Become the Practice of the Future: Rethinking the Physical Therapy Front Desk

[00:00] Hey everybody welcome back to another episode of Physical Therapy Private Practice: Secrets of the Top 10% my name is Brian Gallagher I'm your host and this week I am very fortunate and honored to have the founders of Virtual Sally on our podcast with us this podcast is intended to be informative educational and above all else not only for you to walk away with a bunch of bright ideas and new knowledge but to walk away with applicable skills strategies advanced technology that can actually leverage your practice into the future of 2024 so.

[00:30] I'm not going to Rattle on and on because there's a lot to cover here in this week's podcast and for those of you on YouTube you get to see Mark and Wendy the founders of Virtual Sally there they are I'm going to let them introduce themselves I've got some specific questions that I'm going to ask I'm going to try to think like you all uh from the audience of what you may want to know but I'm going to tell you right now there's no way we can cover all that in this episode you're going to have to reach out uh you're going to have to get the information.

[01:00] I'm not asking you to reach out for the sake of sales or solicitation I'm asking you to reach out for the sake of professional survival for the sake of advancing your practice and seeing you gather the knowledge so you can make an informed educated decision I feel there's not as many people in business that I align with that share that value that share that I'm about your business doing better and in turn if you succeed we will take care of ourselves and succeed I absolutely love love love Mark and Wendy um they are strong partners of.

[01:30] Ours we are very bonded together for the future there was a lot of vetting that went on before I hitched my wagon to anybody so if that means anything to you guys listening out there take um some comfort in that that I've done a lot of the front end work for you all but like I said let me stop talking let you hear from them um I'm gonna open up with if you guys could just give a little bit of your backgrounds let's just go shortly on that I know Wendy as a therapist and Mark as an entrepreneur and business leader you know just let them see that.

[02:00] That combination between the two of you all and then I'm G to ask about Virtual Sally and the whereabouts and the comings to on that so we'll start with Wendy hi I'm Wendy I'm a physical therapist I've been in practice for actually too many years to say but 36 yeah so a long time I actually worked for multi-type practice when I came out of school so I did a little bit of everything Home Health uh school systems skilled nursing facilities outpatient Orthopedics and outpatient Orthopedics was what I loved and so I ended up after.

[02:30] About six years there being a director there I opened um my husband and I opened a practice together um and had that practice for about 30 years and then we um sold that at the end of 2020 um but in 2015 we started this product uh actually just kind of dumb luck started it I actually had had enough of the front desk and the issues that we had going there I also saw the writing on the wall as far as reimbursements going down and costs going up and that's only become more and more of a problem and so we really set out to create.

[03:00] Something that we could reduce our costs without affecting patient care because I I'm a therapist at heart so there's a lot of business ideas that come out there as like no you can't do that because it just won't work in the therapy environment because I've lived in that I' I've done that um so I know what will work and what won't work so really wanted that to come across and as we've um gone about this Venture I let Mark tell you more about his history but he's got a lot of tech background and we've done several tech companies together in this in in the medical therapy space um so we put this together.

[03:30] Because we think that it if to save the profession we've got to be able to do something that we can get our hands around and present a product that really comes out there and shows well as you guys can tell as you guys can tell before you hear from Mark there is no grass growing under Wendy's feet so is not that is not her nature so everybody strap in because that's about the pace of this podcast so let's let's hear from Mark go ahead it's very much mutual as well so uh.

[04:00] Yeah I've been a serial entrepreneur for over 30 years and obviously Wendy and I had uh our practice together for for 30 years and uh I've had other technology Ventures software companies as well that built and and sold and moved on and also was the first franchisee of Five Guys Burgers and Fries if you're familiar with that concept so that was interesting um ran for mayor did some crazy stuff so anyways uh I'm thrilled to be on on this show today with you Brian and and uh we're just excited to talk about Virtual Sally that's awesome fantastic so for all those listening you.

[04:30] Understand that the main reason is for us to do the podcast and YouTube is for you to walk away with tips for professional success as well as personal growth ideas so my first question Wendy kind of touched on it but I want to just drill into it a little bit what made you actually lift the finger into developing Virtual Sally was it a problem that you were trying to solve or was it a business idea.

[05:00] Um was it some sort of entrepreneurial spirited um let's take advantage of this opportunity or was it more of I I there's just a problem here and somebody's got to step up and solve it Wendy yeah it was definitely the problem that it came from I guess if you do a lot of reading on it that you know all good ideas come from a problem that you have to solve and so yes it was definitely a problem and it I always tell the story the worst words in the world come out of my mouth when the phone we ring before 6:00 in the morning cuz I knew it was going to be a front.

[05:30] Desk person not coming to work and we were going to have to for the day we were pulling somebody from their job or we were not covering it at all at front which means that we were leaning on the back if we could even get those collections at the at the front from the back and we all know if you don't collect at the time of service then that money becomes half of what it was or or even more than that we really wanted to find a way to um solve that solution with but still have that Personal Touch I didn't like the and today we all think about those kios but um I'll have to tell you that we actually formed this.

[06:00] Product in 2015 so it's hard to go back that was that was going to be my question we're talking here 2023 on the heels of you know turning into 2024 but you're talking 2015 like right the problem that you were trying to solve has been magnified like tenfold today and we're going to get into that so so it was really a problem that you were trying to solve back to 2015 okay let's just rewind the hands of time the problems that I remember in private.

[06:30] Practice being in private practice along with you guys you know I was in Maryland you guys in Virginia was for me it was a lack of consistency I felt like I was doing adult babysitting it's like how many times do I have to go over how to handle a cancellation call how many times do I have to review that you have to do your your your cluster booking in the morning and move everybody forward open up evening slots later slots the week you know was that kind of thing and then the.

[07:00] Second thing was the time and energy of training of training nowadays and I just want your opinion um both of you on this so if I go back to 2015 that was mine the lack of consistency was like adult babysitting and then the um just the ability to train them like to have the time to train them to get them to a proficient level now you add on the revolving door the lack of employee loyalty the lack of commitment to their job the wanting more money for.

[07:30] Doing nothing more than what was being done five years ago I mean the job hasn't really changed it's the same sort of thing but all of a sudden everybody wants $10 more an hour and for those of you listening that are administrative I'm not insulting you please that's not my point my point is as a practice owner where do we go when these things change would you agree with that Mark is is that kind of like if we go forward in time it's just gotten worse absolutely yeah and that was really the the Genesis behind why we designed the product the way we did it is that you know you know it's live streaming video right so in.

[08:00] Our case we had 10 clinics and the way this system set up is that each receptionist or PC whatever lots of trums for them now um they can all see all the offices live streaming and so we were able to work 10 clinics with only four receptionists because they could multitask that was the whole gist of it but again back to your point too Brian on the training you know when somebody leaves and you bring somebody else new in you've got a good two to three months that they've got to ramp up and they're going to make mistakes and errors and it's going to cost you money and so in this case if somebody leaves the rest of.

[08:30] The pool could just pick it up and and not really it's there is no training issues because you don't have to train an person and so really we found that it really helped cash flow considerably yeah and and Wendy um being a physical therapist being sharing the therapy uh experience between the two of us um not to put you out of that group Mark you're totally I get it you're totally can hang with the cool kids um we um I was going to say.

[09:00] As therapists we weren't looking for a a remote receptionist I mean I can tell you that I wasn't looking for what is that Regis or these things out there oh you're and it's not that why is it not that for people who are new to this like I know you and I have had this conversation and you you and I have talked to Big corporate groups in America who are looking at working with us together for those of you who don't know they provide the software Hardware technology we provideed the Personnel training and and admin ation and application of that we do all the.

[09:30] Oversight train so that's how we work together um and I tell people all the time this isn't regist this isn't a a a a Philippine nothing wrong with the Philippines or India or anything offshore it doesn't matter what country I pick it's not an offshore reception it's just answering your phone right correct it's a full circus surface that way the um system is actually continually watching your waiting room as if they were sitting there so the whole gist in the product was designed to have whatever a person can do sitting.

[10:00] In front of you can be done remotely everything the only thing we can't do is put paper in the printer and change the uh toner but other than that everything we can print we can scan we can move things into the EMR we can uh talk to them they can walk in your waiting room and have a seat in the chair and just think oh well there's nobody here wait for somebody to come up there we will see that we jump right on and be able to greet them the patient doesn't have to do anything on their part and that's kind of the problem with the other um Solutions not that they're bad but but if you go in there and you don't have an.

[10:30] Appointment that day it doesn't oh oh you don't have an appointment today it just says can't find an appointment okay now what are we going to do or you know can't check you out because I need an ID to get you know to get your wine so somebody's got to what I call babysit the kiosk and when we were designing it I told Mark you cannot have anybody in the back have to babysit this otherwise we haven't created a solution the solution has to be full stream and that's that's see that's what I that's what I loved about it and before we ever came together and start working I drove up the road o twice it was 5 and a half.

[11:00] Hours up five and a half hours back all in the same day I I I I believe you guys saw the commitment and and me just doing that I was right off in surgery I couldn't even really you guys were and and I wanted to just say you know when you have that infusion and for for the listening audience Wendy's clinical infusion with Mark's ability to adapt and create something that hadn't been created before because she's like pushing on them and I and I love this when I went to ronoke and I saw offices and I saw I was running I could see the.

[11:30] PT influence I could feel that this is a PT origin it reminds me of hiding over at wbpt like she was like this every all these Bean counters are creating these things but this isn't right this isn't how pts work and she created something that's now Behemoth and wildly successful I feel the same way I don't mean to compare to to to that web P because maybe that's not a fair but it is just strikes me as that because you infused this has to be PT oriented this.

[12:00] Has to be PT focused this has to achieve the targets goals and objectives of a physical therapy clinic that's why this isn't regious that's why this isn't like some of the competing programs that out there because let me tell you when please don't take any offense this anybody but when I was shopping who to Hitch to and work with I was bringing the horsepower of the Personnel the the software I just needed to pick the actual best group best ethical people who are most adaptable with the best technology and it's this it's really this for me I.

[12:30] Know there's others but it's really this and Wendy what you pointed out really crosses the bridge of the fear of a lot of people and what is that fear well Brian I don't know about this it's going to lose the Personal Touch people aren't going to feel there's not going to be a human being there anymore I know my answer to that but I want you guys to answer that because you were touching on the live streaming and the big screen and the interaction I think people need to hear I don't care if you're 80% Medicare when we've ruled this out it.

[13:00] Has gone nothing but successful in these offices why is that why why is that not really a legitimate beer when they really experience it for what it is because they absolutely do get that personal experience in fact like we said we ran our clinics and um they patients would bring them Christmas presents and sit it there receptionist so in the summer they would bring them vegetable but they also make comments to them like they'll say oh I saw you got a haircut that looks really good on you and the the the receptionist piece is going to make comments to them too hey I see you.

[13:30] Got your sling off your shoulder must be doing better so they create those same relationships that they did when they weren't sitting there because they are sitting there but just in a virtual relationship so it is a very personal you'll have you know with your teams there they have their primary their their secondary so they may see more than one person but they tend to see the same people over and over again and that's the nice thing about the relationship that we have I tell people you get a team not just one person sitting there doing so if somebody on.

[14:00] The team is on the phone somebody else can greet that patient instead of the receptionist happening or PC say wait a minute you know just a minute when I get off help you you know we can be right there and interact with them and like you said that ability to not be a cold kiosk I mean what are you going to do with the sales rep loog in or a person who's doesn't have an appointment that day this one make a payment on their account well there's no way those types of things in you have to have that relationship you you we yeah I want to table I want to table the kiosk for a minute because I want to come back to the kiosk but go ahead Mark we'll touch.

[14:30] On that a little later yeah well no you're make a good point because there is another dynamic because we get that question a lot you know like particular older patients you know are they uncomfortable with this Co did a lot okay and Co really made this medium and so people you know they get used to talking to their grandkids or their their significant others in this kind of medium and so they become very comfortable with it so we we don't have push back from the elderly like we did when we first start no no and we don't either and I can only imagine how it must have been in 2015 2016 but from.

[15:00] 2020 on postco I I gotta tell you I mean what what 60-year-old hasn't FaceTime their grandchildren you know what six-year-old hasn't used an iPad or their laptop or you know Zoom right who I mean Mark why did we buy stock in zoom in 19 in 2019 right if we had bought stock in Zoom then I mean so I think it's the right place at the right time um I do want to give you credit Mark though you went the extra Mile and the extra expense because I know this costed.

[15:30] This cost a lot of money to develop and it continues to cost a lot of money to develop and I love that commitment to putting your money into it to see it evolve but you made it evolve so it's live streaming people when people walk in that front door you're seeing them walk in you're looking at their posture you're looking at their facial expressions our staff on the other side we and I'll I'll be honest truth be told I underestimated how much training was.

[16:00] Going to go into making that staff the profession ready that I really needed them to be I had a huge Staffing Company in the 1990s so I'm very comfortable with Staffing but Staffing remotely from your home and having people be in their pajama bottoms but they professional top you know it's not everybody can play that mental game they start to get a little LAX and so we had to really put a lot into it but you helped us by making sure that it was live it was streaming we could have a team of people back up one back up two um you know putting the.

[16:30] Little picture in the windows when we need I mean the stuff you've done has just made the user friendliness on both ends the client and our end so much better um is there one more where where I was leading with this is there one more any other distinction that you could point out which makes Virtual Sally stand ahead of the rest it stands out from the pack um I would say it's our p and that's what makes our product different than it yeah and and also we can control local.

[17:00] Hardware which is significant um so we get into the the nuts and bolts and the you know how sausage is made here but um it's uh the way we can actually control local so you can have a a PC receptionist in timbuk 2 and your clinic located in in Florida and uh and if if they need to print something there at the clinic they can do that and that's something that's unique to the way Virtual Sally is built um we can also scan remotely um so that's signicant because you know not everybody's electronically.

[17:30] Onboarding yet I mean that's it's coming but most practices don't uh and or it's a it's a combination but so that's that's pretty significant and I think the other thing is are many to many so like this call is a one to one so it's a closed call we don't know what's else is happening in the world in Virtual Sally the PC can not only see what they're doing they could be talking on this call but they can also see any other offices that they are helping out so people aren't waiting and I can also as a PC see my other colleague says PCS if.

[18:00] They've helped an office so if I see somebody I'm talking to you now but in my peripheral on the right hand side of my uh screen I'm going to be seeing any of the offices that I'm responsible for so if I see that an office has somebody standing there I can put you on hold and say you know while you're collecting that insurance card I'm going to be right back with you and I can get another patient and let them get started so people actually get taken care of faster because of the system it's not a closed system it's the many to many that's fantastic and that's exactly what.

[18:30] They need to hear I think the obvious things if I'm a practice owner and I'm in the audience right now I'm thinking to myself okay so you're taking away my need to do performance reviews you're taking away my need to match payroll taxes Social Security FICA um uh HR claims you're taking those claims away those threats go away um the cost of hiring training turnover I mean it's been said it's about 17 to 23,000 with.

[19:00] Each turned you know turn depending where you are with each turnover um the the caliber the consistency is is and then of course the physical therapist who's never run a front desk in their life is now forced to be the manager over staff of people that are doing jobs that they don't even know to do how to do themselves so I think a practice owner can grasp those tangible benefits I think the you know lack of pay they don't have to pay PTO they don't have to pay vacation they don't to pay for the the.

[19:30] The I think it's the intangible stuff that's so important the fact that you can go to bed at night knowing you're not going to get that call six in the morning you're not going to worry about that you know you're working with a bigger group I mean we've got over a hundred employees in 30 different states at this point and we just keep growing by Leaps and Bounds and so it's the training of them so as an owner I'm like dialing in here going okay so you guys Virtual Sally's provid me with the advanced technology and software and.

[20:00] Hardware Meg is providing them with the staff at the end of the day what's my bottom line does this work out for me financially does it not work out for me financially you guys must feel that question as much as I do people are typically willing to pay a little bit more than what they're paying now because payroll cost I mean front desk people used to be $15 an hour I have people in California call me up say hey they're telling me I can go work at you know Walmart or something or or fast food and make 2021 I'm having to pay 25 24 26 I've even heard for people to sit.

[20:30] At the front desk so let's talk cost I know a lot of owners want to know is this actually a viable step for my practice yes it is I mean when you look at the bottom line of those costs it actually will come out less expensive this way and one thing I like to point out when I talk with practice owners is you get a lot of what I call Hidden savings and there are things that when we started this we knew what we were doing here but they were add-ons that we got for instance once we did this um we.

[21:00] Took back all that space that the front office occupied and in some of these clinics it's a lot of space so we made that therapy space so now we have extra billable therapy space that we can use um we also found that our schedules were more full because we got rid of what I call the cabals in the offices it's where the therapist knows that Mark's going to cancel on Friday but I want to get out early so I tell the receptionist BC don't fill that schedule I want to get out early and when she lives or he lives with them it's very hard for them to fill that schedule so they don't now.

[21:30] You get a loss well this as soon as that patient is canceled somebody they're going to be filling that with the weight list so the schedule densities went up also the fact that we're moving things into the EMR at at the time of service so as soon as that comes in that's going in so we started billing out twice a day so our count on that seven4 21 days started a lot faster so there were so many extra benefits that we got from having this that it it goes beyond just the dollars that you spend I can't agree with you more and my.

[22:00] Response to people are the things that they're not calculating like you said the things that they don't necessarily see like for instance if I'm a startup practice well I need a startup and I need somebody to work my front desk but I'm only seeing 20 30 40 patients a week well how am I possibly going to attract a really talented highly qualified person to work by front desket who's going to leave their job for 15 hours a week they're not you're going to be forking out for 40 hour a week pay for people that you don't have 40 hour a.

[22:30] Week work for when you're a startup so that this is a pro-rated scale I can hire a half FTE three4 FTE a fulltime equivalent as my practice booms I can add more staff to my needs so the economy of scale is built into the way we work together with our clients so that is a tremendous value savings people are like well how is this possibly going to be on an annual basis less expensive well one of the other things that I'm seeing in our clients is the amount of lost Revenue through.

[23:00] Lack of authorization timely input of information inacurate input of information our people are simply better trained and they're held to a higher standard of performance and because of that because it's all transparent it's all be it's all you're just not going to be writing off the dollars that you're writing off and we all know there's two things a therapist should never touch Ever every practice owner I've ever coached I'm like a therapist should.

[23:30] Never touch the money and never touch the schedule well in these offices 71% of all offices are Mom and Pop two clinics or less those therapists get that relationship with that front desk and the front desk staff's like uncomfortable fill it in that slot I know they're gonna want to eat their ham sandwich slower today and they're looking at that space and they don't want to do it or I heaven forbid I put somebody in at there four o'clock when it looked like they were going to get out a half hour early all of that emotional stuff goes away but at the same time we are part of their team we.

[24:00] Attend their staff meetings we're there for their parties we're there you really do bond with your person and I attribute that to the way Virtual Sally has made this such a live interactive streaming thing it's not Regis experience it's not like what I've seen in some of the competitors correct correct and the thing does that make you think of any other savings that I'm missing that's the big thing like you said especially with the startups or if you want to expand to a new Clinic I mean the therapist knows what they're doing but the front person does not and that can cost you tremendously so as we grew we.

[24:30] Started this we had seven offices and we quickly grew to 10 because we weren't making those mistakes and they were profitable much faster than anything we started before having this product because we used people that already knew what they were doing we weren't making those mistakes right think about that going to office I'm sorry go ahead Mark but just real quick something that is significant in your we did obviously invest a lot of this but you also invest in the people ahead of time because you will train them three and four weeks before they're ever deployed anywhere and you train them so so when they get.

[25:00] In that office they know what they're doing there's no learning curve there so you you would go to lot upfront without you know have any Revenue associated with that employee um for a good yeah you're right you're right and you know I originally SL slated this for a six-month pilot and then a six-month confirmation of success and cut it loose the six-month pilot went 18 months and here we are year two we're still we're actually for the benefit of the listeners we've actually realized that there's such a demand for this.

[25:30] Product you guys know you were at Ascend and PPS and CSM I mean your booth is swamped I mean you guys in terms of validation for those of you listening just follow the crowd no one's going to do something or be as excited about something if it's not working so you see virtual s Booth you come see our booth at PPS you come visit us and hopefully you get to come to our social party as well get in with the crowd get in with the buzz talk to people about their experiences because what I see with this more than anything else is that um we're.

[26:00] Actually able to collaborate together with the practice owner with you with ourselves for the benefit of the experience to the patient it's a PT Focus driven model so when you talk about investing money I know how much you guys have done on that side what we've had to do is because this is such a human to human kind of thing we've actually gone out and signed a contract with a uh software AI my avatar service.

[26:30] If you will and now we're creating an avatar of who is doing the training and we can have this message be consistent all the time that Avatar is real life human being looking articulate but we can up the script up the the dialogue every single day and make it consistent for every single person who comes in so you as an owner you can actually witness it and and stream this all the time so your staff it's a view of a thousand times where was me I have to shoot a new video and then something changes I got.

[27:00] To update a new video get the crew together go into the studio we are so Advanced we are so much further ahead of anybody I see on the horizon with our use of the avatar for internal training professional training your guys application of the live streaming the physical therapy Focus driven model if I'm an owner I should feel very comfortable and confident calling Virtual Sally now what if I'm an owner and I say hey I love my front Des staff member I don't want to use Meg I I this this girl is fantastic but we are.

[27:30] Growing and and and there's a lot of distraction can I just reach out to Virtual Sally and and can you help me position this person at home and does that work absolutely we can do that and I think and I don't want to speak for you but if you have people that you really like but not enough of them and you want to bring on some mix app as well they'll actually hire your person as well and bring them into the team if they're an a player they've got a good you know they have good options for whatever that you want to do out there but yes you can do it with just your s we have customers.

[28:00] That do all kinds of things yeah and I wanted to have that conversation here and show people that we're not about procuring business just for the sake of procuring business for us if you have somebody who's a rock star and you want to send her home and you think with her being out of the office distraction she might be able to handle an office and a half or maybe two offices and you can get rid of the revolving door at your other office Virtual Sally is going to work with you and by all means she they can refer you to us to help you with some training some setup you can buy some coaching.

[28:30] Hours with us we're not it's not about what goes into our book of accounts if you need us to help you set that up and you're GNA run that all on your own hey that's fine but let's say you say well that doesn't save me I've still got payroll and I still got reviews and I still have risks that I I I don't want my person to be unemployed but we will hire them we will hire them we will put them through the training we'll still send them home we'll put them on your account and will'll take care of the oversight the management and everything that goes along with that so you get the full economy of scale with somebody you know with somebody you like and Trust.

[29:00] We're just going to up their game we just have to make sure they meet our bar of performance not to say that for you owners listening and watching your bar isn't good enough but we do have a pretty high bar we want to make sure everybody but that's another thing you don't have to worry about as a practice on you're not doing the training anymore that goes away where're that's our responsibility now Andy Mark sorry on that subject I think what too is the efficiencies increase significantly whether they're at home or they're just in the back office because while we want to be personal with them we all know.

[29:30] Sometimes that can be the Social Hour for a patient and that's hard for the reception too the PC because you know like we're in a room going okay it's after you know 30 minutes come and knock on the door you know I had to go on or the PC's got their phone under the you know table trying to go somebody please save me because they're unaware that the line is backing up behind them whereas this way we can you know say you know Brian I'd really like to hear about your daughter's recital but I got a couple people waiting so you tell her good luck and I'll see you next time so we were very friendly about that but we move for that engagement where we needed to so it.

[30:00] Will help you to get away from that person actually sitting there but we do have customers that I'll have person sitting there and then they'll be help helping another office virtually but most of them go all the way out of that getting the value of it all the way around yeah and and that leans into what many people have been hearing on my podcast for several months now is what we call getting away from the fee for Service practice model and moving into the progressive PT practice model where it's like a hair salon you go in and the only person there is the person.

[30:30] Who's doing the cosmetologist who's working on you or The Beautician who's working on you nobody at the front nobody at the back nobody sweeping the floors it's all I believe within five years all PT practices are going to have dpts ptas and and Texs and that's it I don't think you can afford so we're going to talk future in just a moment I think in being fair and balanced with everybody who's listening let's talk about the potential downsides what are the risks people are taking what go wrong what what would people be like hey.

[31:00] I've been listening to you guys for 30 minutes and it's all this good news but with everything good there's always some and that's true I mean I love my Dodge Ram 1500 brand new truck it's great but every now and again that big screen doesn't turn on when I start the car and I'm like H I gotta turn it off and turn it back on and reboot this system there's a there's something with everything out there so let's be honest with people if they want to hear from us what our experiences been that can be somewhat of a not a problem because.

[31:30] There's nothing we haven't been able to overcome but something that they may have on their mind that they're concerned about maybe a situation or concern what would that be well it's you know software right um so I mean you get Windows updates you get updates on your on your cell phone I mean it's it's an Dynamic thing and so you're gonna have issues every once in a while and and you know we're here to fix it you know it's it's it's a licensing agreement so you constantly get updates like you do with your windows and they're they're not char charged um so we're constantly evolving and building the product if if.

[32:00] I had to say the of the support calls we get 90% of them are usually Hardware related um you know camera the printer the whatever that's generally what what you hear but uh but you know the Soft Wind he always says it drives me crazy when she says it but it's appropriate but she says the product is the worst it's ever going to be today because we we continuously it drives me crazy the technology guy but uh but it's hey that's a that's a Tesla that's a Tesla quote that's a Tesla quote right there Lan's been saying that for a decade that's right I mean it's pretty darn.

[32:30] Good today but it's uh you know we have room for a per hunt we will yeah I mean well fair enough with that I will say is that we're committed to a solution for it because I know what happens we know what happens when it goes down in the front it's you know it's an issue so there it's spoton I would say our commitment to that is huge yeah absolutely and and I want to just show people the Integrity of who they're dealing with we recently have come across the situation where early adopters have Hardware that is not the.

[33:00] Hardware we send out today and we're we've been in talks and we've been standing behind that and we're going to resolve that for those early people that's not on them that's on us right we're moving forward we're like yep there's no way you guys something eight 10 months ago should be something you're victimized by this now because you know things progress but that just shows our commitment to seeing that people we work with succeed we don't Envision that in the future because we have a hardware list and we literally drop ship this Hardware to you guys so your concerns about using your own stuff no it's got.

[33:30] To be tested it's got to be inspected it's got to be loaded it comes to you ready to go plug it in there's a roll out we've got that all worked out so for those of you that have that fear do not have that fear second fear I think people have is well wait a minute Brian this is internet based what if my power outage goes a thunderstorm goes by or the the what H how do we function with that I know what I say I say well I don't know how do you function now if your phones go out and the power goes.

[34:00] Out what do you do now right like so what do you say we recommend that they use a battery pack um for the power so that can kick on right away and then cellular back up if the internet goes down that cellular will kick in and um be very Pro um Progressive with that you know the video may have a little bit of pixelation more than it would with a direct ethernet connection but it's died on good for those situations and you know it's it definitely does the trick and that's perfect because if if when I say what do you do now is I'm putting.

[34:30] The you know it's kind of like when we manage employees right in Mead me we say an employee is not allowed to come to a a a senior or a manager or an owner with a problem without a solution right I'm always like because if you come to me with a problem without a solution and the solution doesn't have to be the right one it just has to be an attempt then it's just whining right I mean that's the definition of whining I'm coming to you with a problem but I haven't put any effort into solving my own problem so when people say well I'm worried about the power outage I'm like well what would you do now well they think through how to solve that work around same thing with this if a power.

[35:00] You got a battery backup click battery backup oh internet's don't flip over to Cellular everything can be managed right um let's say I like to say on that too is I I tell you what if I'm gonna B on the Internet or at I'm person showing up I'm taking the internet and I every time I can guarantee that you're 100% right I mean Al Gore started the internet for that level of comp right I mean that's so yep you gotta Bank on that um.

[35:30] I'm trying to think of you know I we already bridged the the one concern that people have about well how my medicare people feel about it but they actually it's warm and fuzzy and they actually form that relationship we already addressed that um trying to think of what other uh concerns people typically most people think it's a it's a kiosk like at an airport or something like that let's talk kios I told you we table that I have come around to the kiosk idea on a limited scope respective now you guys may share this may not share this but.

[36:00] That's what a podcast is all about we all have our opinions I like to have the live streaming Virtual Sally Meg relationship you have to have that Foundation I just believe everybody needs that live interaction they need that bonding I think when you're a bigger busier practice you're going to have a line of people when you have four five six therapists in one office you a lot of people that are just signing in and needing to go back they're just coming for their revisit I personally love that Viewpoint of having this live.

[36:30] You know the the the more timec consuming kind of inter but the person who just got to send in and just swipe their card and pay their co-pay heos can do that quite well and I see those working really well side by side I'm this is where my opinion is I'm not a fan at least I can't mentally wrap my wits around opening an office having three or four therapists and having just a kiosk I just don't see that being the physical therapy forward facing customer service that you should have for your patients what what's say you guys I would say that's absolutely true we know because we know there is one um big.

[37:00] Company out there that tried that with just a kiosk and it was an absolute failure number one but number two we also agree with that because again like we said it's the worst it is today we know the efficiency that can come with that but we need that overlay so we are definitely working very strongly with most of the big emrs uh prompt uh rry web PT in integrating this product so that people that can selfcheck in will be able to do that but then let's take the case okay I put my name and my date.

[37:30] Of birth so it's going to Cod that schedule to pull my appointment and my financial responsibility it pulls that over well guess what my appointment was Friday not today so all it's going to say is can I find an appointment so now you're dead in the water what they're going to keep beating on the kiosk because of course I have an appointment today so what we've done Sally is we've laid that screen over so the self checkin is there on that office kiosk but the virtual receptes can see that so if it it errors it doesn't do what it's supposed to do then it's going to pop right up and say oh Brian let me take a.

[38:00] Look oh I see your appointments on Friday wanted to see if could we see if they could see you today or let's say that um it has um they don't um they don't have an appointment at all or they want to self check in but I realized that my Friday appointment I want to change that to two o'clock instead of nine o'clock well I need a receptionist now so letting those two things work together is the way it's going to work until it has so much ability to do so many things we were talking about being able to sell get your own appointments.

[38:30] And there's a place for that but there's also a lot of barriers to that like we may not want a Medicare patient back to back uh we may not want um you don't have any visits authorized so we don't want you making that appointment holding a space until we know we can get that visit authorized you've been to another city you've used up all your calendar visits for that year it's dumb we've got to set up a self pay for you so those things that require a person we want to make sure we can have that so a kiosk in itself for the a lot more reasons than that but those are some of the tips on it that's what I love because we early.

[39:00] On for those of you listening again we came together you know in the beginning Mark and Wendy were doing their thing and problem solving getting feedback and making hands we're doing our thing problem solving and then we said well why don't we program develop together why don't we share feedback share why don't we why don't we get together and our why don't we have meetings together why don't we be in our meetings and your meetings and let's let's actually and so it's so Physical Therapy oriented it's so experience driven you you don't go to.

[39:30] A restaurant that doesn't have a reputable you know uh history to it that doesn't have past history of success so I want to turn this ship to the Future Wendy and Mark let's talk about the future um you know we know how we arrived here we know how well it's going at this moment but why is this so essential moving forward Wendy you you got on your you got on it right before we hit record this and I said you got to tell people that that is that is passionate because we I'm not saying all.

[40:00] Of our listeners aren't doing this but not everybody's doing this we are constantly looking at the future we are constantly saying this is what's coming our way we have to be proactive not reactive what does that mean to you Wendy share with people why this is not just a luxury or an and a nice addition it's essential like I don't know how people are going to do it yeah I.

[40:30] Completely agree with your statement I think and love the passion for us I mean I obviously said been a PT a long time and I do not think that we can survive as an outpatient Physical Therapy practice without cutting our costs and I'm share with most of us we don't want to be the mill we don't want you know five patients every 15 minutes and and then we're not providing anything like you said they can get that on the Internet or it's just a mill we want to have that patient experience but we have got to bring those costs down some way or we will not survive because we're.

[41:00] Getting another cut from Medicare this year there's talk from some of the private carriers about they're going to implement the same Medicare cuts that came last year uh you put that on top of a 7% last year inflation rate that's a 15% cut um and the first year we were at PPS people would come by like oh interesting idea second year after that 8% cut the inflation they're like oh got to have this because we can't survive as a profession and it's it's s between what we're what therapists have to pay to get into the profession and then what.

[41:30] We're able to pay them we've got to create cross that CM somewhere and I want to ask the audience what are you going to do I mean what is your plan if it's not to innovate and leverage advanced technology such as Virtual Sally such as the newb e stem and other things that we've advocated over there so what is your plan like how are you going to do that you know the progressive PT practice model that I keep talking about really brings together all of these components so catch us at PPS come to our private.

[42:00] Session and learn more about that because I have to tell you I agree a th% with Wendy there was a a Medicare cut last year there was the PTA cut there's a proposal of another PTA cut there's two commercial carriers of the top five commercial carries in the country that are looking to cut Medicare is looking to cut again you know the reimbursement for our services is going down the cost of Labor is skyrocketing inflation is at 17% higher than 2021 you go to 2021 January to today it's a 17% increase.

[42:30] With these decreases if you don't throw away the Box you don't get out of this fee-for-service business model because Wendy said it off camera she's like so what are PT owner she she wasn't on camera so she was just ranting so what are owners gonna do are they just GNA see more patients are they just going to turn it into Mill I mean it's just volume right or are they just GNA put pressure and just push on their therapist and say build more units build more units you know my feeling on that everybody you guys know I don't believe PT is Bill at all I believe the units represent the care that was giving and that's it so what are you going to do I mean what are you going to just run faster on the.

[43:00] Treadmill and hope for the best because there's no other place that you're going to economize and squeeze out more net revenue and it's not more net revenue to be greedy you gota like get a four-time return on your therapist or a three-time return minimally but if you're not in touch with these business metrics and you don't have advanced technology to leverage to economize you're going to be eaten up by these costs and your margins are going to go lower that means less money for your staff less money for better equipment less money to pay the tax man less money to innovate to improve the.

[43:30] Practice right it just comes full circle so I think this is one solution for you all who have been listening I think this is one solution you should take a serious look at you guys what's the website they should go to how should they best get in touch with you they if they're listening here they definitely know how to get in touch with us there it's pretty easy just website is VirtualSally.com so uh it'll go right there there's there's videos there you you can watch um obviously we do a lot of personal demos um quite frequently and um and we're working on actually automating that as well so they make it a little faster and uh of course working.

[44:00] With Brian's group is just an amazing and uh they're they're great Partners he's a great friend and uh we're just we're excited about we going with absolutely thank you thank you all right well that's perfect and that's how you guys can find them and get more deal details do do a demo Virtual Sally.com is the way to go and my advice to you is come to PPS you have to come to PPS if you want to get out front there's so much networking that goes on I mean we're literally we were talking yesterday about our social event at PPS which I believe is Friday night hope I.

[44:30] Don't have that wrong um it is literally at Max Capacity almost already um I think it actually is approaching that but we're reserving tickets for people at PPS to try and bring more invite so it just shows you everyone's trying to get connected with people that are innovating that are actually making changes in the industry of physical therapy come meet some of those folks we're not the only ones we'll introduce you to a whole bunch of other people we love people from prompt and the other EMR systems as well we're not just talking to any old people but we will help you get connected with what you.

[45:00] Need Virtual Sally is a step up it's going to up your game it's going to improve your practice it's going to improve your bottom line it's going to invest in technology and make you look Innovative so people want to come work for you if you think you have a recruiting problem this could solve that in a big big way Mark Wendy thank you so much I'm very fortunate and very honored for you to spend your time here with me you could be spending it elsewhere doing a million other things but here you are helping me help my audience do better I'm very grateful for that thank you so much for that thank you for your time absolutely you're welcome you're welcome.

[45:30] And everybody listening I hope this was helpful if you want to learn more you can definitely do a practice assessment call with myself I can connect you with Nicole who's the head of that department we are here for you we're in business and seeing your business succeed that's it everyone start each and every day like I always say expecting to do well don't expect anything less.