Revenue Review: How Physical Therapists can Scale and Digitalize

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Believe it or not that at one point in my life, I was a sporty and active young man, and organized sports was a big part of my life. This kept me fit, agile, and in much better cardiovascular health.

It also kept me booking recurring visits with a physical therapist for rehab and repair. We were on friendly terms and I’d occasionally ask how lucrative his business is, how much free time he has, etc. To be honest, I was interested in going down that route as a profession for a quick minute. I did this often when I went to similar specialists, especially within the medical field.

Like many medical service providers, the job can be very financially lucrative. The more experience and happy customers, the more you can typically charge for your services. But typically, most physical therapists operate on the same basic formula.

Time = revenue.

Customers book slots -> you help them ->they pay you (perhaps lucratively).

Most people are more than happy with this, especially considering physical therapists make an average yearly salary of $91k with a $43/hour average in the US. But how do we stack business models on top of just the hourly ceiling?

In this series, titled “Revenue Review,” I’m gonna dive into the business models of various businesses to see where they stand and how they can potentially digitalize and scale.

Physical Therapy by the numbers

So as mentioned, a few of the current possibilities for physical therapists are as follows:

• Hospital Health Care
• Work in hospitals to offer intensive rehabilitative care for patients recovering from traumatic situations or major surgeries.
• Private Practice Options
• Outpatient clinics or private practices
• Sports, fitness and wellness centers
• Occupational or workplace environments
• Home health care and Hospice
• Rehabilitation hospitals
• Sub-acute rehabilitation facilities
• Extended care centers, nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities
• Government facilities for civilians and military personnel
• Educational settings such as preschools and vocational schools
• Research facilities
• PT Disciplines and Specialties

And here’s a little chart to show how it’s currently broken up, according to bls.gov.

Physical therapists spend much of their time on their feet, working with patients. Because they must often lift and move patients, they are vulnerable to back injuries. Physical therapists can limit these risks by using proper body mechanics and lifting techniques when assisting patients.

Work Schedules
Most physical therapists work full time, although part-time work is common. They usually work during normal business hours, but some work evenings or weekends.

Source: bls.gov

Traditional and new business models

Let’s start with some effective ways to scale that are more traditional and offline. This might not be news for you as most private practice professionals already use these tactics but just in case.

Partner with other medical service providers

Establish relationships and partnerships with adjacent health and wellness professionals. Make it lucrative for both sides if need be. Word of mouth and referral business doesn’t need to just come from customers.

Gyms and sports clubs

Also in the realm of partnerships, establish a relationship with nearby gyms and create compelling offers for their members in tandem with the gym. Amateur sports clubs are also great places and probably even more compelling as athletes typically require the most sports therapy.

Corporate partnerships

Large corporations often provide their employees with comped physical therapy. This is to combat health-related issues from the workplace. The big boys like Google and other tech companies will typically have on-site physios but there are others that might be open to off-site partnerships.

And now let’s talk a little about digital models.

What is so interesting about digital business models is:

• they scale,
• they save you valuable time,
• and they get you away from the typical hourly wage mechanic that limits most service professionals.

How can a physical therapist tap into the glorious 8th wonder of the world of digital products and services?

Physical-Therapy-as-a-Subscription (PTAA…S. Yeah. PTAAS)

We already see PTs offer tandem subscriptions to wellness centers or gyms but subscription-based services are a potentially lucrative path. Patients pay a monthly or annual fee in exchange for immediate access to all services. This can of course include tiers and a pricing structure that incentives up-sells for better service.

Videos for brand and reach

If you are a physical therapist, you must know Bob and Brad. They are the biggest physical therapists on the internet and have created an extremely powerful brand on YouTube by publishing tips and diagnoses videos about PT.

Not only do they command most PT search terms on YouTube, but they have also parlayed that visibility and reach into affiliate marketing, advertising deals, sponsorships, merchandise, products, and more. According to Social Blade, they generate anywhere from $33–530k per year from YouTube AdSense alone.

Community and exclusivity

Bob and Brad have a level of notoriety that is most likely unobtainable by most individual PTs looking to get started. But that doesn’t mean you can not leverage some of the same strategies they have executed.

This includes building an audience that supports you and comes to you for help on their physical rehabilitation and therapy. As you build that audience and trust, you are naturally creating a community of like-minded individuals.

All they need is a home and a place to gather. The benefits of which are massive. Head over to socialpinpoint’s article on the 6 Major Benefits of Online Communities to understand how valuable it can be. Many similar brands are using Discord, Reddit, Facebook Groups, etc.

Each platform comes with its benefits but what they all lack is

• Creator control: it’s their platform, you just borrow their users’ attention
• Monetization: all of these platforms either have no or only very limited monetization options
• User data: the user data is not yours and you can’t really see any valuable metrics

I propose an alternative that fills those gaps.

LT Fan Platform

And here is the pitch.

LT Fan Platform is our content and community management platform that enables its users to build their own digital business. That puts us in the same ecosystem as Patreon, Substack, Ghost, OnlyFans, etc. But LT Fan Platform does a lot more. I will try to condense the differences into one paragraph:

LT Fan Platform is a so-called web3 platform, i.e. it uses various mechanisms built with blockchain technology. It uses those so that its users have various monetization options at hand — options that are more user-friendly than ads and more flexible than only subscriptions (which we do enable as well). As a “platform host” you have your own creator tokens and NFTs. You can either sell those to your fans directly or use them to create engaging advertising campaigns. In each case, your fans can use them to get access to exclusive content or interactions. And last but not least: you own your fans’ data and the business relationship.

In short, LT Fan Platform is the next iteration of creator-empowerment that takes the Discords, Reddits, Facebook Groups of the world and expands on them using web3 methodologies.

I wrote a dedicated article on the platform which is a “5 bite-sized benefits of LT Fan Platform” piece. You should go check that out to get a more in-depth version.

So if you are a physical therapist looking to start going digital and going away from the typical “time for money” business model, the key is creating an online community that allows you to surpass the limits of your immediate surroundings.

You can of course just check out the platform in action. Borussia Dortmund, one of the top soccer clubs in the world is using it. So is Dennis Schröder with his DS17 app. He has done some sweet stuff with NFTs that have really engaged his fans. Give ’em a peep.