Copy My 15 Minute Strategy To Win Reoccurring Patients

Show Notes

In this episode, Dr. JJ Thomas shares her proven 15-minute strategy to win over patients in her cash-based physical therapy practice, this method is a short yet effective technique that has not only skyrocketed her business but also consistently delivered better results for her patients. Discover the strategies that can increase patient engagement in your practice, enhance patient satisfaction, and foster long-term success in the competitive PT landscape.

Get A Free Copy Of My Book:
5 Things You MUST Do to Build a Successful Cash-Based PT Practice
This quick, easy-to-read guide is your no-BS steps to what really works in building a Cash-Based Physical Therapy business.
👉 https://bit.ly/CashPTebook
For more on our in person Physical Therapy continuing education classes, check out our Primal University 🎓 https://bit.ly/primaluniversityeducation

What is The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast?

Welcome to The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast! Here I'll be talking all things physical therapy, raw and unplugged, giving you the unfiltered insights you've been searching for in your cash-based physical therapy business. If you're caught in the grind of the traditional model, swamped with paperwork, or feeling like you're not reaching your full potential as a physical therapist, this podcast was created just for you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:00

The number one thing we need to do in order to, win over their, trust in us, in order to come to us for treatment, is we need to show them that we're worth their time. Welcome to the doctor JJ Thomas podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the doctor JJ Thomas podcast. I'm doctor JJ Thomas.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:21

Thanks for joining us again today. I am super excited about today's episode, because it's gonna give you actionable tools to actually get more patients in the door and keep them there. So you see my title here, 15 minutes to win a new patient? What I'm gonna do with you today is I'm going to share with you the actual tools, the actual system that I use in 15 minutes to basically win over a patient and show them that you're worth, that just the way I do it is I show them that I'm worth them coming and paying out of pocket for, and the real key to it is this 15 minute process because to be honest think about most of the patients that are coming considering, coming to you in a cash based practice, they're one of 2 people. They either failed treatment somewhere else or lots of other places or they wanna be better yesterday.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:11

And so the number one thing we need to do in order to, win over their, trust in us, in order to come to us for treatment, is we need to show them that we're worth their time. And if we can do that in 15 minutes, it's low time cost for them. I will show you how talk to you about how early on in my career especially, I would do it as a screen. So I would say, you know what? Give me 15 minutes.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:35

I'll just I'll do a screen of you and show you what we can do. If we can do anything, I wasn't always so cocky about it. I would be like, you know what? Let's take a look at you and in 15 minutes, let's see if there's anything that comes up that we that we might be able to help you with. And so it's low cost in terms of monetary, investment for them and it's low cost in terms of time investment which is what you'll find in the cash based practice is actually maybe even more important than the monetary investment.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:00

When patients have been, to place after place after place and they're not getting better, they are so tired of putting time into a treatment or a person or a method and being disappointed in the result. So if in this 15 minutes you can show them a few things, you're gonna win them over, they're gonna come in the door, you're gonna treat them, you're gonna get them better, everybody's gonna be happy. So let me break it out for you. Okay? The first thing, we're gonna use a whiteboard because as I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking I really want for you guys to take this this system and I want you to make it actionable.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:36

And as I envisioned going through this episode, I thought if I just talk around this, you guys are gonna miss some points. So we're gonna we're gonna actually write out the steps here on the whiteboard, so I hope you enjoy it. So the first thing you need to do to gain their trust and win them over as a patient is, number 1, you have to figure out what they need. You have to get goals clear one single clear goal from them. Okay?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:05

So goal, what is their goal? What do they need from you? And the way I find this out is a very purpose intentional question. What I say to them is, if I can change one thing for you today, what would it be? You don't because lots of these patients have a lot of issues.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:25

Right? And if you have 15 minutes you gotta get your clear path right away. You have to know what your your mission is, what your end game is gonna be for this 15 minute screen. Okay? And so you're gonna ask them to limit your result today to one thing.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:40

If I can if I can change one thing for you today, what would it be? That's the question I want you to ask to get to this goal. Okay? And already you've shown them that potentially you're very different because you're jumping out of the gates ready to take action for them. You're like, let's go.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:55

I gotta I gotta make some results here. What result are we gonna change for you today? So that's number 1. You're gonna ask them, the goal of theirs for the visit. Number 2, this one is really important, and I I actually think it's one of the most underrated pieces of this screen and an evaluation in general.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:13

And that is you're going to ask them very specific questions that are gonna give you very important information about how to get to their how to meet their goal. Okay? And so this, I wanna spend a little bit of time on because I'm telling you we're gonna do this in 15 minutes. Right? And when I've taught this to my staff and other friends of mine and other other people I'm training to do this process, what I find is this part's scary for them Because you've had those patients that you ask them a question and they go on and on and on, and you're like, oh my god.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:46

I gotta get and you don't wanna be rude and interrupt them. But you so this is, you know, it has to be done deliberately. There are 4 what I found that there are 4 really important questions that you should ask in this, and you are gonna have to right off the right out of the gates, recognize that you may have to move them along, but don't skimp too much on it because in a 15 minute screen, at least 5 of it should be investigating through questions. Because if you think about it, we're behavior we are behavioral animals and oftentimes an injury progression has a progression. It has a change.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:23

And so these questions are gonna be pointed at discovery of what caused this insidious onset injury to actually exacerbate at this time of your life. And so these are the questions that are gonna help you figure that out. And so the first question you're going to ask them is, what have you tried? What have you tried so far to get this goal better? You'll find most people, if they're considering coming to your practice, if they're come if they're considering coming to a cash based practice, they've tried lots of things.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:55

And it's really gonna be helpful for you to know what they have tried because in that 15 minutes you're not gonna try what they've had. If they're like, oh, I went to, you know, so and so down the road. Let's say let's say it's knee pain. Okay? And they're like, I went to so and so down the road and they massaged my knee and it would feel better for a day, but then it would come right back.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:16

Or I went to sew someone else and they gave me orthotics and that made it worse. I mean, they're giving you a very clear checklist of things that they've tried and whether they've worked or not. So that information is 100% gonna get you further faster. So what have they tried already? Alright?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:34

And right off the bat, you're thinking about what you can bring to the table that hasn't been tried. Okay? You're gonna assume that the therapist, that clinician, the chiropractor, whoever they saw before you, whatever intervention they they did, they're very good at. You're going to assume that when they tried those things, they did it really well, and you're gonna look for other things that are gonna move the needle for them in terms of that goal. I should also I wanna pause here and say, when you're asking these questions, because you only have 15 minutes, I want you to train yourself now to analyze their posture while they're talking.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:12

Okay? We're multitaskers in this world, we can multitask. So you're gonna ask these questions, but remember your evaluation starts from the minute they walk in the door. You're gonna be analyzing their gait before you even ask them any questions. And when you do that, little things will peak up to you with their movement that will be part of the process later and really important to getting you to where you need to be.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:34

The second thing you're gonna ask them, this is more the behavioral thing we were talking about. What change in anything in your life, schedule, habits, happened leading up to this injury, this awareness of this injury. Was there and sometimes it takes a little bit for people to think about this. Was there actually a change in something in your schedule or in your habits or in your life in general in general? That timeline wise was right before you started noticing these symptoms.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:16

This is huge. Right? Because now we're really investigating. We're looking for what life event possibly could have been a big contributor to the change in your body's awareness of pain or perception of pain or actual tissue injury. So imagine you have a runner.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:36

Right? Oftentimes we see runners and they have this insidious onset knee pain and they're like, I don't know. It just started killing me. Now I can't even walk up or down the stairs. Okay.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:46

Well, let's think about that. Was there anything different in your training schedule or in your life schedule leading up to the time when that came on? And they'll start working back in their brain. They're like, okay, well it came on in October. You know what, September I started traveling a lot for work.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:01

And things that you, you know, often times people will correlate well, I increase my training miles, right? But you have to really investigate other all the avenues of their life at this in this 5 minutes that we're allowing to the to ask the questions. But if you're very deliberate and insistent on it, these these answers will come out. So let's say they do that and they're like, oh, my god. You know what?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:21

Yeah. I was flying, like, 3 planes a day. And and so in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, there's definitely a maybe a hip tightness component. Right? This is stimulating all of these things, related to their change in their habits, their change in their life that would have been a precipitating factor for why their knee just started hurting.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:40

And initially that person will say to you, no, my training volume was the same. I didn't increase my miles, I didn't, you know, I didn't start doing hills all of a sudden. And the average therapist will listen to that and be like, god, I don't know. You're not the average therapist. You gotta you gotta seek more answers.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:58

You have to say, okay. So the training schedule didn't change, something likely changed. What was it? That brings us to our third question that you're gonna ask them and that's surgical history. This is by far one of the most missed questions that I see.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:15

You know, therapists we get into this like pattern where we have the intake form and we have people fill out the intake form. Half the time therapists may not even look at the intake form. I'm not judging, I'm just saying that we have to get the answer to these questions some way or another and what I've found is even if you have an intake form that asks surgical history, patients will not put it on there. They won't put everything on there. They'll only put on there what they think is relevant.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:40

I can't tell you how many patients I've had come to me that are like, you know, I look at their surgical history and there, you know, there's like, meniscectomy, you know, EPAD for they'll put things like EPAD on there for plantar fasciitis, but they won't put on there that they had breast implants. Or they won't put on there that they had cesarean section deliver deliveries. So if they think it's not relevant, they're not gonna put it on there. So you have to really tease this out because we know that these things really do matter. I'm gonna share a patient example real quick.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:14

This happens all the time but I tend to share the ones that happen the week that I give these episodes because they're fresh in my mind. So just this week, I had a patient. She is an older woman, but an active woman. Like, really active, and awesome. And she's got grandkids, and recently, she started having, radiculopathy.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:36

It's down her left side, actually. But radicular, pain, and it's clear radicular pain. It's not hot acute. It's like it's actually on the chronic side at this point. So I guess it's post, you know, post 3 months probably, but she's seen some people some therapists for it.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:51

She, went to a doc about it. I think she even had an injection. But when we started delving into history and I was like, what's your surgical history? She was like, oh, I'm not I really haven't had surgery. And I was like, okay.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:06

And so then we did actually, I I let her go there. Then we did movement testing and something showed up for me and her abdominals. Some of the movement tests, and we're gonna get to movement in a minute, the movement test showed me that there was a deficit in her abdominal region. So I said, listen, the movement test is showing me that I I need to work on the abdominals to change your movement. So I lay her on her back, I'm working on her abdominals and she's like, I'm as I'm massaging her she's like, now that's where the hernia repair was, is that okay?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:31

And I'm like, that's a surgical incident. And she's like, why didn't she said, I actually asked the doctor that and the doctor said it wasn't related to my back pain so I didn't think I should tell you. And I'm so I'm here to tell you they will miss their surgical history. You have to literally pull it out of them. I it wasn't until I had my hands on her and was like, I had already told her there was a correlation.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:54

I'm like, the way you're moving, I know there's something going on with your abdominals. Let's massage them and see what happens. As I'm massaging her abdominals she's like, yeah, I think I have a mesh in there. I'm like, that's relevant information. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:07

But you guys have to get here on that 15 minute session or you're gonna miss your window to prove to them that you're different. So tease it out of them. Alright? I'm gonna move on from that because I could talk about that shit forever. Number 4.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:20

The other thing. Now this one, I'm gonna put like a if you have, you know this is a this is a judgment call one. Okay? I will be honest. I don't ask this one on everyone because, they have to be ready to hear it and answer it.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:37

This one is, what what was their time this kinda goes to the change in schedule habits. What was their stress level at the time leading up to or at the time of the injury? There's too much research now to deny the relationship between stress and trauma and not only how the body perceives pain, but how the body amplifies a pain and injury response in the presence of stress. So this is an in general, in an evaluative process, this is another one of the most highly missed opportunities for recognizing a precipitating factor to injury. And if you can uncover this in that 15 minute window without making the person feel like you're a wacko, then you should do it because it's so amazing.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:34

And in for the right person, if the if a stressful response was happening at the time of an injury, guaranteed that person is already asking themselves if the stress is related to it. And all they need is for someone to confirm that there's research to support that. Now there are people that don't wanna recognize this is real. And so that's why I say this is like a you have to make a judgment call on this one because you don't necessarily want to want to lose this patient if they're not ready to hear this. However, by the same token, if you really think stress is a big factor for them and they're not ready to hear it, then maybe you don't wanna treat them anyway.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:17

Because what I believe is in the cash based practice world, if you're true we've talked about this in other episodes. If you're true to your process and if you if you do the best job you can do and you present to them the information that you know in your heart is gonna get them better and move their needle towards their goal and they're not willing to do the work or receive the information or do their part in the work, honestly, it doesn't do you any good to treat them. Because clinically, your results are not gonna be as good if they don't have the buy in. So this is a judgment call, but I will say there as long as I've been doing this and I know the correlation and I can usually see it like that, I may not do it on the first visit. I may casually say, I may just introduce the idea to them and try to win them over in another way.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:05

But I will I will at least introduce the idea and say, think I don't want you to answer this now, but think about if there was a stressful time in your life happening. If there was anything stressful going on in your life around the time of this injury. Because research has shown us that stress during the time of injury will amplify a pain and an injury response. And that's all I'll say. It's very non nonjudgmental.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:30

Just kinda putting the information out there and then reading from them if I should pursue that and talk to them more about it. I will say, when I've brought this up to patients and potential patients and they needed to hear it and they were ready to hear it, this is a huge game changer because a lot of these people have had clinician or doctors or so many friends tell them that essentially they're crazy. And when you all of a sudden can identify with them in a way that they know is already related, they're coming into your office for an appointment, and you're gonna actually be able to help them. So these are the 4 things, you guys. This is honestly the nuts and bolts of this is actually the meat of the evaluation.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 17:15

The movement is where we prove to them that we know what we're doing. But this part, when you take the time to tease out these questions, you will find answers I guarantee that you did not know were there. I'll say one more thing about this stress thing. Like, I shocked myself when I first started deliberately asking this question on how many people were like, oh my god. Now that you say that, my back started hurting right after my mom passed away.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 17:41

Or oh my god. Like, you're right. My headache started right after I lost my job and, you know, my I was afraid I wasn't gonna be able to pay for my kid's school or my kid's daycare or whatever. But this is huge and the minute you pull that out right away in that 15 minutes with them, they're like, wow. I finally found somebody that is going to listen to me.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 18:04

They're gonna meet my goals because they the first thing they ask me was what what do I wanna do? That's the half of people are like nobody ever asked me what my main goal is. If they think nobody asked you what your main goal is, how am I gonna get you better if I don't know what the heck I'm getting better? Right? And then ask these questions and they will, I promise you, deliver so many important informational pieces to their evaluation, you'll surprise yourself.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 18:28

So that's the first two steps in the process. Okay? There's the next step is kinda what I think is the fun part. Because like I said, this is the movement test part. You are gonna analyze their movement.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 18:43

For me, I will say, I've already established a theory based on these questions. The movement, I have a standardized way. We teach this at Primal University. It's literally like the whole course is how to take these this information and take a whole body movement perspective and look at the way the body integrates and discover underlying root causes of injury that other people have missed. It's a lot a lot of fun.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 19:11

But that's our place here to shine and prove to them and to us that we're gonna uncover something that hasn't been done for them in the past. And so, essentially, my points for this I'm gonna go up here because we're running out of room on the board. Our main points for the movement assessment are going to be to show relationships with movement that they didn't know existed, but that have a clear correlation to change their injury pattern. Okay? This, obviously, I can't cover this in an episode.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 19:47

Right? Like I said, our primary university courses have it all. Also, if that's if you're not ready to sign up for the course yet, our YouTube channel has a clinical corner where we're discussing here that basically show these relationships here that basically show these relationships. Let me give you an example because I'm being fairly vague right now. Just the other day actually, we were showing my team we have a team of 5 therapists here And every meeting, every team meeting, we spend the first hour and a half doing the doing the things.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 20:20

Right? Talking about the things we have to, the logistical pieces of the clinic and, and how it's run. And then we spend 30 minutes after every meeting going over clinical scenarios. We either go over case studies with patients or, we'll ask the we'll ask the therapist like, hey, is there something you wanna go over movement assessment wise that you think would be helpful? And so just just Friday, just the other day, one of my therapists said, JJ can we go over the shoulder assessment again?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 20:50

Because as I said, in the primal university courses we teach breakout assessments of we start from a whole body movement perspective and then we break it out into different components, you know, head, neck, spine, shoulder, hip, knee, all of those things, and there's a distinct way that we evaluate to look for contributing factors. So one of our therapists said, hey, JJ, can you go through the shoulder the shoulder evaluation again? So, you know, I don't know. You you guys I don't know if you've seen Eric on on the other podcast, but I I was like, I know Eric's got pretty tough shoulders. He does a lot of work on them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 21:26

He does a lot of golf. He does a lot of jujitsu. He's been lifting a lot. So I figured his shoulders would be primed for this. So I was like, absolutely.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 21:34

Let's look at Eric's shoulders. So we put Eric on the we first looked at standing movement. Some things popped up. I always do full active range of motion assessment. I've said in previous episodes, I usually start with, like, an SFMA top tier screen for that.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 21:49

And then I take put them on the table and I start teasing out 4 contributing factors. What was really cool we found cool things on both sides, but I'm gonna talk about the right side because the right side revealed a really cool thing, that I wanna share with you. So Eric was on the table and he did prone flexion and it was limited. It was a SMCD, so it was a it was a motor control, deficit. So what that means is his passive range of motion is greater than his active range of motion.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:19

Okay? So when he went into flexion, he couldn't bring it up very high, but I could bring it further. So there's a motor control deficit. Boom. Put that in the box.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:26

Right? Then we checked external rotation. So pro 90 90 external rotation, also a motor control deficit. Pretty limited. I said, hey, let's see what other factors.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:35

I can't figure out if this is pec, if this is cuff, like what is actually limiting this? So we were like, well, let's put him in there's a prone lumbar rotation test that we do, to check lumbar mobility essentially. And the standard is the standardized form of the test is with the arm in in functional internal rotation like this. But sometimes what I'll teach is if they're limited here or even if they're not limited here, put them here with the arm and on their head in a full external rotation. Now you're putting a stretch on the pec and let's see if that changes.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:09

So Eric's here, boom. He actually moves really well here. We put him here, he's locked. He goes, like, less than 50% of the motion with his arm here versus here. So I'm like, pecs, definitely.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:23

We're gonna go for pecs here, Eric. Alright? But then I'm like, let's just go one step further and let's put him in a now lumbar locked position, which if you don't know the lumbar locked position, it's originally used to test thoracic mobility. So you're flexing, you essentially have the patient in child's pose, knees in not knees out because we want their lumbar spine fully flexed. And then you do the rotation pattern.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:47

And in that rotation pattern, he was he was pretty good again with his arm here. When we put his arm here, he was full. We had his arm here in full spinal flexion and we asked him to rotate. He had full rotation, so 50 degrees. I was actually shocked because I thought his limitation I was sure his limitation was pec.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 24:10

What this showed us is that it wasn't PEC, it was abdominals. The minute I shortened the abdominals I mean, I should say, I'm sure pecs were a factor, but pecs were a factor because the abdominals below the pecs were pulling on the pecs, and then the pecs didn't have the mobility to move. But the minute I shortened the abdominals by putting him in child's pose, in that lumbar lock position, he now had the ability to move. Just to be sure, we went one step further. I said, let's go back and prone.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 24:37

Let's make sure you didn't just loosen up, which I know doesn't really happen, but people always think it does. And put them prone, went to do it, boom, couldn't move. So it was a really cool movement test that showed my patient, which happened to be Eric at the time, but also showed our therapist to how to really investigate and tease out contributing factors that other therapists won't do. When you take the time to go that extra 10%, that extra 20%, you will reveal things that are missed time and time and time again. So it just takes taking the time and deliberate effort to find them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 25:13

If you wanna learn how, remember, find us. There's all kinds of links. You can find our courses on primalhq.com. But, this is a huge game changer. So that's really what I want you to get out of this talk is find a way to analyze their movement that shows them at the very least you're doing something different than everyone else has done.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 25:32

The 4th thing, this actually is part of this one we kind of already covered actually and that's investigate. I'm gonna put that right up there with that because that's really what I meant by that. You're gonna analyze their movement and as you're analyzing their movement, you're gonna tease that movement out so deliberately and so purposefully that you're going to find avenues to make a change to move the needle in their goal like no other therapist has. And that's essentially the recipe. The very last thing that you're gonna do after you've done all this is you're gonna summarize what you found, how you think you can help them, and when you'd like to see them again, but also how they're gonna get a hold of you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 26:21

So you're gonna give them access to you. This is huge. Right? Because these people are so frustrated because they had to wait in between appointments. They have 3 times a week physical therapy.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 26:32

They're committing so much of their time to the insurance based practice, and they're going, and they're hoping they're gonna get answers, and they don't get answers, and then they leave. And after they leave, they realize shit, I still don't have any answers. Who do I call? I can't call anyone. I have to wait till my appointment next Wednesday.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 26:49

Shit. And then they go Wednesday and it's so busy that they don't get to ask the question again. So you're gonna give them away. This is up to you how you wanna do it. What you know, whether you there is a email.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 26:59

Like, there's lots of avenues of of patients contacting you, if you wanna give them accessibility to you. But this is a huge game changer as well because patients really just want answers. And what I really wanna leave you here with, I'm gonna put it up here. I wanna show you what a win is for you on this. Okay?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 27:18

So a win might look like lots of things because depending on the phase of your own evaluative skills, you may not be able to show these relationships day 1 exactly. Right? That might take some skill refinement. That might take you going to some continuing education courses to help you. That might take you watching some more YouTube videos with clinical providers like me and like other successful clinicians that will show you how to really move the needle for your patient's goals.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 27:44

So you may not be able to do that right away. If you can, that's a huge win. So here are the wins for the for the 15 minute. This is you have to leave them in that 15 minutes with one of these things. One of them is you need to make a change.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 27:57

I call that delta because I don't wanna write change. Delta in their pain or movement day 1, or not day 1, but in that 15 minute session. You you're gonna if you do change their pain or movement, you're gonna say to them, hey, listen. We just saw a correlation. I don't have the time in 15 minutes to actually get this to stay now.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 28:18

Like, trust me it's gonna come back. But the fact that we identified this correlation is, number 1, gonna prove to them and you that you have a a path for moving the needle for their goal. And number 2, it's gonna make them wanna schedule with you because they wanna see the result. They wanna go pursue this avenue. They're convinced now that if you could change it in 15 minutes, if you've given more time, you're gonna actually be able to get them to their goals.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 28:43

Now like I said, this takes some skill refinement. So maybe you're not gonna be able to do this right away. But at the very least, through your process, through the fact I'll write that one out. Through the fact that you've asked them questions that no one else asked them, that you've shown them movement relationships or at least looked for movement relationships that they didn't know existed, you've now at least shown them you're different. And so maybe you are worth the time because they're gonna leave this 15 minute session and they're gonna think, you know what?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 29:17

She wasn't able to change my movement or my pain in 15 minutes, but, man, she did a she looked at a lot of things that no one else looked at. Maybe if I give her 30 minutes, maybe she can find something. That's all you need to do. In 15 minutes, you're not expecting to cure them by any means. All you wanna do is either change their pain and movement, show them you're different.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 29:41

Maybe you're gonna show them that you're an advocate for them. Maybe you're gonna show them that you care about them. What I mean by this is, you know, I've had screens where I look at them, I listen to them, I ask them the questions, and then when I do that, I actually uncover something that maybe I can't help them with. And in that case, I am gonna a 100% do right by my patient. Well, my potential patient.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 30:07

And I'm gonna say, you know what? This sounds like let's say that it's, somebody who has pelvic floor related issues that I'm not a specialist in pelvic floor. I might be able to make some changes in their pain for sure because I do treat the pelvic floor. I often collaborate with other pelvic floor therapists. But if I'm listening to someone and I think they have a really involved pelvic floor issue that needs a specialist, 100% I'm gonna say, you know what?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 30:35

Here's what I'm thinking, I can make some changes through treatment, but what I want you to do is I want you to start with my friend down the road who's a pelvic floor specialist and let's get an evaluation with her because that's what my testing is showing me. You've just won that patient for life because now when they're nervous about something they know that you're not just trying to get them in the door and make money off them, they know that you have their best interests in mind first. And guaranteed, even if you send that patient to another therapist and that therapist gets them better for the issue that you found that that therapist could get them better for, next time they have a knee problem, they're coming to you. Next time their aunt has a knee problem, they're coming to you. Next time their child has a knee problem, they're coming to you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 31:18

So advocate for them within that 15 minutes. It will pay out. More than you can even imagine. And then the last thing that is a huge win is that you've shown them that you're accessible. I already talked about this down here, but man, I can't tell you how many patients are so relieved that they can get answers by contacting us.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 31:43

All of our therapists have a very open communication with our patients. And I will say, are there times that that poses a potential problem? Sure. The incidence is so so so low. Like, I'm trying to even think if I've had a real incident where somebody was contacting me too much.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 31:59

I really don't think there was. If there were an incident, I would a 100% nip it in the bud. Like, if somebody was getting inappropriate or overstepping that bounds, you you nip that in the bud. But as a leader and if you're owning your own cast based practice, I'm sure you're a leader, you would nip that in the bud. The accessibility piece is so valuable.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 32:22

So if you've done one of these four things, you're a 100% gonna win that patient. Doing that in 15 minutes, I'm sure if you've listened to this now, you're all like, 15 minutes? You want me to do all of this in 15 minutes? It is a skill that takes practice. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 32:37

David in our meeting the other day was just like, what's that what's that phrase? Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes progress. Right? And it does.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 32:44

So I would suggest if you really wanna implement this, take the time now, grab your family members, grab your friends, start practicing it. Go through these questions. Just like with Eric. I work with Eric every day. I knew he had shoulder problems, but I didn't expect to find that his abdominals were really what was limiting his right shoulder external rotation, but I did because I practiced the model.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 33:07

So take your time, practice the model, put the time and the research in to the to the continuing education opportunities to help you with this part of it, and you're going to find that this will rapidly increase the number of patients coming in your door. The last thing I'll say about this and then I'm gonna close you guys out for the day is once you have this down, the strategy, the marketing strategy is so easy. I especially when I first started my practice and then I still use this today as I said and now all my clinicians are using this model as well. We work these 15 minute screens into easy opportunities for clients. So we target markets that we believe will value our care.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 33:53

So right now, we just did a bunch of screens with, a CrossFit community group, actually multiple CrossFit community groups. When I was first in the area and I was trying to build my network with other referral relationships whether it was a gym owner, whether it was a massage therapist, whether it was a, a surgeon or a non surgical sports med doc, all of these people, I would offer that to them. People would say, like, what makes you different? That's always such a hard question. If you're if you're a humble person and you don't wanna be like, well, I'm the best.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 34:22

Then it's like, you know what? A lot of people say that we're different because of the way we do our evaluation. I'd love 15 minutes to show you. Is there is there a chance we could have 15 minutes and I'll just I'll just walk you through kind of how I do a movement evaluation and then it'll be easier for you to see than for me to tell you what makes us different. And literally, once you show them this process, no matter who it is, they're gonna be wowed and they're gonna send you your patients.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 34:46

And if there are patients themselves, like I said, in the CrossFit community group, runners, like, you could go to a runners, like a a shoe, a running store. You could offer this at a running store and then, again, you're building referral relationships. So if you do this at a running store, that brings people into their store so that they can have access to this amazing therapist 15 minute screen process, and it also builds your relationship with that store now so that you have someone you can say, hey. My patient needs this type of shoe. Can you guys help us out with that?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 35:16

It's just it's a win win win all around. So that's how to attack it. Go for it. If you have any questions, please ask the questions in the description. I do check those, so I look forward to answering them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 35:28

And, if you have any other questions you can always reach me on social media or check out our courses. Looking forward to next time.