Will patients pay for OT services over PT services_
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[00:00:00] Hey there, OT. Are you wondering, will patients pay for OT services over PT services? I know this is probably what you're thinking and it might hold you back a little bit, but I promise you, I promise you, they will pay for OT services. And really it, you know, when you're out of the university, it really doesn't matter.
OTPT. At the end of the day, we get compared to just about anything. If someone is looking for recovery, right? So what are OTs really good at doing? We're really good at analyzing an activity and looking at someone who got injured from a medical standpoint and then thinking problem solving and saying, Hey, how can I get this person to be out of pain?
to be able to rehab them back, you know, into a full recovery so they can be more functional, more independent with their activities of daily living, with their hobbies, with their [00:01:00] work, anything like that, depending on what area of, um, OT that you specialize in. Right? So if you think about it, um, OTs, like I'm going to speak specifically about hand therapy, right?
I work in the orthopedic space, neurological space of like anything related to hand and arm injuries. So of course people are going to compare occupational therapy services to physical therapy services, to chiropractic services, to massage services, to creams. to machines, to pills, to surgery, to doing absolutely nothing.
Um, so people will pay for your services as long as you're able to share your perspective and to get them results. Let's just put it like that. My name is Hoang. I'm an [00:02:00] occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And I opened my clinic 10 years, over 10 years ago. And I thought the same thing. I was like, well, will people pay for me?
You know, being an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. People used to tell me, Hey, Huang, um, people are going to pay for you because you're a certified hand therapist. People are going to come to you because you're a certified hand therapist. No, they won't. No, they won't. Right? Becoming a certified hand therapist, I was sitting backwards, but Becoming a certified hand therapist gives you a certain notoriety, certain, um, certain understanding from referral sources and maybe patients who are looking for very Specialized skilled help.
But what happens when you're a certified hand therapist is you get lumped with everyone else who's a certified hand therapist and they're a shitty certified hand therapist. You're going to be lumped with being a shitty certified hand therapist. [00:03:00] If they have had shitty PT, OT services before, you're going to get lumped with them thinking you're really shitty too.
So how do you stand above all the noise and raise your hand and say, I'm the best. I'm really good. You should come see me. You know, I'm worth it. I'm worth it. Um, and one of the ways in which you will stand above, um, that noise and where clients, patients, your customers are going to pay for your services over other people's services is your ability to share with them a perspective on their particular injury and how you can solve it.
Right. So one of the things that I talk often within my clinic are our various types of hand injuries and hand fractures, hand [00:04:00] surgeries, um, between fractures of the fingers, metacarpals. Sometimes people get trigger finger. I share very, very specific perspective on how I treat these people so that they can get better so they can avoid injections, so they can avoid surgery.
And I just share over and over and over and over. And then one day somebody watches a video that I put together. Someone reads a post, someone happens to get on my website. And they're like, Oh, this, this clinic, this company knows how to help me with my trigger point. Yeah. My trigger finger pain. This person knows how to help me get rid of my wrist pain.
And so what happens is I just share over and over and over my perspective. And one of the things that I think is really important. Uh, when you are in business, listen, I think this is important before you go in business. I think this is important once you are done with school [00:05:00] is that you just need to work on improving your clinical skills.
So it doesn't matter if you're an occupational therapist or a physical therapist, you have the capacity to look at someone's problem and come up with a solution. Right? OTs are always coming to me. Oh, PTs are the, and then the PTs are coming to me. I'm like, Oh, I never get to do hands. Listen, post degree.
It really doesn't matter. It really comes down to your, your willingness to learn your willingness, um, to develop your clinical skills. No, when you go into business for yourself, it's just about coming out and sharing your perspective. Everything that you see on the internet right now is so freaking vague.
There's so much information, but it's extremely vague. Like you look up, trigger finger. Oh, this, you know, just. go to physical therapy and, right, so annoying. And then, um, get an injection. And this is, this is what surgery looks like, you know, but there's so many other [00:06:00] steps in between before you even get to surgery, right?
You have to be so bad that you have to get to surgery. So I'm talking to very specific people about You know what? I can help them do in that particular problem. So if you're wondering if people pay for your occupational therapy services, they will. You just have to go on there and explain to them, you know what you do, like what problem you solve, right?
I help people who are looking to avoid injections, avoid injections, avoid injections. surgery and they want a more holistic look, um, uh, recovery. So people are going to come to me because of that. Cause that's what I say and talk about over and over and over. There's another aspect to my business, which is all about helping people avoid that second surgery after the first surgery.
So I work with a lot of people with hand fractures, um, nerve lacerations, all types of things, right? I do a lot of post surgical cases. Now, Are people willing [00:07:00] to pay for that? They are. They are actually had someone, um, who had choices. She could have gone to her in network, which she did. And then she wasn't happy with the results.
And they were not telling her anything about how she was going to get better. So your ability to communicate what you're able to do and how you're able to help people, and you say it over and over and over there, people are going to see it. People are going to see it. The people are going to hear it. And then when they come to your clinic, you're going to be able to have really great conversations in terms of what's important.
She was like, well, I want to be able to work out. This is a, you know, um, a woman young, a little bit younger than me, essentially my age. She's in her prime. You know, yes I am. No kidding. Uh, and she just wants to be active. She wants to be able to push herself off the floor. She wants to be push herself off the bed and not worry about her arm being painful.
And she has already tried [00:08:00] traditional, you know, therapy where, um, she wasn't getting what she needed. Right. She wasn't getting what she needed. And so she was willing to pay. She was willing to pay for expert opinion, expert advice, and then expert care. And I think that that if you're looking to open your own business and you want to be a cash based business, you have to think about how you're going to deliver your, um, your message.
And then you're gonna have to look and think about how you can deliver your services that are so different from everyone else that people are willing to pay. And I promise you they are willing to pay because I am a flanked and surrounded by huge, um, uh, clinics are owned by hospitals and they're constantly expanding.
And then there's clinics like, you know, run of the mill clinics. And then there's all the shitty, you know, In network places that I mean one place that's close to me. It's like [00:09:00] so crappy. Um, but it is where it is. Um, that is a competition and it is where it is. And so you have to you have to raise rise above all of that and look at how you're how you're communicating with people who you want to work with so you could attract the right people into your business and they will pay for your services.
It was funny. I was working with, um, Oh, my therapist was working with this guy who had had a biceps tendon rupture. And then he was going to physical therapy somewhere else cause it was in his network. But then he was doing something for his tendonitis on the other arm and he just wasn't getting any results.
Um, when he tried in network, so then he decided to pay for therapy services out of network and he came for, you know, probably for about like eight to 10 sessions and we totally helped him. But on one of the sessions, I wish I was like, [00:10:00] I wish I was recording. I wish I had somebody who would just follow me all the time recording because I was talking to him and he was like, he goes, man, he goes, I wish I, found you guys when I had my biceps repair because he's like, you guys are so much better than the physical therapist that I was going to.
And I was like, shut up. Can you say that again? But you know, we can't we can't always catch it all. But I just want to encourage you if you're an occupational therapist, right? Like, dude, go and do your thing. Open your business. Start that online course, go do something that, you know, it has been planted in your hand, your brain, you know, planted in your heart to be like, man, I know I can do my own business and, and Wong says that people are willing to pay for OT.
You just gotta do the work to make sure that they are attracted to you and that you're doing something that is so much better than what is out there because let me tell you, there is not that much that's so great out there, but you can be [00:11:00] one of the great ones. If you like videos like this, definitely the links below for you to join my email list.
And I share more tips and, um, my business journey so that you too can really enjoy your business journey and get everything you want until next time. Thanks for watching. See you soon.
