Marketing Like An Out Of Network Provider With Aaron LeBauer, PT, DPT

Aaron LeBauer, PT, DPT has successfully opened and coached many out-of-network PT clinics over the past decade. Based on his insight, he believes that in-network providers could do SO MUCH MORE with their marketing and conversions if they took the time and energy to master those aspects like their out-of-network counterparts. In this episode, he joins Nathan Shields to share what makes him successful in his cash-based niche that could easily translate to in-network clinics and make their marketing and conversions more effective.

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Marketing Like An Out Of Network Provider With Aaron LeBauer, PT, DPT

I’ve got a returning guest, Aaron LeBauer. He’s a physical therapist and a business coach for PTs. Mostly for cash-based PTs, but his focus is to help PTs make more money. He is also a host of another podcast called The CashPT Lunch Hour with Aaron LeBauer. Aaron, thanks for coming on. I appreciate you joining me again.

Nathan, thanks for the invite. It’s always great to be here and share the knowledge that I’ve gained because I don’t want to hold on to it. It takes too much space in my head. I got to get it out.

That’s why I have successful PT owners like you on, simply to be a resource because you have so much knowledge to share and share from your experience, of course. If people would like to know about your professional story, I first referenced them back to our previous episode with you. We won’t rehash that. We’ll just do the cliff notes version and say, “Aaron has built a successful cash-based physical therapy clinic.” He is also a successful coach for PTs and has done a lot of hard work for over a decade.

I opened my cash practice in 2009 right when I graduated from Elon’s DVD program and I’ve been helping other people grow and scale their business since 2013.

The reason I wanted to bring you on and I know you’ve got plenty to say about it is there’s got to be something that in-network PT clinic owners can learn from the out-of-network guys, the cash-based guys, whether it’s marketing or how we do things or how we convert or how we talk to physicians or whatever it is. I know you’ve got a ton of ideas. I’ll let you take the stage here and let us know what could in-network physical therapy owners learn from you guys?

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The number one objection that we have isn’t copays too much or, “I don’t have enough time.” It’s, “Do you take my insurance?” I’ve had to develop marketing and sales strategies that get people who would otherwise go down the street and pay $20, $50, even $150 for a copay to come and pay us up to $250 an hour or $2,000 for a plan of care and forego their insurance benefits. Without logically explaining, you might save money coming to us and you might not. It’s not a logical conversation.

We have to create a whole system of marketing that allows people to do that. The one problem that I see most traditional clinic owners make is not a problem or a mistake that they would recognize. It’s that the actual service of physical therapy and the reimbursement from the insurance is the top of the value ladder in the clinic. It’s like, “We’re going to do all these things and then where we make our money is delivering physical therapy.” The reason I see that as a problem is because insurance is decreasing. That’s not the top of the value ladder. A value ladder is where we have one on the left. It’s something that costs me less time or little time and the prospect doesn’t pay anything.

Maybe there’s a free eBook and they give me their name, phone number, and email. The next thing, like in our clinic, would be a total body diagnostic for $35. It’s a twenty-minute visit, which is a sales visit. We have a $2,000 eight-visit plan of care and then after that, we have a wellness warrior program. For us, all of it is cash. My friend, Greg Todd, has a clinic and he’s got 2 or 3 locations down in Tampa. They’re making tens of thousands of dollars every month on all their wellness programs. It’s not just the gym membership.

The number one thing is if we look at physical therapy. Medicare is a better payer now than then it used to be. It’s consistent. A few years ago, there were some other companies that would pay better than Medicare. Now we’re like, “Medicare’s consistent paying $80 or $85 a visit.” What we have to do is look at like, “How can I set up my business so that Medicare or Blue Cross or UnitedHealth or whatever the insurances that I’m willing to still accept is going to be decently profitable? How can that be the reason people come in the door, but we have other programs to keep them?”

In the grocery stores, they put the French toast ingredients upfront in case of emergency or whatnot. It’s the reason you come in. What do the grocery stores do is they put their loss leaders in the back of the store, so you have to walk by all the other profitable items. Can insurance be the reason people come into our business, but we have other products and services, whether there’s vitamins, supplements, gym programs or health coaching? I wouldn’t say massage is profitable. I’ve employed massage therapists and had been one. Are there other wellness services and programs we can put people through to generate income that’s not insurance-based rehab and pain reduction? Does that make sense?

Yeah, because you have to focus on all those things. It sounds like you’ve got a menu, essentially of what you can provide a patient that’s not just physical therapy. They can pick and choose some of the other things that they might come to your clinic for and pay cash for. I don’t think a lot of in-network providers consider that or maybe they do, but they don’t spend a lot of energy considering it.

Your energy is probably spent on, “How do I maximize my insurance collections?” What if insurance collections were the thing that paid for the advertising and the revenue came from what’s next? Whether it’s a return to sport program. What is it the insurance isn’t going to cover? There’s a huge gap between us and getting someone back from a labral tear to competing in CrossFit again. Whether triathletes, runners or cyclists, there’s a big gap there. We can create programs and memberships and even group training programs where people are getting a specialist physical therapist, maybe even a doctor to supervise their return performance. They’ll pay cash for that. Blue Cross won’t.

PTO 135 Aaron LeBauer | Marketing — Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork

Those are programs that people might look into. The thing that’s coming into my mind is how do you get potential patients or customers to get past the, “Do you take my insurance mindset?” What do you do to overcome that or work around it?

I’ve said to people, “If only people who took insurance market it as hard as we did, you shouldn’t have a problem as long as your amount collected is profitable.” People still have a problem. What we have to do on the front-end is built so much value to our patients about the transformation that we can help them make about their goals and touch their wants, needs and desires. By the time we get to the price of the program, they’re like, “Dr. LeBauer is going to help me get my life back, so a couple of thousand dollars is nothing.”

We have to build that up versus, “Where are your orders?” We’re going to do “the physical therapy” three times a week for six weeks because someone else made the decision. For me, when someone calls us and says, “My doctor gave me a prescription for the physical therapy,” which is what people call it, they’re not calling us to help them make a decision and they won’t be our patient. I’ll probably recommend that come in once, maybe twice a week, not three times. There’s no one I see three times a week. Even if it was in-network, that would be a deal-breaker because I wasn’t the one that made the decision with them.

Talk to me a little bit about it. You weren’t the decision-maker and the doctor referred them over to you. You weren’t the decider as to if they should get physical therapy or not.

I haven’t made that decision with them. In that role, I’m the technician. It’s going to be hard to change the course of care if someone’s coming to see me with a prescription for physical therapy. In North Carolina, we’ve had direct access for many years. I’m lucky that I grew up here and I got into the profession. I was like, “It’s no different.” The big thing is if someone comes to see me because of my marketing in our social media, emails and website, they come in for a visit and they allow us to work with them to create a plan.

They’re much more likely to agree to my plan of care than if the only reason they’re coming to see me is because they found me online, someone recommended us because we were close or we were the first search result. The reason they’re coming isn’t because they made the decision with me. They made it with their other provider. Thank God they recommended physical therapy because most orthopedic surgeons don’t recommend physical therapy first. They made this decision with someone else, so it’s hard for me to change the course of care when they have this piece of paper that says what they need.

I know where you’re going. The next step for most in-network providers or owners is then, “What is your marketing message so that you get them in the door? Where have you found success, either in the channels that you’re using or in the message that you’re putting out there?”

There are three different things that have been the most powerful. One is word of mouth. It’s the easiest for everyone, but it’s not just like, “Tell your friends to do X, Y, and Z.” We have to cultivate word of mouth by requesting referrals and reviews and by making it easy for our patients to send others to us. A lot of people have great word of mouth, but they don’t cultivate it. There’s a way to ask. There’s also our website/Google Maps, but people come to our website and it’s a website for our patients. It’s not about me or my degrees or the treatment or skills that we have, but it reflects the problems people are experiencing.

Our website does a lot of different things, but it reflects to patients like, “Here are the problems you’re probably experiencing.” We’ve helped these people do X, Y, and Z. “Here’s some information you can get to learn about why you have this problem and what you can do about it.” What you can do about it leads you to, “Physical therapy is the thing.” I’m not trying to sell my degree and certifications or even physical therapy. I’m trying to get them to understand that we help people go from frustrated and in pain to doing things that they were told they could never do again like run, lift or squat.

We’ve all heard patients, “My doctor told me never to lift 35 pounds again.” It’s a new mom with a two-year-old and just holding on to the two-year-old daughter that weighs 50 pounds. Instead of marketing physical therapy and like, “We treat ACLs and labral tears and X, Y and Z,” it is talking about, “Here’s the type of people we help and here’s the result we help you get. Here are some other people like you that have had success.” That drives our marketing message because if a person finds us and they like that, then they apply to work with us and we make a decision, and we go through the eval with them. They’re much more likely to pay us in cash, do all their home exercises and get better and tell their friends.

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I like the message that you’re putting out there. It falls in line with a book that I read called Building a StoryBrand. The whole idea is that people see their lives as a story and they are the hero of that story. What we’re promoting as physical therapists is that we will come in and be the hero to your issue. Whereas, that’s not what they’re looking for. They’re looking for a guide.

We’re Obi-Wan and they’re Luke Skywalker but we’re trying to be Luke Skywalker.

We’re coming in saying, “We’re going to fix it all for you. We’re going to kill it and do great things. This is how we’re going to do it because of all these letters behind my name.” Whereas the message should be more along the lines of what you’re talking about, “This how we help you this is what happens when we work with people. They go from this to this.” That’s what people want to see. They want to see, “Who can be the guide to make me the hero of this story?” That’s what sounds like your message is coming across.

How do we speak to patients, not in our words, but through our marketing, our website or social media in ways that it resonates with them? They don’t know what physical therapy is. They think it’s hot packs, leg lifts and ultrasound or it didn’t work, “I tried physical therapy before and it didn’t work.” Physical therapy is much more complex and the thing that works or not.

It’s become commoditized so much over the years. You wouldn’t say that about a dentist that says, “Dentistry doesn’t work for me.” You find another dentist.

Or you lose your teeth.

It hasn’t worked that way for our profession but we’ve been lumped together like that. You said there were three things. You focus on the word of mouth and your website, but quickly regarding cultivating word of mouth. You guys are actively promoting your word of mouth referral program in the clinic on a regular basis, I’m assuming? That’s something which is a routine.

Here’s how I do that. You come in and we see you and we make a plan, “Mrs. Jones, I’m on a mission to help 100,000 people in Greensboro avoid expensive imaging and unnecessary surgery. If I can help you reach your goals of running a 5K and feeling strong, healthy and confident so you can be a good role model for your daughter, do you think you can help me reach my goals?” She’ll say, “Yes.” I’ll say, “Great. When the time comes, I’ll let you know how you can do that.”

Visit number 5 or 6 when she’s like, “I feel better than I ever have.” That’s when you say, “Can we shoot a little video of you saying that or would you mind leaving us a Google review?” That’s one part of it. In all our new patients, they get a specific email series from us and in some of those emails, we’re asking them to refer their friends or giving them ways to share about our business or our group and all that stuff.

Here’s a link to Google reviews. This is a link that you can send to your friends and family. You are making it easy and simple for them.

Also, something valuable like, “We came out with a brand new book on back pain. If anyone who might benefit it, just send them this link,” versus, “Review us.” I don’t want anyone to review us. I want people who feel compelled to review. The email and the initial conversation helps but what it comes down to is, if I can set it up in the beginning, when the time comes and they’re happy, then I can ask them. They’ve already been pre-framed that the consequence of getting better is telling other people.

We talked about word of mouth and website. What’s your third channel?

It’s social media.

You hit that hard.

2020 has been a great year to do it. It’s not only social media. It’s not only Facebook Ads. It’s being present in the conversation where people are. Prior to 2020, anytime I can do an in-person workshop but in-person workshops are a lot harder to do now. We can do them online but where are people right now? They’re on social media. They’re on their phone. I’ve got over a million views on our clinic’s YouTube page.

What are you posting on your YouTube page? Is it all how to get better, how to improve your shoulder and back or are there other things also?

There are other things. The most popular ones are I did a Self-Massage for Your Feet video and I did this a couple of years ago, but within the first 30 days, all of a sudden it got 20,000 hits. I was like, “What happened?” A foot fetish community got a hold of it and posted it on one of their forums or websites and got tons of views. This has over 250,000 views. I’ve got one where I was cutting a chicken and I was like, “Here’s some fascia.” I took my phone and my kids in the background and I was like, “This is interesting.” I put it up on YouTube and it has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of views. I’ve got a neck pain relief video.

The videos I put up didn’t grow as fast because YouTube back then had fewer people on it. Over time, it’s one of those platforms that the sooner you get on it, the sooner you’ll get results with it even though it takes time. I do have a video that we put up sometime during the pandemic. It’s already got over 20,000 views. I would have to go look and see which one that was because I do have a ton of different videos. There’ll be things that you don’t know what is going to hit.

Here’s the thing, the people in Greensboro aren’t like, “I saw your video on YouTube and I got to come to see you.” What they’re seeing is they see us on YouTube, they see us on Google Maps, they see us on Facebook, Instagram, maybe they’ll see our Facebook Ad, and they’ll get our emails and their friends will talk about us. It’s the omnipresence strategy. We become the go-to for people that are hurt or in pain or active in Greensboro and want to feel better, stay fit, healthy and strong. They’re like, “I’ve got to go see Dr. LeBauer. I’ve got to go to LeBauer Physical Therapy.” They look us up, call us and we put them through our system.

I learned long ago that any paid advertising is tough when we say, “It’s LeBauer Physical Therapy. You deserve to feel great. Call us.” It’s not enough. Any paid advertising we do outside of Facebook Ads is educational. You’ve seen Dan Kennedy stuff and a lot of people might not know who it is but it’s if you look in the newspaper or a magazine and you see what looks like a news article, but it says, “Paid Advertisement,” that’s a direct response type of marketing strategy. It’s an informative ad. We have to create information, educate people and give them a reason to contact us versus blasting them with our name. That’s some of the things that we’re doing. That’s the main thing that we do with social media.

I’m thinking about some of the therapists out there that are treating full–time. I’m thinking, “How much time do you spend on social media work? Do you have someone else doing some of that for you to keep you constantly posting and engaged?”

What’s the number one problem that we all have? The number one fear most business owners have when they go from being self-employed or a small business, it’s like, “If I want to grow my business, it means I have to work harder. I’m going to explode.” I don’t do our social media for either my coaching business or the clinic. What I do is I’ll record a video. Maybe I’ll do a Facebook Live video, make a little caption, or I’ll do an Instagram Live video and add a caption. I take the video, I download it, I put it in a Dropbox folder, someone on my team gets it and we create a blog post, content and other images out of it. We’ll pull quotes up from it and they’ll go and post it. I’ll say, “This is awesome.” She’s like, “What’s exactly what you said.”

Since you brought up Dan Kennedy, isn’t he the one that brought out the Who Not How book?

No. I haven’t heard of that.

He had Benjamin Hardy write it for him. What you’re talking about is finding who can do it for you not how you can do it. All of us have that limited amount of time. We don’t have the expertise. Who can you find to do the social media stuff for you? It all is dependent upon you.

That’s Dan Sullivan but they’re both great. The Dan Sullivan question is a great question. I want to come back to that, but yes, it’s who can do this not how do I do it? It’s exactly it. Dan Kennedy and Dan Sullivan are two powerhouse people. Dan Kennedy does all the direct response old-school marketing. The Dan Sullivan question, we ask this to our patients. Do you know the Dan Sullivan question?

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I don’t. I think I know where you’re going because I know some of my PT owners have asked this question of their team members. I know what you’re talking about. I’d love to hear it.

This is a question we use in our sales process. As physical therapists, we have to sell. It’s our obligation to sell physical therapy but only when we think people will benefit from it. It’s only sleazy if people won’t benefit from it. The Dan Sullivan question goes like this. Imagine if we start working together. I teach you everything I know and do everything I can to help you get results. Fast forward a year from now, we’re having the same conversation. Looking back over the last year, tell me what’s happened in your life personally and professionally for you to feel happy with your progress? It’s not amazing and the best ever, but happy. People start to answer and you basically say, “Tell me more and why is that important to you?”

That’s how I find out not that Mrs. Jones wants to get her knee pain resolved because she’s afraid of having arthritis, but she wants to be able to run, feel strong and be a good role model for her daughter which is what people are paying for. You can go anywhere and get physical therapy but where can you go to return to running programs so you can feel a good role model for your daughter and that’s LeBauer Physical Therapy.

I love that question and it gets to the heart of why the patient is coming to see you in the first place, whether they have a prescription or not. I love how that question can get buy-in for a patient to the point where they’re not thinking about what the copay is anymore.

If you asked that question to everyone, no one cared about their $20 to $150 copay. My copay this year to see PTs is $150 or maybe it’s $175 in 2021.

At that point, they’re thinking, “I’ll pay $1,000 to be able to run again.”

Who wouldn’t?

Also, be a role model for my children. Sign me up. How many visits is it going to take? Let’s get it on.

Being able to move my knee or run isn’t enough. It’s, “Why is running important? Why is that thing important?” What’s that 3rd, 4th or even 7th level of why. Why is this activity so important? When I was working in a high volume clinic as a student, I didn’t have time to ask these questions. Even with an eval, we would do one person at a time. They get an hour eval, but you didn’t get to when the questions are asked. I didn’t have any time to dive into what was happening beyond that initial assessment.

We all know, after 3 to 5 visits people either get better quickly, get better slowly, or maybe we miss something and need more time. It’s tough to not push people through based on a decision we made a few weeks ago when I’m being pressured as an employee or a student to meet productivity levels or to see a certain amount of people when I’m like, “I’ve got to put my hands on you.” That means I can’t talk to this other person and find out how does that exercise feels.

That’d be a great provider training program to roleplay and work through that one question and the follow-up questions after that, “Why is that important,” to get buy–in to improve the patient’s commitment so there are less fallout and drop-offs. Also, getting their commitment to show up as often as frequently as you’re telling them to show up and do their home exercise programs. It’s that patient engagement. Simply going through that one question, that one exercise, could do a lot to improve patient buy-in in any clinic.

What we do is we do that three times with them. People go to our website and there’s an application to work with us. You don’t have to do it but what 55% of people do is they go through our website from an email, an ad, social media or Google. There’s an, “inquire about availability, talk to a PT and request a free total body diagnostic.” In that, we’re asking not this question but other questions. We’re pre-framing that we have other services beyond physical therapy. What service are you most interested in? We’ll put all five of our services, PT, massage, health coaching, private yoga, performance and etc. in there. Eight to nine percent of people are choosing PT. We got this application and when we call them on the phone, we’re asking sometimes the same and sometimes different questions. In our free total body diagnostic, we’ll ask this question plus others because we want to find out why is this important to people. If it’s not important enough to them to do anything about it and they can’t connect with it, they’re not going to say yes.

I need to be able to build value that’s worth $10,000 or more. I have to build that because health doesn’t have a dollar value. I have to build a vision of like, “There’s no way I’m going to get that going down the street or with anyone else.” When we say, “Mr. Jones, my recommendation is you return to running or back to the box. Your total body complete program is $1,998 and we’ll help you feel better, faster, stronger so you don’t have to worry about damaging your knees and you can be a great role model for your daughter. How’s that sound?” They’ll be like, “Sign me up.” We do get objections. If I can do it right, we don’t get objections. If you’re not getting objections, you’re not selling. We have to get objections.

We have to remember that purchasing is an emotional process more so than a logical process. You’ll pay more for things that are illogical. If you can tie it to the emotional process and where they’re going to get better, you’ll get a financial commitment in spite of the copays that they have to pay. You and I both know that any mother would gladly pay a $100 copay each visit if that meant their daughter could get back to playing volleyball. They wouldn’t pay that for themselves to overcome their shoulder because they can’t lift it above her head and they haven’t been able to do so for two years. They don’t pay that extra. If you can get to the heart of it and get to the emotional part of it and tie that to, “This is going to get you that,” picture of happiness that we’re talking about, then the dollar figure can immediately be tied to a value. The value and the dollar amount can be equal and they can buy into that.

The most valuable thing is time. It’s like, “How much longer are you willing to wait for this to go away on its own? How long have you been trying to fix this problem?”

How much longer is it going to go on if you don’t fix it now?

“If I can help you do this in the next eight weeks or at least make a 50% difference, would you like to give it a shot? Would you like to work with me?” People are like, “Yeah.” If we can make a 40% change, it’s like, “Yeah.” I would say that because I know I can make a pretty significant change in 3 to 5 visits if I can help someone. If they’ve been struggling with this for three months or three years and they’ve gone to five different people, “I know you’ve been doing this for a long time. Do you want to keep struggling or do you want to give it the best shot? How much time would that be worth to save if we could save you?”

I try not to quantify it because it is an emotional decision. We have to somehow bring in a quantifiable understanding of time lost or gained and not just money lost or gained. The time gained has to be greater than the money spent. If I can get that equation right, it doesn’t matter. Going back to your original question, what’s a thing that a traditional in-network clinic owner can do is how do we work on not just the marketing process but the sales process and reposition something beyond rehab and the physical therapy we were doing so that people are coming back to see us month after month? People who’ve been our customer before were 80% more likely to buy from us again than someone brand new.

From your perspective, why don’t you think in-network providers go through these processes? Why don’t you think they focus more on sales, the conversion, getting to the heart of it or even the marketing process to be more patient-centric?

It’s hard not to make a generalization. Generally, there’s not been an objection. If a physician says, “Go get physical therapy,” you go get physical therapy. “My copay is $50.” I’ve had physicians say, “Aaron, I would send you patients but only if you took their insurance.” I’m like, “You don’t even know how much I charge. In some years, it’s less than a copay.” I’ve seen receipts from physical therapy in outpatient settings where people are being charged $600 and $800 a unit or even $1,000 a unit. We can’t make a judgment on that. Going back to my original thing is if we focus on sales and what’s next for people after therapy, those two things are going to shift but people haven’t been doing it because the way it’s always done and it’s been easy enough.

It’s the easiest path. You get your prescription, you come to me, I provide you the service and you move on. What you’re challenging the in-network owners to do is to think a little bit more.

Level up your sales and back-end products and services.

Think about what more could you provide. How can you make physical therapy simply another option on the menu of services that you provide with the others being cash-based alternatives that can add some greater revenue and consider your conversion process? Market like you’re an out of network provider. You have to sell what people are going to gain by coming to you versus other people that might charge you more or charge less.

Stop competing on physical therapy and start selling results that people want. When we try to sell physical therapy, it’s like, “I’ll go wherever it’s cheapest or wherever is in-network.” If I can sell them the result and something that they want, they can’t get it anywhere.

I love what you’re talking about. Is there anything else you want to share?

Based on this, it’s something like dry needling. Dry needling is a big thing. People will sell dry needling. Dry needling is not covered by insurance, it’s a cash-based service. If you want to get a needle, it’s going to be an extra $50. Patients are going to see needling as an a la carte item that if I feel like it works, then I get to go where it’s the cheapest. Maybe the guy across town isn’t all above the board and they’re including needling for free in their treatment. You’re charging me an extra $50, I’m going across the street.

I get dry needled and we provide it but we don’t sell it. I’m not knocking it. I’m saying the strategy of selling the treatment technique that I’ve learned or the treatment technique that I provide allows patients or customers to price shop. It’s like, “Here’s what they get at the price shop.” They’ll go wherever is cheapest. I have this done to me and I hate it. I’m like, “I guess I missed something in the conversation.”

It would be more of how do we create a bigger picture and a bigger goal that people want? “Mr. Jones, the good news is your insurance covers 50% of this program. Instead of the $3,000 program, your cost is only $1,500. If you’d like to pay in full now, I’ll give you a 5% discount.” That includes the therapy that the insurance covers, plus the wellness program or the needling that’s not covered by insurance and the other things that they need.

I love that different perspective and the way you package it up like that.

The good news is your insurance covers 50%, 40% or 10%. The good news is all of our patients have great insurance and we can help you. Whether insurance covers it or not, how about we get started now, get you some results and we’ll take care of the insurance piece together.

I love how you package that and if there was some way that you could get a provider team to agree on the different packages that you provide and say, “This cost a blank number of dollars. It’s $2,000 if you’re going to come to us without insurance, but because you have blankety-blank insurance, they’re going to cover this much of it.” It’d be cool to reword that and consider it.

It’s the framing of it. I’m also including multiple services. We can break up the charges on the bill however we want. It’s up to us. What we’re framing is a bigger result and how we’re going to get you there.

I love what we can learn from you. When I say, “We,” the in-network providers can learn from you because that’s where I’m coming from. It would challenge many owners if they thought, “What if I didn’t rely on insurance?” There are many owners out there that should be dropping some insurances that pay less than what their expenses are. You’ve seen that.

I’ve worked with a lot of clients who are like, “I have to drop insurance because I’m losing money no matter what I do.”

They’re scared to do it. If you could see the benefits of it, try it. Act like you’re out of network and market accordingly, change your message, package it accordingly and provide the value. I don’t think you’re going to miss that insurance.

The one ace up your sleeve that you guys have that I don’t is you already have the systems in place to bill on behalf of patients in or out of network. I would have to go hire someone new and build new systems or pay someone else money to do it. If you’ve already got it set up, it makes it a lot easier and it becomes less of a barrier because people will ask you, “Do you take my insurance?” You’re like, “We do.” We’re out of network and this is how we’re going to do it and we’ll file the claim on your behalf or we’ll just file it for you. That’s the big barrier that I face every day.

It’s easy to find you on The CashPT Lunch Hour. They can find you on the podcast but if they want to reach out to you individually, how do they do that?

The best way is to send me a message over on Instagram, @AaronLeBauer. You can find all the resources and things that I’ve got over on my website at AaronLeBauer.com.

Thanks for your time. I appreciate it, Aaron.

Nathan, thanks so much. I appreciate being on your show. You’ve got a great voice. Keep rocking and rolling.

I’ve got a face made for it.

About Aaron LeBauer

Aaron LeBauer PT, DPT is the host of The CashPT Lunch Hour Podcast, the founder of The CashPT Nation Facebook group and as a business coach has helped 1000’s of passionate physical therapists build successful businesses without relying on insurance. He owns LeBauer Physical Therapy in Greensboro, NC, a multi-therapist 100% cash-based physical therapy practice. Aaron’s personal mission is to save 100 million people worldwide from unnecessary surgery by inspiring other healthcare providers to start their own businesses and learn how to market directly to patients, not physicians.

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