DPT to CEO: The Podcast

If you’re a physical therapist with ADHD, the clinic might not be the problem with you. It might be the model. In this video, I share why owning a cash-based physical therapy practice has worked so much better for my ADHD brain than the 25 to 30 patients a day I was seeing in a high-volume outpatient clinic. I walk through the 4 biggest reasons working for myself made me happier and more effective...

How much does a cash based PT actually make compared to working in a clinic? If worrying about money is what's keeping you from starting your own practice, this video walks through the real numbers so you can plan with confidence. The median physical therapist salary is about $102,000 before taxes, or roughly $6,700 a month after taxes. Using that as our goal, I break down how much revenue a c...

Is ADHD holding back your practice, or could it be your biggest advantage as a business owner? Most conversations about ADHD focus on what you're bad at. In this video, I look at what the research actually says about ADHD and entrepreneurship, and the systems that help me run my business as an ADHD entrepreneur. A meta-analysis of 47 studies found that ADHD traits are positively linked to star...

How do you grow a cash based PT practice while becoming a new mom? In this episode, returning guest Dr. Bre Guettler shares how she built her practice in less than two years, hired her first physical therapist, and used maternity leave to rebuild her business around her family. Bre works with barbell athletes like CrossFitters, powerlifters, and Olympic lifters, and she's now a coach inside th...

That post you saw saying it costs $50,000 to start your own practice? It's not talking about you. As a solo cash based PT, you can start for somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 — and that's including a coaching program. The actual business setup is closer to $1,200 to $1,300 with inflation. And according to the Small Business Administration, most micro businesses take $2,000 to $5,000 to s...

Most content about running a physical therapy practice is built for multi-provider clinics with full admin teams. This episode is for the solo cash based practice owner who is trying to figure out what actually needs to happen between patient sessions — and how to build a business that doesn't eat your entire life. I work a roughly 25-hour cap on my week. Half of that is client-facing. The oth...

The listing said twenty-five dollars a square foot. Six hundred square feet. You did the math — fifteen thousand dollars, maybe doable in a year. Then somebody had to tell you commercial rent is quoted per square foot per year. That's twelve hundred and fifty dollars a month. Before anything else. In this episode I break down what renting space for a cash based physical therapy practice actually c...

After 19 years in traditional outpatient ortho — missing her kids' activities, burned out from back-to-back patients, exhausted from late-night notes — Dr. Payal Sanghvi made a decision that changed everything. She started Flex Flow Physical Therapy out of her garage gym in San Jose, California. She now sees 18 to 22 patients a week, has a waitlist, works around her family's schedule, work...

The month I invested ten thousand dollars in coaching, I made five hundred and four dollars and seventy cents. Most people hear that and think — that's terrifying. But here's what I know now that I didn't know then: waiting until you're more financially stable to invest in coaching is one of the most expensive habits in business. And jumping in before you're ready wastes money...

From the outside, a $47 mini course and a $9,500 coaching program can look almost identical in how they're marketed. So how do you actually know what you're getting? And more importantly, which one is right for where you are right now? In this episode I break down every level of coaching investment honestly, including where each one stops working, so you can make a smarter decision before...

Since starting my cash based physical therapy practice in 2019, I have invested somewhere between sixty and eighty thousand dollars in business coaching across mini courses, group programs, one-on-one coaching, and a high-level mastermind. In this episode I am giving you the full honest breakdown of what I spent, what I got out of each investment, the one program I somewhat regret, and the one I l...

What does it actually take to build a thriving pelvic health physical therapy practice from the ground up — and keep growing it with an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity one? In this episode of the DPT to CEO Therapy Entrepreneurs interview series, I sit down with Dr. Melanie Llanes, founder of Best Self Wellness in Jersey City, New Jersey. Melanie serves women at every stage of motherhood t...

One of the most common questions I get from clinicians building their own practice is some version of the same thing: "How do I know when it's time to leave my job?" The honest answer is that waiting until it feels right is the strategy most likely to keep you employed indefinitely. The practices that grow fastest aren't built by people who waited until they felt ready. They'...

I sat down with a practice owner this morning and she asked me the question I get more than almost any other: "Where do I even get clients from if it's not referrals and networking groups?" Here's the honest answer: making referrals your main strategy is the most fragile way to build a cash based physical therapy practice. You don't control the input so you can't control...

What if you built your entire cash based physical therapy practice without a single paid ad — and nearly seven years later, you're still growing? In this episode of the DPT to CEO Therapy Entrepreneurs interview series, I sit down with Dr. Sameep Contractor, founder of Karma Rehab, a mobile concierge physical therapy and wellness service serving older adults throughout the Houston area. Sameep...

If your practice feels like organized chaos, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because nobody taught you how to run one. Most physical therapists are technically excellent at their jobs and completely winging it when it comes to the day-to-day operations behind the scenes. In this episode I walk you through the four core business routines that hold a sustainable cash based...

Most PT programs teach you how to treat patients. Nobody teaches you how to actually operate a business. If you've ever gotten your first patient and thought "wait, how do I actually run this thing?" — this episode is for you. In this episode I walk you through the exact systems, tools, and daily routines that run a sustainable cash based physical therapy practice from the ground up. This isn't th...

You have a practice. You're doing the work. You're seeing patients. So why does it still feel like you're hitting a wall every month? After coaching 100+ cash based physical therapy practice owners, I can tell you it's almost never your market, your specialty, or your follower count. It's almost always one of five structural problems that are completely fixable once you can see...

Most physical therapists graduate with exceptional clinical skills and almost zero business training. Nobody teaches you how to have a sales conversation. Nobody teaches you how to coach someone through making a decision about their health. And nobody tells you that those two skills are actually more connected than you think. In this episode, I sit down with Sam, our sales and coaching specialist...

You had a great consult call, they seemed interested, said it sounded like exactly what they needed, and then they ghosted. Or said they couldn't afford it. Or asked if you take insurance at the last minute. Sound familiar? The problem is almost never your price. It's what happened at the end of that call. Most cash based physical therapy practice owners are running evaluations instead of...

If you've bought a script, memorized it word for word, and still fumbled on a sales call, this episode explains exactly why that happened. Most physical therapists spend so much time trying to say the "right" thing, they forget clients aren't just listening to your words — they're reading your energy. In this episode, I break down why confidence, not perfectly memorized lines...

If you're already making $2-5K a month in your practice but still starting every month at zero, this episode is for you. You built the practice, you have patients, you're doing the work — so why isn't it growing the way it should be? This isn't about working harder or posting more. It's about the three systems that create the difference between surviving session-to-session and building a practice...

What if I told you that your first business plan doesn't have to be your forever plan? In this episode of DPT to CEO Therapy Entrepreneurs, I sit down with Karen Baltz Gibbs, founder of Garage Training & Rehab in Newberg, Oregon, who completely transformed her 20-year clinical career into a uniquely intimate garage-based practice. In this interview, we dive deep into why you're not loc...

Becoming the CEO of your own physical therapy practice is one of the most challenging transitions no one prepares you for. If you've been feeling the weight of leadership, missing the simplicity of just being a clinician, or wondering why building your own practice feels so much heavier than you expected, this episode is for you. The truth is, most physical therapy practice owners experience an id...

If sales calls feel awkward, it's not because you're bad at them — it's because you were never trained to lead conversations. As physical therapists, we learned clinical skills in school, but nobody taught us how to guide decision-making conversations or confidently ask for commitment. In this episode, I'll reframe consult calls as a leadership skill, not a personality trait, and g...