly, provided a flexible schedule, and treated well as a therapist. Over the course of the next few months, I was able to increase my caseload to support three days per week. I stayed at three days per week, continuing to work PRN in the hospital system to fill out my hours, for a few more months. Then, by the end of 2022, my 3 days were exploding and I made the jump to full time hours, guaranteed per week, in my outpatient setting (negotiated from my PRN rate to a salaried rate ..the small sacrifice of a few dollars per hour to get my patient volume up and give me more time to volunteer and make connections in the community, as well as market myself, with hours guaranteed was one I was willing to make. I was not going to put more time into it nor take the small cut to salaried if I didn’t see a future at that clinic or in outpatient care). This entire start to my career leads me to a few practical tips for increasing and diversifying your patient population as a physical therapist or other healthcare professional:

Alternate Experiences

    Consider obtaining experience in settings you may have overlooked - Had I not given acute and IPR settings a try, I would not have known that I actually enjoy treating clients with Parkinson's Disease, post-stroke and post-concussion, all populations that I am confidently treating now as my outpatient practice continues to grow. 

Volunteer!  

Volunteering is, in my opinion, one of the best forms of direct to consumer marketing. As mentioned in an earlier blog post,  I volunteered at a local gym, who introduced me to great group exercise classes that needed some assistance, and from that I was introduced a support group for a niche group of patients. Through that support group I met local business owners including a tai chi instructor, speech and occupational therapists, and even a neurologist, who now sends me multiple referrals weekly. Additionally, I volunteered at a local youth sports club, providing free physical screenings and tips to kids and their parents, and gained community recognition as a specialist in sports (to the point where even the coaches ended up on my schedule!) I have to shout-out Mike Reinold's program for giving me the framework and organization to do this successfully - would highly recommend checking out his Champion Sports Performance Specialist program.

Client Relationships

At work, there are plenty of parents around me, including other PTs, OTs, and more, who have kids in youth sports struggling with injuries or who are simply unsure if their child was doing the best things for injury prevention. In chatting about my experience treating athletes while in PT school and my own collegiate athletic experience, I was able to treat their kids, then the parents' friends' kids (the power of word of mouth) and facilitate those athletes' successful return to sport. It is not lost on me that those kids would have probably been taken to a "sportier" facility had I not made these personal connections and communicated my skill set; however, establishing relationships and rapport goes far, and my full schedule reflected that.

Social Media

    Finally, diversifying your patient population in 2024 means initiating or enhancing some kind of social media presence. While we had our social media channels established for a while, they weren't the most active, and I took a personal interest in their development when I wanted to reach a younger demographic of patients that we were missing. At my clinic, we ensure that any content we film can go not only on social channels but can also be reformatted and sent to MDs - primary care, specialists (neurologists), surgeons with whom we have great working relationships, worker’s compensation nurse case managers and more. The videos that showed our personalities AND what we're good at - showcasing a therapist's bilingual fluency, our self-introductions that included our specialties, and even our funny videos that marry what we do in the clinic with a top social media trend, get the MOST responses by far, and new waves of referrals keep coming our way.

Have questions about diversifying your patient population? Have suggestions?  Leave a comment or send me an email!