Business
Net Health's Ben Barron on the 12,000-therapist shortage, what CMS' proposed RTM changes would mean for rural practices, and how to create access to physical therapists' expertise starting today.
The physical therapy profession is 12,000 therapists short, with no catch-up projected until 2037 at the earliest. Demand is climbing. Filling the schedule is not the problem. We should be focused on how to serve more of the community with the therapists we already have.
Ben Barron is a physical therapist, former co-owner of a 23-clinic orthopedic private practice, and an executive at Net Health. He joins Alex and Dana to talk about what therapists can do about capacity right now.
Ben said this perfectly: "We're going to be busy. The question is: How do we want to be busy?"
The through line is more evaluations, hybrid and tech-supported care paths, remote touchpoints between visits, and care segmented by clinical need rather than by who called first. Besides being ways to address access issues, they're the pre-value-based steps that prepare a practice for what's coming and let therapy meet its physician partners where they already are on their own VBC journey. How? By delivering the thing those partners need most, which is prompt, skilled evaluation and reliable access to care for their patients best managed by physical therapists.
In this episode, we cover this and more:
• The workforce math that makes hybrid care a necessity rather than a preference
• Why the 40-minute one-on-one visit came from the 8-minute rule, not the evidence
• Visit frequency dogma, and what the evidence actually supports
• Why a wait list is rationing, and why "we're full" isn't a success metric
• The eval math: why skewing toward evaluations helps finances and patients
• RTM, hybrid visits, and the 166 hours a week you're not with your patient
• Why promising cost savings is the argument that loses regulators
• What primary care and behavioral health figured out about access first
• How to be ready for value-based care before you ever sign a contract
Two other quotes from Ben during the episode that we love (listen to hear the context!):
"We are incrementally making an imperfect system less imperfect."
"We ration care every single day."
Chapters:
00:11 — Music intro and welcome
00:42 — Ben Barron’s background in physical therapy and health tech
03:04 — Are technology tools making therapists’ work easier?
07:37 — Workforce shortages, demand, and access to care
10:51 — RTM: reimbursement changes and remote monitoring
18:59 — Why RTM adoption has been slow
26:06 — Rethinking one-on-one care and embracing hybrid models
39:33 — What prevents practices from changing
44:04 — Access, value-based care, and a more sustainable practice model
52:30 — Building a future focused on lives impacted
54:08 — Closing thoughts and thanks
Find the full transcript and Ben's bio here. Follow Ben on Linked In here.
Hosts: Alex Bendersky and Dana Strauss
Want information on PT and OT reimbursement and opportunities in policy and advocacy? Read Dana's guest post series for OT Potential here: "How OTs and PTs Get Paid" and Therapy and Value-Based Care Models.
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