Called to Care Spotlight: AI Gave Clinicians Time Back. Who Gets It?
The efficiency isn’t the point.
AI can document faster, process more information, support clinical decisions, and remove work clinicians once had to do manually.
But Larry Benz raises the more important question: What happens to the time technology gives back?
In this episode, Larry talks with Alex Bendersky about the rapidly changing role of AI in physical therapy and rehabilitation. They move beyond the usual conversation about tools and features to examine how AI changes the actual clinical encounter, and why implementation may matter more than the technology itself.
Alex explains why AI is moving from novelty to infrastructure, why clinicians need a meaningful role in shaping these systems, and how ambient documentation and clinical intelligence could expand rather than replace clinical reasoning.
Larry pushes the conversation one step further: if a clinician saves fifteen minutes and leadership immediately fills those fifteen minutes with more productivity, has anything meaningful improved?
Key ideas:
- Why AI is becoming table stakes rather than a novelty
- The difference between optimal and suboptimal AI adoption
- How ambient documentation can capture more than a traditional clinical note
- Why AI could strengthen—or unintentionally weaken—clinical reasoning
- How smart systems can support evidence-guided care
- Why clinicians need to become active participants in healthcare technology
- How AI could reduce documentation burden and burnout
- Why efficiency does not automatically produce better care
- The leadership choice behind every minute AI gives back
- How healthcare can avoid “automating the calcification”
The opportunity isn’t simply to make clinicians faster. It’s to decide what becomes possible when clinicians finally have some capacity back.
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Benz and I'm excited.
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We're here going to have a fascinating
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conversation with Alex Bandersky and we're
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really going to try to approach Called to
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Care.
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This is the Called to Care podcast to
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promote the book and all the elements of
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the revised and expanded edition.
00:00:23.667 --> 00:00:25.486
And we're going to get to some areas
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around AI in the areas where Alex is
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an expert in,
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but I want to kind of do it
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in a little bit of a circuitous route
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here.
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In, there's a lot of stuff we added,
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had to add to call to care since
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the, uh, around topics, AI,
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clearly virtual health was just becoming,
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this is at the initial period of COVID.
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And one of the things I talk a
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lot about in the book are some concepts
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that actually came out of the customer
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service industry, um,
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primarily through call center research,
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which is where a lot of research has
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done.
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And it's the concept of what is called
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calcification.
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which effectively says that repeated
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exposure to very routine negative clinical
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detail numbs you to the humans in front
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of your eyes.
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So in other words, what happens is
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a natural tendency is we dehumanize and
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turn a three dimensional person into a two
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dimensional.
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This is natural.
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This is normal.
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It happens to good clinicians and it
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happens slowly over time.
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Typically when you get a little more
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fatigued or you get into a routinized
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situation,
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if you had a lot of productivity for
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that day, for example,
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Decalcification is any ritual that
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restores the connection.
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And a lot of what we talk about
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in call to care is restoring connection.
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So the surprise of that chapter though,
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is that AI,
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can be a decalcification tool by allowing
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you to maintain the connection fuel loop
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with a patient.
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That's what Alex is going to get into.
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A quarter of a provider's time,
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according to surveys, and in some cases,
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if it's a Medicare patient,
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has nothing to do with the patient,
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has to do with documentation.
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So we give that time period back and
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you've created space for the thing that we
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got into this for,
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human connection and being called to care.
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But only if we use it that way.
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And I'm already seeing AI not as an
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instrument to get humanity and humanness
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back,
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but a way to get more productive and
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a way to have more time at home,
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which obviously we want people to have
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more time at home.
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So that's the backdrop.
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to this podcast today.
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We're going to eventually get there.
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And I'll start out, you know,
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really in a more, you know,
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big picture way, you know, Alex,
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what would you,
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how would you kind of characterize the
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state of AI and rehab therapy?
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What's real?
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What's not real?
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What's hype?
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You know,
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what's somebody saying they're building it
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or built it, but hasn't really been built.
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And from your perspective,
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as you've done your deep dive.
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Yeah, thank you, Larry.
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And first, truly a pleasure to be here.
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And thank you for everything you have done
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with the book and with Charity.
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Truly amazing how much you are just doing
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for our community.
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And in terms of AI,
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so we treat AI as novelty because AI
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is omnipresent,
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but it's availability heuristic.
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Artificial intelligence as a science is
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seventy years old.
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close to almost eight years.
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The construct, the design,
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the theories have been around for a while.
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The reason why we're much more sensitive
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to it now is because it's available to
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us, but I think it's also,
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it's finally maturing to the point where
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it becomes table stakes.
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Artificial intelligence at this point is
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not a novelty,
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but it's consistently something that is
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available and present in every part of our
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life.
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And so I think one of the biggest
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issues
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things for us as a community to do
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is to start to dig deeper into what
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do we mean by artificial intelligence and
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AI and what is behind the statement?
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And is it artificial intelligence in terms
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of better data processing efficiency?
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Is it artificial intelligence in terms of
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better rule logic?
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So we become more logical in our ability
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to conduct ourselves?
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Or is it artificial intelligence in terms
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of how this data gets
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us to learn more.
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So it's machine learning,
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but it's also human learning that's based
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on machine learning.
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But overall,
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I think artificial intelligence follows
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the same trajectory of humanity using
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tools to extend our ability.
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It uses a rock to smash a nut.
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We use cars instead of horses.
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So now we use algorithms to process large
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amounts of data to make us
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better at what we do.
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So my stance is highly optimistic.
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And in essence, don't trust the hype,
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but do allow yourself exposure to this
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technology as it emerges and as it becomes
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more present.
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No, that's interesting.
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And as you look back on your twenty
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three years,
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you've really been on a path of digital
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health for quite a while.
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You had to change your mind somewhere
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along,
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anybody who is an adopter of digital
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health has had to.
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And help us understand where your
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viewpoint is now and sort of where PT's
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real problems are.
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Yeah,
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so I think it's like any good technology,
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the operator is the culprit,
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the operator is the bottleneck.
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And so PT as a world in an
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ideal way should be the clinicians and
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administrators should be the innovators.
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They should be the ones that have a
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position at a table where decisions are
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made.
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And so from the design of this technology
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as it emerges,
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you need equilateral
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power of clinicians shaping this
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technology into the maturity that it's
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entering.
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And so when changing the mind,
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I think I have been involved in some
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form of health technology for close to a
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decade.
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And the biggest culprit was the
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technology.
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The biggest difficulty was actually making
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technology operational.
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And now we're at a point where technology
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is operational, but the human factor,
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we need the operators to gain better
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mastery of how to best use this
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technology.
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So to reference your prior point,
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um this ai can be a great liberator
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of power a great liberator of knowledge
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and intelligence only one designed to do
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so by the clinician or it could steal
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away from your energy if you are
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preoccupied with the operational side so i
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i think we need to start shaping
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clinicians to become clinician
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technologists clinician innovators
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clinician entrepreneurs essentially
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Yeah.
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And, you know,
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the work that you're doing at WebPT,
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tell me a little bit about how you
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are integrating these thoughts and where
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sort of WebPT draws it in there.
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You know,
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how do they make product decisions based
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on native AI, augmentative?
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ancillary, built into the product,
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integrated.
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How do you think about all those things?
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Yeah,
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so I think I have a true unique
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luxury of being associated with this
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wonderful organization.
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And this is the organization that brought
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technology into the physical therapy space
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in two thousand.
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So at the foundation, at the start,
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the technology was essentially
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operationalized by YPT.
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That was the first name of the brand
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that was available.
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But now we're at a point where we
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have technology at a state of maturity
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where we can build the architecture of a
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platform.
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that works on this next stage,
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next phase of tech, this agentic AI,
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this process where you have multiple
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independent entities that operate based on
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closed loop system with goals in mind.
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You can have an infinite amount of these
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agents that allow you to create this
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larger operable efficiency, which again,
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agent is one of the labels,
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but think of anything that needs to be
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redundantly outsourced to this tech.
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is outsourced and you have a thousand
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experts working on your side to help you
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deliver better quality of care which is
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what we do as clinicians so this is
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where ypt is ypt is building a product
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that is going to shape and serve rehab
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community for the next decade and beyond
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based on availability of this technology
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that wasn't available twelve months ago
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and so it's really an exciting time to
00:08:51.163 --> 00:08:52.745
be a clinician because this is going to
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be a game changer
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Yeah,
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do you think about the intended or
00:08:59.533 --> 00:09:01.676
unintended effects on things like clinical
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reasoning?
00:09:02.957 --> 00:09:04.860
Does an AI node or a scribe node,
00:09:04.961 --> 00:09:08.125
can it facilitate or kill clinical
00:09:08.144 --> 00:09:08.446
reasoning?
00:09:09.076 --> 00:09:10.816
Yeah, I think it's a wonderful question.
00:09:10.836 --> 00:09:12.336
And I think about it a lot because
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I think it's,
00:09:13.596 --> 00:09:15.917
we as clinicians have been guilty of
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templatizing our clinical reasoning for a
00:09:18.378 --> 00:09:18.738
while.
00:09:19.217 --> 00:09:21.058
So the protocolizing and templatizing,
00:09:21.099 --> 00:09:22.818
we create templates and create protocols
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so that we don't have to think,
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we can just follow.
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And I've always have been conflicted,
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especially on the clinical side.
00:09:28.700 --> 00:09:30.760
So having my students or having residents,
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if you're following a protocol,
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you're not really making it patient
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centric.
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You're making it a protocol centric care
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process.
00:09:38.764 --> 00:09:41.106
But at the same time,
00:09:42.048 --> 00:09:43.149
scribe is a scribe,
00:09:43.629 --> 00:09:47.315
which is a generic term for something
00:09:47.335 --> 00:09:48.616
that's a little bit different,
00:09:48.636 --> 00:09:51.780
where an ambient sound delivery and
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reception as a tool.
00:09:54.725 --> 00:09:56.426
is brilliant because it captures a lot
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more data than our human ability has the
00:09:59.687 --> 00:10:00.567
capacity to do.
00:10:01.167 --> 00:10:04.248
There's something that I would call data
00:10:04.288 --> 00:10:04.808
exhaust.
00:10:05.308 --> 00:10:06.908
Even in a typical exchange of information,
00:10:06.928 --> 00:10:08.190
you and I right now are talking and
00:10:08.309 --> 00:10:09.870
all we're doing is we're using words and
00:10:09.909 --> 00:10:12.150
language as a way of delivering content
00:10:12.211 --> 00:10:13.851
and information to each other.
00:10:15.052 --> 00:10:17.174
And your ability to receive my language or
00:10:17.195 --> 00:10:19.596
my ability to express this language is
00:10:19.657 --> 00:10:23.822
being hamstrung by our organic capacity.
00:10:24.863 --> 00:10:26.684
And this ambient scribe technology has
00:10:27.577 --> 00:10:30.158
maximizing capacity to capture this data.
00:10:30.499 --> 00:10:31.599
But then that's step one.
00:10:31.698 --> 00:10:32.359
Once you capture it,
00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:33.379
what do you do with this data?
00:10:33.740 --> 00:10:36.039
And that's the key is that a smart
00:10:36.059 --> 00:10:38.041
scribe solution doesn't just capture
00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:38.421
sound.
00:10:38.760 --> 00:10:40.001
It makes it operational.
00:10:40.042 --> 00:10:42.562
It actually makes the clinician better at
00:10:42.621 --> 00:10:45.123
understanding the perspective of how this
00:10:45.143 --> 00:10:46.403
information is being delivered from the
00:10:46.442 --> 00:10:47.504
patient side.
00:10:47.583 --> 00:10:48.744
And that's where we are.
00:10:48.823 --> 00:10:51.225
So it's great to capture maximized data,
00:10:51.284 --> 00:10:51.504
but then
00:10:52.389 --> 00:10:53.009
What's next?
00:10:53.089 --> 00:10:54.469
And how do we make this operational?
00:10:54.489 --> 00:10:56.610
How do we make clinician empowered to
00:10:56.629 --> 00:10:58.389
deliver a more comprehensive care?
00:10:58.730 --> 00:11:00.691
Because now I have better understanding of
00:11:00.730 --> 00:11:04.731
the client or a patient that I'm treating.
00:11:04.772 --> 00:11:10.212
Have you seen a clinic adopt AI
00:11:10.273 --> 00:11:11.452
documentation?
00:11:11.692 --> 00:11:11.852
I mean,
00:11:11.893 --> 00:11:13.613
the advantage you have is you've been
00:11:13.633 --> 00:11:14.913
around the block for, you know,
00:11:14.933 --> 00:11:16.193
twenty three plus years as a PT.
00:11:17.528 --> 00:11:20.932
and you understand the human part of the
00:11:20.971 --> 00:11:22.592
connection and the visit.
00:11:23.874 --> 00:11:25.394
Have you seen a clinic adopt this type
00:11:25.436 --> 00:11:28.258
of documentation actually get worse at the
00:11:28.298 --> 00:11:29.198
human part of the visit?
00:11:29.999 --> 00:11:32.081
So I wouldn't call it worse,
00:11:32.140 --> 00:11:33.282
but there's inefficiencies.
00:11:33.881 --> 00:11:36.004
So there's optimal and suboptimal
00:11:36.024 --> 00:11:36.443
adoption.
00:11:37.664 --> 00:11:40.187
And optimal adopters are adopters that
00:11:40.227 --> 00:11:42.288
actually have a structure and have
00:11:42.308 --> 00:11:44.230
logistics behind this adoption.
00:11:45.658 --> 00:11:49.149
So optimal adapters know exactly what to
00:11:49.168 --> 00:11:49.551
do with it.
00:11:49.591 --> 00:11:51.275
They also have champions and ambassadors
00:11:51.296 --> 00:11:52.480
that are associated with this technology.
00:11:53.089 --> 00:11:54.950
And champions are the ones that gain
00:11:54.970 --> 00:11:57.312
mastery of this technology and are able to
00:11:57.331 --> 00:11:57.892
train others.
00:11:58.332 --> 00:12:00.413
And ambassadors go beyond mastery.
00:12:00.453 --> 00:12:02.355
Ambassadors are the ones that tweak with
00:12:02.375 --> 00:12:05.376
this technology and actually shape it to
00:12:05.437 --> 00:12:09.019
better fit the workflow that is presented
00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:09.340
to them.
00:12:09.659 --> 00:12:11.902
And so that optimal adapters will have
00:12:12.121 --> 00:12:14.423
human factor that is already associated
00:12:14.443 --> 00:12:14.964
with this tech.
00:12:15.224 --> 00:12:16.605
And suboptimal adapters are the ones that
00:12:16.625 --> 00:12:18.326
are essentially just trying to jam it in,
00:12:18.385 --> 00:12:20.107
that are trying to plug and play.
00:12:20.927 --> 00:12:23.129
Plug and play, it's like, you're right,
00:12:23.169 --> 00:12:24.509
I'm old enough where we used to have
00:12:24.591 --> 00:12:27.231
a VCR that had a blinking twelve o'clock
00:12:27.312 --> 00:12:29.153
screen that it probably took us two years
00:12:29.173 --> 00:12:31.335
to figure out how to change it because
00:12:31.375 --> 00:12:32.535
we were suboptimal adapters.
00:12:32.556 --> 00:12:34.017
We just lived with this blinking twelve
00:12:34.037 --> 00:12:34.657
o'clock screen.
00:12:35.197 --> 00:12:36.839
But we don't have to be there.
00:12:38.139 --> 00:12:38.820
Interesting, you know,
00:12:39.019 --> 00:12:42.241
when I when I hear how you I
00:12:42.282 --> 00:12:45.344
like your framework of suboptimal and
00:12:45.423 --> 00:12:45.745
optimal.
00:12:46.677 --> 00:12:48.740
And it really lends into something I've
00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:50.621
been thinking about for a long time,
00:12:50.662 --> 00:12:52.884
which is, you know,
00:12:52.903 --> 00:12:55.466
I see AI enabled on virtually everything
00:12:55.525 --> 00:12:56.125
these days.
00:12:56.706 --> 00:12:57.707
And when I see that,
00:12:57.748 --> 00:12:59.109
it's a marketing gimmick, right?
00:12:59.188 --> 00:13:00.809
But when I see it in relationship to
00:13:00.870 --> 00:13:01.971
physical therapy,
00:13:04.312 --> 00:13:05.975
is it a measurable difference in a
00:13:05.995 --> 00:13:07.035
clinician's day to day?
00:13:08.211 --> 00:13:10.831
So it could be and it should be
00:13:10.851 --> 00:13:12.793
when you have clinical intelligence
00:13:12.813 --> 00:13:13.754
associated with it,
00:13:14.374 --> 00:13:16.755
which there's organic clinical
00:13:16.796 --> 00:13:18.756
intelligence, which is experiential.
00:13:18.937 --> 00:13:20.298
And then there's inorganic clinical
00:13:20.317 --> 00:13:20.778
intelligence,
00:13:20.857 --> 00:13:22.219
which is a construct of
00:13:23.504 --> 00:13:25.005
optimal clinical guardrails,
00:13:25.285 --> 00:13:27.028
like the guardrails that shape your
00:13:27.067 --> 00:13:27.828
delivery process.
00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:30.091
And those guardrails are static based on
00:13:30.152 --> 00:13:32.274
emergence of empirical evidence to support
00:13:32.573 --> 00:13:34.517
your output of clinical care.
00:13:35.538 --> 00:13:39.302
So the organic part is what it is,
00:13:39.322 --> 00:13:40.624
but the inorganic part, actually,
00:13:40.844 --> 00:13:42.785
these clinical decision support tools,
00:13:42.826 --> 00:13:44.128
clinical intelligence tools,
00:13:44.788 --> 00:13:48.970
that are built into operating software can
00:13:49.190 --> 00:13:52.831
help align us to deliver a better
00:13:52.871 --> 00:13:54.972
concordant care, a more aligned care,
00:13:55.753 --> 00:13:57.994
while still giving us enough agency to
00:13:58.293 --> 00:13:59.934
deviate if we want to.
00:14:00.955 --> 00:14:02.235
You don't have to substantiate.
00:14:02.416 --> 00:14:05.856
And that's why we deliver evidence-guided
00:14:05.897 --> 00:14:07.097
care, not evidence-based care.
00:14:07.597 --> 00:14:09.481
The guidance is from that technology that
00:14:09.522 --> 00:14:10.803
helps shape the guardrails.
00:14:11.205 --> 00:14:13.288
But then the evidence itself,
00:14:13.328 --> 00:14:15.052
it's my choice as an agent to apply
00:14:15.091 --> 00:14:17.076
this evidence or to listen to the patient
00:14:17.115 --> 00:14:18.999
and do what is necessary for the patient's
00:14:19.038 --> 00:14:19.259
needs.
00:14:21.397 --> 00:14:23.859
That's a great way to frame it up.
00:14:24.919 --> 00:14:26.380
I want you to help me understand,
00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.423
does AI get this kind of debate with
00:14:29.462 --> 00:14:31.303
large practices, small practices?
00:14:31.844 --> 00:14:33.144
And there are some that look at this
00:14:33.184 --> 00:14:35.027
as an equalizer to some extent.
00:14:35.767 --> 00:14:38.708
So do big documentation gains,
00:14:38.729 --> 00:14:40.490
for example, show up in large system?
00:14:40.549 --> 00:14:43.312
Or does AI kind of widen the arc
00:14:43.371 --> 00:14:45.253
or the gap for small practices?
00:14:45.273 --> 00:14:46.594
And the reason I ask that is it's
00:14:46.634 --> 00:14:48.274
always been my observation that the
00:14:48.375 --> 00:14:49.035
innovators are
00:14:50.130 --> 00:14:52.633
in technology adoption have primarily been
00:14:52.673 --> 00:14:54.875
private practice bts as opposed to large
00:14:54.934 --> 00:14:58.957
systems but ai is not a simple investment
00:14:59.018 --> 00:15:01.419
and it's not a cheap investment so what
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:03.322
is your what is your um take on
00:15:03.341 --> 00:15:06.104
all that so there's there's the business
00:15:06.144 --> 00:15:09.386
side the revenue side uh which is pretty
00:15:09.427 --> 00:15:12.168
much a table stakes because if you don't
00:15:12.208 --> 00:15:14.610
have artificial intelligence or smart
00:15:14.650 --> 00:15:15.991
systems we'll just call them smart systems
00:15:16.491 --> 00:15:17.893
guiding your revenue cycle,
00:15:18.693 --> 00:15:24.317
then you're bringing a knife to a gunfight
00:15:25.097 --> 00:15:27.558
because the payers all have optimal
00:15:27.578 --> 00:15:30.701
systems designed to authorize or
00:15:30.880 --> 00:15:33.222
invalidate your delivery process and your
00:15:33.582 --> 00:15:34.143
revenue stream.
00:15:34.163 --> 00:15:35.344
So on the revenue side,
00:15:36.705 --> 00:15:38.086
you cannot afford not to have smart
00:15:38.105 --> 00:15:39.626
systems supporting your revenue flow,
00:15:40.346 --> 00:15:42.349
especially if you are more than just a
00:15:42.528 --> 00:15:44.330
single provider cash business where
00:15:45.791 --> 00:15:47.532
On a clinical side,
00:15:48.572 --> 00:15:50.272
there's a lot of complexity actually.
00:15:50.292 --> 00:15:52.852
There's an amazing amount of complexity
00:15:53.533 --> 00:15:55.092
within the construct of physical therapy
00:15:55.893 --> 00:15:57.254
delivery cycle,
00:15:57.354 --> 00:16:00.953
which never ceased to amaze me about just
00:16:00.974 --> 00:16:03.034
the vast amount of complexity in terms of
00:16:03.554 --> 00:16:05.095
diagnostic factors,
00:16:05.475 --> 00:16:06.635
in terms of clinical factors,
00:16:06.676 --> 00:16:08.975
in terms of recovery trajectory factors,
00:16:09.436 --> 00:16:12.037
which if I have to keep all this
00:16:12.076 --> 00:16:13.297
knowledge inside,
00:16:14.136 --> 00:16:15.817
I don't have enough energy or bandwidth to
00:16:15.876 --> 00:16:18.057
actually provide optimal clinical product.
00:16:18.097 --> 00:16:18.577
In a way,
00:16:18.677 --> 00:16:21.057
I can outsource some of the stored
00:16:21.138 --> 00:16:25.078
information into the tech sector and help
00:16:25.139 --> 00:16:26.599
the technology guide me along the way
00:16:26.658 --> 00:16:28.639
because I still have my cognitive
00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:31.799
emotional factor being part of my entity
00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:34.880
as a service delivery personnel.
00:16:35.701 --> 00:16:37.620
That's the key is that there's some parts
00:16:37.640 --> 00:16:39.120
that can be outsourced to technology
00:16:39.140 --> 00:16:41.442
because my working memory is limited by my
00:16:41.562 --> 00:16:42.241
organic computer.
00:16:42.981 --> 00:16:44.702
But the synthetic computer will do a good
00:16:44.743 --> 00:16:47.764
job cuing me into what is necessary for
00:16:47.784 --> 00:16:48.184
the patient,
00:16:48.446 --> 00:16:49.745
cuing me about what the patient's
00:16:49.785 --> 00:16:51.547
preference is, cuing me about, like,
00:16:51.768 --> 00:16:53.528
we know physical therapy is a longitudinal
00:16:53.609 --> 00:16:56.811
cycle, so it's not a single visit entity,
00:16:56.870 --> 00:16:57.010
right?
00:16:57.030 --> 00:16:58.131
There's an episode of care.
00:16:58.772 --> 00:17:01.113
But I don't have to keep it in
00:17:01.173 --> 00:17:01.854
my working memory,
00:17:01.913 --> 00:17:03.674
what happened three episodes ago or five
00:17:03.735 --> 00:17:04.955
episodes ago.
00:17:04.976 --> 00:17:06.817
Technology can help me shape a more
00:17:06.856 --> 00:17:09.818
consistent output product based on the way
00:17:09.838 --> 00:17:10.098
it's built.
00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:14.260
Yeah, it's fascinating.
00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:14.882
You know,
00:17:15.162 --> 00:17:17.202
there hasn't been a lot of data out
00:17:17.462 --> 00:17:18.284
on this yet.
00:17:18.943 --> 00:17:20.605
But the one study I'm familiar with,
00:17:20.625 --> 00:17:22.967
there was a six health system and it
00:17:22.987 --> 00:17:25.568
was like two hundred sixty plus clinicians
00:17:25.729 --> 00:17:27.930
across, you know,
00:17:27.950 --> 00:17:29.151
various types of clinicians.
00:17:29.191 --> 00:17:30.731
And they saw, you know,
00:17:30.791 --> 00:17:33.134
pretty statistical difference in burnout
00:17:33.173 --> 00:17:35.035
from the adoption of AI.
00:17:35.736 --> 00:17:37.616
Fifty one percent was fifty two percent on
00:17:37.696 --> 00:17:39.657
almost thirty nine percent or below thirty
00:17:39.698 --> 00:17:40.199
nine percent.
00:17:41.003 --> 00:17:43.136
What they found was that the time savings,
00:17:45.050 --> 00:17:45.510
you know,
00:17:45.631 --> 00:17:48.372
was at least ten percent in sort of
00:17:48.951 --> 00:17:50.252
face-to-face clinician,
00:17:50.292 --> 00:17:53.192
twenty to thirty percent in cuts to after
00:17:53.212 --> 00:17:55.413
hours, what they call, you know,
00:17:55.493 --> 00:17:57.755
pajama time in an observational study.
00:17:58.615 --> 00:18:00.195
I would think with physical therapy,
00:18:00.236 --> 00:18:01.615
because we tend to have a heavier
00:18:01.675 --> 00:18:03.656
documentation load, we just do,
00:18:03.696 --> 00:18:05.757
our profession is piled on over the years,
00:18:06.196 --> 00:18:08.137
and there might actually be bigger upside
00:18:08.198 --> 00:18:08.438
here,
00:18:09.097 --> 00:18:10.739
but my fear is that
00:18:11.743 --> 00:18:13.844
It doesn't allow the clinician back to
00:18:13.903 --> 00:18:15.825
connection time with the patient.
00:18:15.845 --> 00:18:17.184
And you have to understand,
00:18:17.204 --> 00:18:18.484
I'm from the age,
00:18:18.545 --> 00:18:19.585
I've been practicing for years.
00:18:19.605 --> 00:18:20.285
We had paper,
00:18:20.305 --> 00:18:23.026
we had a card of paper templates.
00:18:23.586 --> 00:18:24.685
Those went on forever.
00:18:24.865 --> 00:18:25.665
We hand wrote it.
00:18:26.166 --> 00:18:27.366
Then we had a PC.
00:18:28.166 --> 00:18:30.366
Then we had a little mobile device.
00:18:31.507 --> 00:18:32.448
Then you could argue, well,
00:18:32.468 --> 00:18:34.248
you don't even have a phone now.
00:18:35.008 --> 00:18:37.248
You have a scribe that listens.
00:18:38.209 --> 00:18:40.288
All of these over time have taken away
00:18:40.971 --> 00:18:43.031
have now given back time to your patient.
00:18:43.051 --> 00:18:45.512
But my fear is that we're not doing
00:18:45.532 --> 00:18:45.673
that.
00:18:45.692 --> 00:18:46.993
We're doing it to promote more
00:18:47.054 --> 00:18:49.634
productivity and to promote more billable
00:18:49.755 --> 00:18:50.115
units.
00:18:50.775 --> 00:18:52.036
And the very thing we're trying to
00:18:52.096 --> 00:18:55.636
correct, we're actually, to some extent,
00:18:55.656 --> 00:18:56.397
if we're not careful,
00:18:56.518 --> 00:18:57.637
the unintended consequences,
00:18:57.657 --> 00:18:58.498
it could get worse.
00:18:59.118 --> 00:19:00.679
How are you thinking about that with the
00:19:00.699 --> 00:19:02.660
advice to clinicians that are adopting
00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:02.920
this?
00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:05.881
And how is WebPT as a company approaching
00:19:05.942 --> 00:19:06.642
it holistically?
00:19:07.261 --> 00:19:09.564
So it's so interesting that you and I
00:19:09.604 --> 00:19:10.743
have the same frame of reference.
00:19:10.903 --> 00:19:11.845
When I started practicing,
00:19:11.865 --> 00:19:13.205
I had a three-pager like that.
00:19:13.625 --> 00:19:15.247
You write yourself, right?
00:19:15.267 --> 00:19:17.248
The top page goes to the chart,
00:19:17.327 --> 00:19:18.489
the middle page goes to the biller,
00:19:18.509 --> 00:19:19.190
and the bottom page,
00:19:19.450 --> 00:19:20.951
you say for the record your thoughts.
00:19:21.830 --> 00:19:23.632
And then we had those gigantic shredders
00:19:23.672 --> 00:19:25.393
that would shred all this information at
00:19:25.413 --> 00:19:26.074
the end of the month,
00:19:26.213 --> 00:19:27.454
like the ones that wasn't necessary.
00:19:28.675 --> 00:19:30.377
It's interesting design.
00:19:31.258 --> 00:19:34.622
The handwriting is actually a better way
00:19:34.682 --> 00:19:36.123
of conceptualizing information.
00:19:36.544 --> 00:19:38.705
There's not evidence that shows when you
00:19:38.726 --> 00:19:40.106
are using your pen and paper,
00:19:40.647 --> 00:19:41.929
you're working through a problem
00:19:41.969 --> 00:19:43.049
differently than when you're using a
00:19:43.131 --> 00:19:46.314
computer because it outsources your mental
00:19:46.614 --> 00:19:48.076
ability or cognitive ability.
00:19:49.810 --> 00:19:50.751
On the other note,
00:19:51.092 --> 00:19:53.513
I think that natural evolution of
00:19:53.574 --> 00:19:54.694
technology that you've described,
00:19:55.134 --> 00:19:59.278
from paper to computer to wearable to now
00:19:59.699 --> 00:20:00.740
ambient sound reception,
00:20:03.201 --> 00:20:06.203
the method of data capture is important.
00:20:06.564 --> 00:20:08.185
What you do with this data is so
00:20:08.226 --> 00:20:08.925
much more important.
00:20:09.066 --> 00:20:11.008
This is where the design and architecture
00:20:11.028 --> 00:20:12.808
of these systems comes into play.
00:20:13.349 --> 00:20:14.349
With WebPT,
00:20:14.790 --> 00:20:16.652
I think that there's been so much energy
00:20:16.672 --> 00:20:17.272
and so much effort
00:20:18.992 --> 00:20:21.634
given to designing and creating the
00:20:21.814 --> 00:20:24.815
optimal architecture for this or for the
00:20:24.855 --> 00:20:27.455
platform so that the architecture reflects
00:20:27.796 --> 00:20:29.817
what a clinical workflow should look like,
00:20:29.957 --> 00:20:30.916
what does look like,
00:20:31.636 --> 00:20:33.097
and the end user in mind,
00:20:33.137 --> 00:20:34.417
essentially the clinician,
00:20:34.898 --> 00:20:36.898
is the primary recipient,
00:20:36.939 --> 00:20:38.519
the primary person that the system is
00:20:38.539 --> 00:20:39.099
designed for.
00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:41.019
And so the question is,
00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:42.201
would the clinician want to use it?
00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:44.560
And so this is my position right now
00:20:44.580 --> 00:20:46.301
as the head of clinical innovation at YPT.
00:20:46.682 --> 00:20:47.201
But beyond,
00:20:47.221 --> 00:20:49.803
it's my position as a clinician who loves
00:20:49.923 --> 00:20:51.522
technology and sees it as the only way
00:20:51.542 --> 00:20:55.463
for us to improve our efficacy and not
00:20:55.483 --> 00:20:56.585
supplement for what we do.
00:20:57.244 --> 00:20:59.786
Because given the right design and the
00:20:59.806 --> 00:21:00.885
right system,
00:21:01.526 --> 00:21:03.606
it democratizes your time and your ability
00:21:04.126 --> 00:21:05.906
to actually spend time with the patient.
00:21:06.227 --> 00:21:08.087
And it democratizes your time and your
00:21:08.127 --> 00:21:08.508
ability
00:21:09.067 --> 00:21:10.808
to think through problems.
00:21:10.929 --> 00:21:13.329
When you're referencing in a typical
00:21:13.369 --> 00:21:13.630
clinic,
00:21:13.670 --> 00:21:14.990
if you have a higher patient roster,
00:21:15.010 --> 00:21:15.851
a higher patient load,
00:21:17.051 --> 00:21:21.253
you have very little time to devote to
00:21:21.314 --> 00:21:22.815
critical thinking because you are just
00:21:23.115 --> 00:21:25.135
thinking through process of patient
00:21:26.036 --> 00:21:27.916
development, next patient, next visit,
00:21:28.037 --> 00:21:28.156
next.
00:21:29.817 --> 00:21:31.898
If we can democratize even five minutes of
00:21:31.959 --> 00:21:34.079
time to critical thinking because you no
00:21:34.099 --> 00:21:35.160
longer have to document,
00:21:35.641 --> 00:21:37.000
you no longer have to sit in front
00:21:37.020 --> 00:21:38.241
of your laptop and stare at your laptop.
00:21:39.271 --> 00:21:39.952
I think that's wonderful.
00:21:39.992 --> 00:21:41.493
That's five minutes of time that the
00:21:41.554 --> 00:21:43.056
patient will benefit from because now I
00:21:43.076 --> 00:21:45.077
get to use my twenty three years of
00:21:45.137 --> 00:21:47.339
clinical experience to better understand
00:21:47.599 --> 00:21:49.521
how to reduce the barriers to recovery
00:21:49.541 --> 00:21:51.785
that you are facing and how to apply
00:21:51.865 --> 00:21:53.465
some of the skill set and knowledge base
00:21:53.886 --> 00:21:55.407
to help you achieve your goals.
00:21:55.729 --> 00:21:58.832
So I think we are absolutely thinking
00:21:58.872 --> 00:21:59.172
about that.
00:21:59.934 --> 00:22:01.996
No, that's great, because I think, again,
00:22:03.876 --> 00:22:04.997
all these things have trade-offs,
00:22:05.017 --> 00:22:06.038
and you've got to be careful.
00:22:06.157 --> 00:22:10.200
I mean, you know, everybody, every day,
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:11.621
everybody's asking about the existential
00:22:11.641 --> 00:22:12.300
crisis of AI,
00:22:12.441 --> 00:22:14.102
and you're going to be eliminated.
00:22:14.122 --> 00:22:15.301
And I'm old enough to remember when they
00:22:15.321 --> 00:22:17.083
said the same thing about a fax machine,
00:22:17.103 --> 00:22:18.304
and then they said the same thing about
00:22:18.344 --> 00:22:18.943
the Internet,
00:22:18.963 --> 00:22:20.345
and then they said the same thing about...
00:22:21.345 --> 00:22:23.445
early days of LLM models and now it's
00:22:23.465 --> 00:22:25.366
agentic AI.
00:22:25.406 --> 00:22:26.847
I think you have to have a rational
00:22:26.887 --> 00:22:27.448
strategy.
00:22:27.468 --> 00:22:27.828
As you said,
00:22:27.848 --> 00:22:30.190
there's business purposes and then there's
00:22:30.390 --> 00:22:31.730
all the things around the clinical
00:22:31.750 --> 00:22:32.250
encounter.
00:22:34.112 --> 00:22:35.211
Now we're going to flip it around here
00:22:35.231 --> 00:22:35.893
a little bit, Alex,
00:22:35.913 --> 00:22:37.133
and allow you to ask a couple,
00:22:37.153 --> 00:22:38.253
I always ask my guests,
00:22:38.574 --> 00:22:39.595
they want to ask me a couple of
00:22:39.615 --> 00:22:42.935
questions to finish things off.
00:22:43.016 --> 00:22:43.936
Fire away at me.
00:22:44.627 --> 00:22:46.249
Well, I think it's wonderful.
00:22:46.269 --> 00:22:46.868
So first,
00:22:46.888 --> 00:22:48.650
and this is a little bit off the
00:22:48.670 --> 00:22:48.950
script,
00:22:49.049 --> 00:22:51.790
but what is your view and what is
00:22:51.810 --> 00:22:55.633
your reflection of how, in a neutral,
00:22:55.692 --> 00:22:56.952
non-positive, non-negative way,
00:22:57.053 --> 00:22:59.815
how this technology can actually shape the
00:22:59.974 --> 00:23:03.056
output of our clinical deliverables,
00:23:03.096 --> 00:23:04.596
our clinical process, our clinical flow?
00:23:04.616 --> 00:23:07.198
You know,
00:23:07.798 --> 00:23:11.539
my honest answer is that I fall back
00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:11.640
to
00:23:13.277 --> 00:23:15.688
leadership, that it's a decision
00:23:17.009 --> 00:23:18.809
And AI and all the other things are
00:23:18.849 --> 00:23:20.690
not necessarily a software feature.
00:23:21.171 --> 00:23:23.731
If AI hands a clinic clinician,
00:23:23.771 --> 00:23:24.791
I should say, you know,
00:23:24.811 --> 00:23:27.373
fifteen minutes back on a visit and the
00:23:27.472 --> 00:23:29.953
owner just stuffs another patient into it
00:23:29.973 --> 00:23:30.413
or say, oh,
00:23:30.433 --> 00:23:31.894
go take a walk in or somebody who
00:23:31.934 --> 00:23:32.454
showed up.
00:23:33.115 --> 00:23:35.756
All we've done is we've sort of automated
00:23:36.195 --> 00:23:37.155
the calcification.
00:23:37.195 --> 00:23:37.457
Right.
00:23:38.557 --> 00:23:39.497
And that's a choice.
00:23:39.557 --> 00:23:39.717
You know,
00:23:39.737 --> 00:23:41.978
I've run thousands of clinicians across
00:23:42.238 --> 00:23:43.298
now two industries.
00:23:44.159 --> 00:23:46.626
And the operators who win long term treat
00:23:46.647 --> 00:23:49.576
that recovered time as clinical capacity.
00:23:50.441 --> 00:23:52.342
clinical reasoning, as you mentioned,
00:23:52.642 --> 00:23:55.202
connection, you know, tracking things,
00:23:55.242 --> 00:23:59.244
becoming engaged and retention actually in
00:23:59.345 --> 00:24:00.846
outcomes actually gets better.
00:24:01.365 --> 00:24:03.988
And here's the strange KPIs that matter.
00:24:04.728 --> 00:24:06.269
Those who connect the best get better
00:24:06.308 --> 00:24:07.048
clinical outcomes.
00:24:07.068 --> 00:24:07.929
That's been demonstrated.
00:24:07.969 --> 00:24:09.690
We know that because the soft skills are
00:24:09.730 --> 00:24:11.171
hard skills and that all works.
00:24:11.790 --> 00:24:14.432
But the other factor that shows up is
00:24:14.492 --> 00:24:16.413
that the patients refer more friends,
00:24:16.432 --> 00:24:16.834
family,
00:24:17.693 --> 00:24:18.714
and former patients,
00:24:18.755 --> 00:24:21.137
which lowers your lead generation costs
00:24:21.157 --> 00:24:22.839
and your customer acquisition costs.
00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:26.284
Your therapists tend to stay longer,
00:24:26.584 --> 00:24:27.825
so that retention number.
00:24:28.625 --> 00:24:29.247
In dentistry,
00:24:29.267 --> 00:24:31.568
your clinical case acceptance goes sky
00:24:31.628 --> 00:24:33.131
high because you're connecting better.
00:24:33.711 --> 00:24:34.792
And in physical therapy,
00:24:34.813 --> 00:24:36.535
the patients come in for more of their
00:24:36.654 --> 00:24:37.134
visits.
00:24:37.938 --> 00:24:40.640
And so these aren't just nice things to
00:24:40.700 --> 00:24:41.201
do.
00:24:41.661 --> 00:24:43.942
The soft sciences, positive psychology,
00:24:44.022 --> 00:24:45.163
social neuroscience,
00:24:45.304 --> 00:24:48.165
all of those things have very good
00:24:48.226 --> 00:24:51.548
business purposes outside of the fact that
00:24:51.567 --> 00:24:52.709
they're a very good thing.
00:24:53.309 --> 00:24:55.211
And that's to a large extent why I'm
00:24:55.270 --> 00:24:57.573
focusing a lot of my time in the
00:24:57.633 --> 00:25:00.095
shift between skills and operations.
00:25:01.057 --> 00:25:02.959
because everybody wants an ROI.
00:25:02.979 --> 00:25:04.578
Everybody wants to understand the
00:25:04.618 --> 00:25:06.480
implementations on the business stand of
00:25:06.500 --> 00:25:06.539
it.
00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:09.060
And the reality is we don't have enough
00:25:09.161 --> 00:25:12.643
emphasis on operations only on third-party
00:25:12.682 --> 00:25:14.702
things like productivity and metrics and
00:25:14.762 --> 00:25:16.644
net promoter score and schedule
00:25:16.683 --> 00:25:18.285
optimization and efficiency.
00:25:19.065 --> 00:25:20.486
And what I think we have to do
00:25:20.546 --> 00:25:21.965
is we have to flip that a bit
00:25:22.066 --> 00:25:23.707
because the dollars when you have
00:25:23.747 --> 00:25:26.488
shortages of PTs and when you have
00:25:27.048 --> 00:25:28.969
patients that don't fulfill all their
00:25:29.009 --> 00:25:31.109
treatment planning and you have marketing
00:25:31.150 --> 00:25:32.790
dollars spending on new patients in an
00:25:32.851 --> 00:25:34.330
environment where margins are getting
00:25:34.371 --> 00:25:34.852
smaller,
00:25:35.432 --> 00:25:36.751
I think you've got to double down on
00:25:36.791 --> 00:25:38.553
humanity and the humanness factor and the
00:25:38.573 --> 00:25:40.253
connection factor and the soft skills.
00:25:41.337 --> 00:25:44.119
Because we know that in the absence of
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:47.182
those, the cost of turnover,
00:25:47.501 --> 00:25:49.623
the cost of patients not fulfilling their
00:25:49.663 --> 00:25:50.104
visits,
00:25:50.784 --> 00:25:52.785
it's a lot easier to get your existing
00:25:52.805 --> 00:25:54.346
patients to finish a visit than it is
00:25:54.365 --> 00:25:55.307
to get a new patient.
00:25:55.666 --> 00:25:57.048
And then you got the leaky bucket of
00:25:57.087 --> 00:25:58.328
marketing and lead generation.
00:25:58.949 --> 00:26:02.049
So I view all these as elements of
00:26:02.069 --> 00:26:05.751
a well-performing operational approach to
00:26:05.811 --> 00:26:06.192
the business.
00:26:06.271 --> 00:26:08.492
Operational excellence is what I typically
00:26:08.512 --> 00:26:09.073
refer to as.
00:26:09.133 --> 00:26:10.913
Yeah, absolutely.
00:26:10.973 --> 00:26:12.673
I think that there's interesting research
00:26:12.713 --> 00:26:13.334
about that.
00:26:13.875 --> 00:26:15.694
We see economics as only financial
00:26:15.714 --> 00:26:16.115
economics,
00:26:16.135 --> 00:26:18.796
but then there's time economics, right?
00:26:18.916 --> 00:26:22.278
And time as an economic factor, we can...
00:26:23.558 --> 00:26:27.823
spend time wisely or we could spend time
00:26:27.903 --> 00:26:28.343
losing it.
00:26:28.363 --> 00:26:28.763
Exactly.
00:26:28.784 --> 00:26:32.146
So ROI should go beyond how many KPIs
00:26:32.166 --> 00:26:34.588
you can hit and how many SFQs you
00:26:34.628 --> 00:26:35.910
can actualize.
00:26:36.210 --> 00:26:37.672
That's right.
00:26:37.692 --> 00:26:38.192
In PT,
00:26:39.505 --> 00:26:41.125
we have a real clinician shortage,
00:26:41.226 --> 00:26:44.567
not just not enough clinicians per se,
00:26:44.707 --> 00:26:47.307
but only about twenty percent on an empty
00:26:47.347 --> 00:26:49.909
basis of licensed PTs are actually seeing
00:26:49.949 --> 00:26:50.469
patients.
00:26:51.249 --> 00:26:52.910
And I'm from a generation, granted,
00:26:52.950 --> 00:26:53.869
I'm a baby boomer.
00:26:53.890 --> 00:26:55.471
You tended to be with the same employer
00:26:55.490 --> 00:26:56.070
your whole life.
00:26:56.090 --> 00:26:57.432
And I'm not saying that's realistic,
00:26:58.011 --> 00:26:59.452
but I'm seeing just the opposite.
00:26:59.653 --> 00:27:02.653
I'm seeing migration and flight risk
00:27:03.314 --> 00:27:04.295
daily, weekly.
00:27:04.375 --> 00:27:06.676
I see PTs lasting at certain jobs three
00:27:06.717 --> 00:27:08.999
and six months and moving on to the
00:27:09.019 --> 00:27:09.319
next.
00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:12.122
And I see employers adopting new comp
00:27:12.182 --> 00:27:14.223
plans and then sign-on bonuses and all
00:27:14.243 --> 00:27:15.705
these other externalities.
00:27:16.306 --> 00:27:17.948
Whereas if I really think they invested in
00:27:17.968 --> 00:27:19.669
the human capital side of this,
00:27:19.689 --> 00:27:22.251
the talent management connection,
00:27:22.311 --> 00:27:23.472
getting patient,
00:27:23.553 --> 00:27:26.596
getting PTs more money based on what
00:27:26.635 --> 00:27:27.536
they're actually
00:27:28.176 --> 00:27:28.737
you know,
00:27:28.797 --> 00:27:30.958
producing and revenue for a company rather
00:27:30.978 --> 00:27:32.738
than being overmanaged by middle
00:27:32.778 --> 00:27:33.419
management.
00:27:33.959 --> 00:27:35.239
And I would have never said that six
00:27:35.298 --> 00:27:36.819
and seven and ten years ago because the
00:27:36.859 --> 00:27:38.519
margins were enough to get by on.
00:27:38.660 --> 00:27:39.539
Well, they're not anymore.
00:27:39.599 --> 00:27:41.300
They're not all of a sudden you're not
00:27:41.340 --> 00:27:42.580
going to wake up and Medicare is going
00:27:42.601 --> 00:27:44.481
to increase your fee schedule ten percent
00:27:44.602 --> 00:27:45.801
or anybody else for that matter.
00:27:45.821 --> 00:27:46.742
Well, sure.
00:27:46.762 --> 00:27:47.883
And then the ten percent of zero is
00:27:47.903 --> 00:27:48.403
still zero.
00:27:48.462 --> 00:27:48.702
Right.
00:27:48.722 --> 00:27:49.823
So exactly.
00:27:51.723 --> 00:27:53.945
But it is interesting.
00:27:53.965 --> 00:27:55.086
And I think what you just referenced,
00:27:55.125 --> 00:27:56.948
I think that's actually a perfect point
00:27:56.988 --> 00:28:00.250
where we as an industry need more Larry
00:28:00.269 --> 00:28:04.212
Banzas leading our way because you were
00:28:04.272 --> 00:28:07.355
able to change your construct and your
00:28:07.654 --> 00:28:09.875
mental model from ten years ago based on
00:28:09.915 --> 00:28:11.037
emergence of new evidence.
00:28:12.137 --> 00:28:14.819
Why do you think we have fewer clinicians,
00:28:14.839 --> 00:28:16.161
fewer clinical leaders?
00:28:16.901 --> 00:28:18.803
changing this mental model as the new
00:28:18.864 --> 00:28:19.584
evidence emerges?
00:28:19.924 --> 00:28:21.406
How do we shape the industry to get
00:28:21.487 --> 00:28:23.249
better?
00:28:24.170 --> 00:28:26.352
Our industry just hasn't changed enough.
00:28:27.614 --> 00:28:28.734
If you view the world,
00:28:28.994 --> 00:28:30.176
and I like to view the world this
00:28:30.217 --> 00:28:34.000
way a little bit, into pre-COVID,
00:28:34.141 --> 00:28:34.842
post-COVID,
00:28:36.057 --> 00:28:37.837
And you view your management and your
00:28:37.877 --> 00:28:40.718
leadership pre-COVID, post-COVID.
00:28:40.978 --> 00:28:42.659
And you view the business model of
00:28:42.699 --> 00:28:45.460
physical therapy pre-COVID, post-COVID.
00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:46.380
And you say to yourself,
00:28:46.460 --> 00:28:48.099
nothing's changed during those times.
00:28:48.740 --> 00:28:51.621
What kind of leader, manager, clinician,
00:28:51.740 --> 00:28:53.281
business owner are you?
00:28:54.342 --> 00:28:56.623
and business models have to evolve to the
00:28:56.682 --> 00:28:59.803
times we live in declining reimbursement
00:28:59.843 --> 00:29:01.963
for the last several years higher
00:29:02.023 --> 00:29:04.663
regulatory influence a shortage of
00:29:04.723 --> 00:29:07.305
clinicians yet the demand for pt is
00:29:07.345 --> 00:29:09.585
ridiculously high you know we still have a
00:29:09.825 --> 00:29:11.986
significant amount of the population that
00:29:12.026 --> 00:29:14.526
does not access pt for low back pain
00:29:14.905 --> 00:29:16.707
only about twelve to fourteen percent and
00:29:16.727 --> 00:29:17.826
probably growing a little bit
00:29:18.166 --> 00:29:19.748
Now I'm in the dental world where forty
00:29:19.788 --> 00:29:21.567
percent of the population never go to the
00:29:21.607 --> 00:29:22.288
dentist, period.
00:29:22.308 --> 00:29:23.148
They don't have a dentist.
00:29:23.588 --> 00:29:25.490
And the sixty percent of the population,
00:29:26.250 --> 00:29:27.891
one in eight avoid it because of dental
00:29:27.951 --> 00:29:28.550
anxiety.
00:29:28.971 --> 00:29:31.071
One in six have enough anxiety to go
00:29:31.112 --> 00:29:32.373
there and they leave right away or they
00:29:32.413 --> 00:29:32.853
cancel.
00:29:33.313 --> 00:29:35.473
And that leaves one in five that actually
00:29:35.493 --> 00:29:37.974
attend up or some bizarre statistic at
00:29:37.994 --> 00:29:38.295
that.
00:29:38.875 --> 00:29:40.336
And the way to handle it is not
00:29:40.375 --> 00:29:41.896
better schedule optimization,
00:29:41.957 --> 00:29:44.958
not more efficiency, not more technology.
00:29:45.597 --> 00:29:48.420
The way to get it is to restore
00:29:48.500 --> 00:29:50.101
what brought patients to you in the first
00:29:50.141 --> 00:29:52.061
place, a relationship with somebody,
00:29:52.382 --> 00:29:54.262
confidence they have in their clinician,
00:29:54.923 --> 00:29:55.964
self-efficacy.
00:29:56.045 --> 00:29:58.066
I believe that I can get better in
00:29:58.125 --> 00:29:59.946
working with my clinician.
00:30:00.287 --> 00:30:01.867
I have a lot of proxy efficacy.
00:30:01.907 --> 00:30:03.388
What do I think of the clinician?
00:30:03.689 --> 00:30:05.730
Do I think they're the best one for
00:30:05.770 --> 00:30:05.911
me?
00:30:06.778 --> 00:30:09.719
and the more we migrate away from that
00:30:09.759 --> 00:30:11.640
you know this is not anything new alex
00:30:11.660 --> 00:30:13.060
if you think about high touch high
00:30:13.101 --> 00:30:15.981
technology you know nisbit they saw they
00:30:16.041 --> 00:30:19.163
recognized that years ago that any time
00:30:19.183 --> 00:30:20.845
you bet that you get into high tech
00:30:20.865 --> 00:30:23.286
you better double down on high touch i
00:30:23.306 --> 00:30:24.846
just think we're seeing another generation
00:30:24.906 --> 00:30:26.928
of it but with the model of physical
00:30:26.968 --> 00:30:29.469
therapy the those who are practicing by
00:30:29.509 --> 00:30:31.470
the old model are driving clinicians out
00:30:31.490 --> 00:30:34.111
of being clinicians they just are
00:30:34.780 --> 00:30:35.521
And that's a shame.
00:30:36.102 --> 00:30:38.104
And so we have to regain that.
00:30:38.183 --> 00:30:39.546
Everyone's talking about alternative
00:30:39.566 --> 00:30:41.548
payment models and risk models and this
00:30:41.587 --> 00:30:41.948
and that.
00:30:42.449 --> 00:30:43.589
It ain't going to matter if we don't
00:30:43.609 --> 00:30:45.951
have clinicians that are engaged in really
00:30:45.971 --> 00:30:48.013
looking at retention of their profession
00:30:48.034 --> 00:30:48.595
for the long haul.
00:30:48.615 --> 00:30:50.737
Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:51.357 --> 00:30:51.798
Absolutely.
00:30:51.817 --> 00:30:54.299
I think it's like if we can solve
00:30:54.340 --> 00:30:54.881
this puzzle,
00:30:54.921 --> 00:30:56.863
then we definitely have a much brighter
00:30:56.923 --> 00:30:57.584
future ahead of us.
00:30:58.406 --> 00:30:59.548
Well, that's a great way.
00:30:59.827 --> 00:31:01.450
That's a great quote to end it on.
00:31:01.910 --> 00:31:03.211
Alex, I really enjoyed having you.
00:31:03.251 --> 00:31:04.172
If we can solve that,
00:31:04.192 --> 00:31:05.313
you are absolutely right.
00:31:05.353 --> 00:31:06.815
If we can solve this puzzle,
00:31:06.835 --> 00:31:08.476
we have a great future ahead of us.
00:31:09.037 --> 00:31:10.538
And it's a complicated puzzle.
00:31:11.179 --> 00:31:13.280
And, um, I just want to continue to,
00:31:13.441 --> 00:31:15.603
to listen and hear people, uh,
00:31:16.243 --> 00:31:18.867
Or to have people get on their bully
00:31:18.907 --> 00:31:21.832
pulpit and talk about fundamental changes
00:31:21.852 --> 00:31:23.714
that have to happen at the clinician level
00:31:24.256 --> 00:31:25.877
and really become back to a therapist
00:31:25.959 --> 00:31:27.340
centric organization,
00:31:28.241 --> 00:31:30.586
because it's not only good for business,
00:31:30.625 --> 00:31:31.207
it's good for.
00:31:32.228 --> 00:31:33.769
the profession, and more importantly,
00:31:33.788 --> 00:31:34.650
it's good for patients.
00:31:35.230 --> 00:31:35.770
Absolutely.
00:31:35.830 --> 00:31:36.912
And you're absolutely right.
00:31:37.251 --> 00:31:38.272
There's so much demand.
00:31:38.413 --> 00:31:40.115
I think we're sitting at such an
00:31:40.134 --> 00:31:41.816
opportunity to take a leadership role in
00:31:41.836 --> 00:31:42.236
the U.S.
00:31:42.276 --> 00:31:42.977
healthcare system.
00:31:43.497 --> 00:31:44.959
If only under the right design,
00:31:45.659 --> 00:31:47.039
we can be the leaders.
00:31:47.099 --> 00:31:48.781
We can be the primary musculoskeletal
00:31:48.801 --> 00:31:49.843
providers in the country.
00:31:50.623 --> 00:31:51.183
No question.
00:31:51.203 --> 00:31:52.184
Yep.
00:31:52.345 --> 00:31:52.904
That's okay.
00:31:52.924 --> 00:31:54.365
So we are the force multipliers.
00:31:54.385 --> 00:31:55.626
Well, thank you again.
00:31:55.646 --> 00:31:56.248
Thank you, Larry.
00:31:56.766 --> 00:31:57.468
I appreciate it.
00:31:57.488 --> 00:31:57.827
I appreciate you.
00:31:57.847 --> 00:31:59.090
Keep on doing all the great work that
00:31:59.111 --> 00:32:01.256
you're doing at WebPT and love your
00:32:01.296 --> 00:32:02.378
LinkedIn posts as well.
00:32:02.479 --> 00:32:04.182
They're high value posts.
00:32:05.005 --> 00:32:05.645
So keep on doing it.
00:32:05.666 --> 00:32:06.568
Appreciate it.