16W Media Group Presents The Branding Highway Podcast
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors.
16W Media Group Presents The Branding Highway Podcast
The Road to Recovery: Physical Therapy Insights with Matt Blevins
Ever wondered what makes the difference between quality physical therapy and a treatment mill? Matt Blevins, Regional Therapy Clinic Manager for Florida Orthopedic, pulls back the curtain on this crucial healthcare specialty.
Behind every successful rehabilitation journey stands a therapist who understands both the science of healing and the art of human connection. Matt reveals how his team prioritizes quality over quantity—aiming for 10-12 patients daily rather than the 25+ seen in "mills" where patients become numbers in an assembly line. This patient-centered approach allows for genuine healing relationships to form.
"If you can positively enhance the environment, make your patient's life easier—if you can just start off being a good human, we can fix the rest," Matt explains, highlighting what he seeks in new therapists. This philosophy extends to patient care where education becomes as crucial as the exercises themselves. Many patients arrive not fully understanding why they need therapy or what physical therapists actually do. As Matt puts it, "Movement is the medicine," but first, therapists must help patients overcome the fear that developed when movement previously caused pain.
Parents of young athletes will find particular value in Matt's insights on sports specialization. The days of playing different sports each season have largely disappeared, replaced by year-round dedication to a single sport—and the overuse injuries that follow. His recommendation? Cross-training during off-seasons: "Go ride a bike, go be a kid, do something outside that isn't so sport-specific."
For those considering a physical therapy career, Matt offers candid guidance about evaluating education costs against potential earnings. Programs like USF provide excellent education with reasonable tuition, contrasting with some schools charging upwards of $200,000 for the same degree.
Whether you're currently in rehabilitation, contemplating a PT career, or simply fascinated by healthcare approaches that prioritize human connection, this conversation provides valuable perspective on a profession dedicated to restoring movement and function. Ready to learn more about physical therapy from someone who's mastered both the science and the art? Listen now.
Contact Matt mblevinsdpt@gmail.com
Welcome to the Branding Highway podcast, where local businesses meet the community and share their unique stories. Let's hit the road with your host and voice of the podcast, Mike Sedita.
Speaker 2:Hello out there and welcome to the Branding Highway podcast. I'm your designated driver for this episode, mike Sedita, and today I'm joined by Matt Levens. He is a regional therapy manager for Florida Orthopedic. Matt, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, mike. How are you? I am great, I'm so glad to have you on A little bit behind the fourth wall.
Speaker 2:I like to do like a dead pool, break down the fourth wall so people could see I have really bad tennis elbow. I'm really old. I have arthritis in my shoulders, my back. Other than doing mental therapy, matt works on this vessel that I'm carrying around, this skin sack that I have here that carries me throughout my day, or else I would be laboring to hold the microphone, I would be laboring to drive. So I do appreciate you coming on because I want to. I want the world to learn a little bit more about some of the stuff that you do and your role with Florida Orthopedic and some of your areas of expertise, and kind of bring that to light so people in the Wesley Chapel area, you know, kind of get familiar with what you do. So tell us a little bit about, first, your role with Florida Orthopedic. Tell us a little bit about first your role with Florida Orthopedic.
Speaker 3:Sure, so with my role as a regional clinic manager, I give support to 14, seem to be 15 different clinics right now. So that's basically just kind of setting the right environment for not only the clinicians but for the patients to be successful.
Speaker 2:And in your day to day, you know you're not only you're basically setting the foundation for new therapists that are coming in, you're recruiting those folks. What are you looking for from a standpoint of, like? You know not to tie it into current day stuff here, but like talking about the draft, everybody's talking about what happened with the NFL draft and how this draft choice goes from being considered this top guy and slips down through. You know we can get into a whole discussion on what caused that, but is is the student that's coming in, the therapist that's coming into Florida Orthopedic Are you guys looking for? It's the package, right, it's someone who has the skill set, obviously, but they have to fit the environment, they have to be the right. You know character and mold. What are you looking for when you're going out and talking to folks that are graduating? Why? You know why they would, why you would want them and why they would want to come to florida orthopedic sure.
Speaker 3:I mean, like you said, skill set is great. You know, I'm for for what we do at the end of the. They've already passed the licensure exam right through the state, right, so I already know that they have the chops to at least pass that test. Now, whether or not they can speak to a human, that's sometimes another question all in itself and that's what we do all day long is we interact with patients face-to-face. That's one thing that I have noticed with the younger population coming out is they're not the greatest with one-on-one communication. Some are good, some are bad. Yeah, it's the cell phone and the texting and everything else. We're more connected now than we've ever been, right, but then we still can't have a conversation with another human right in front of us. So you know we look for that. Like a lot of the kids coming out, they have imposter syndrome. They, they, they all want mentorship, they all want guidance, which is fine, and we provide that to them.
Speaker 3:The one thing I tell them what I'm looking for is when you come in, if you can positively enhance the environment, if you can come in and make my life easier, your manager's life easier, your teammates life easier, your manager's life easier, your teammate's life easier, your patient's life easier, like, honestly, if you can just come in and positively affect the environment, it's a successful hire for me. I can work on the skills. Later on I can teach you the mechanics to be a great therapist down the road. I just need you to start off being a good human and we can fix the rest. Well, I think a big part of it road. I just need you to start off being a good human and we can fix the rest.
Speaker 2:Well, I think a big part of it you know if you and I have talked offline about this is number one. Yeah, having the skillset. But, like, being teachable, right, Because when you're a kid and I see this, they're not 18 year old kids, these are a little bit older. They've gone through their undergrad, they've gone through their specialty and all that, so they're a little bit older, but still relatively young, especially for the gray hair that's in my beard. But being teachable, yeah, right, we're in the same boat.
Speaker 2:So, being teachable when you come in because, yeah, like you've worked on me, so I know your skill set is on point, you can teach people going through the motions. But being able to come in and be teachable and say, hey, maybe I'm good at what I do as I'm graduating, but I'm always there to learn more, is that a big component? Like do you see? And like bedside manner, like you touched on it, bedside manner is a huge thing. Like they're seeing a lot of patients, like how many patients are people seeing coming through? How important is it? Being teachable?
Speaker 3:And how important is it being able to adapt to the program that you guys put out? Sure, no, I mean so. In another life I used to coach competitive soccer. I used to travel all over the United States, different tournaments, showcases, like you know, trying to just teach life lessons through sport. Right, and one of the biggest things for the kids I used to coach is are they coachable, you know, will they listen? They don't have to be the best athlete, but are they coachable and ready to learn and ready to get better and have the want to get better? The same thing applies to, you know, in therapy, when we're hiring new hires. You know, are they coachable? Will they listen? Do they want to get better? Do they have a desire?
Speaker 1:to get better.
Speaker 3:I think that's extremely important. One thing that you touched on was the productivity standard. What should they expect? And as these folks are coming in and interviewing with me, I always give them an opportunity to ask me questions. Some have questions, some don't. I would suggest that if you're going to interview, at least have some questions ready, like something.
Speaker 2:How much money am I going to make? How many hours do I have to work? What's my vacation schedule? How much blood do you extract?
Speaker 3:from me every day through sweat and tears and blood. What is the going rate, right? So one question though I encourage them to ask is the productivity standard standard. How many patients a day am I expected to see in an eight hour day? Because it's very, very different from one clinic to the next and one competitor to the next. For us, for example, we look for 10 to 12 a day, right? So 10 to 12 patients in an eight hour day, that means a couple of double bookings throughout the day, but you're definitely not, you know, seeing triple booked, quadruple booked in an hour where, at that point, you're seeing somebody every 15 minutes and you are in the mill at that point and that's. That's everything that we try to avoid and you know, everything we don't want to be. We want the one-on-one time with our patients.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean that is the biggest thing in medical right. I mean I talk to a lot of people in the medical industry and quality of care is one of those things that really separates. Like I'm fortunate I have a GP that I go to. He doesn't even take any more new patients because he already is like max capacity. But when I go in there I mean it's a fine balance, right. Like you want to go to the doctor and you want your appointment to be on time, but you also don't want to feel rushed when you're in there. So if this doctor is booking, the intent, whatever the standard is eight minute increments to get patients through the mill, right, like you called it the mill you don't feel like you're seen as a patient, like actually you're seen, but it's like kind of like assembly line, like you're putting things through like the cash register or Publix, you're just beeping somebody through. You want to feel like you're seeing, you're getting your point across.
Speaker 2:So that is a big thing and I think from you know, at least from my understanding of some of the stuff you and I have discussed when students are coming out I made a joke about it a minute ago. But, like, work-life balance is an important thing for a student. Like they want to make money, they all want to pay off whatever their loans are. We all get that, but being able to like actually not lose your mind in the first couple of years. So let me ask you in your personal experience I mean you've done this Now you're at this level with Florida Orthopedic but one time, many moons ago many moons I see the gray hair what was it like for you when you were coming out? Did you go through like a mill? Did you have a mentor?
Speaker 3:What was your experience when you were coming up? Yeah, I mean, I've had the experience of the mill Enough to know that that's not anything I ever want to be associated with. But I do know that they're still out there. And you know I've talked to many young therapists that you know as a physical therapist you can go into different avenues. You can be, you can go into neuro, you can go into women's health, you can do outpatient orthopedics. You know there's different, you know niches you can get into. I've talked to young therapists that have done an outpatient orthopedic rotation and have said I'm never doing that, I hated it. I'm like well, why did you hate it? Well, they made me see twenty five, twenty eight patients a day.
Speaker 2:I'm like well, no wonder you hated it. Like like someone hurt you. You've been wounded. You've been wounded in the ortho lab. You've been wounded with a.
Speaker 3:Right, so it's like, it's like it doesn't have to be that way. I can show you that you can actually spend time with these folks just like it was your mom, your dad, your grandma, your grandpa, just like you would want them to be treated. You can actually treat your patients the same way. We just have to show them our setup and how we do it and how it's a little bit different.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you. So that's a big part of it. But like one of the things that I'm curious about, like from a behind the scenes standpoint, because there's twofold to this. Right, there's behind the scenes that we want to like show a little bit to maybe a PT graduate who's coming out and we've shown that like what's different about Florida Orthopedic, the work-life balance, the patient load, the culture, all those things. But if I'm a patient, what's like a misconception? Like if I'm coming into the doctor's office to get PT, what might be a misconception or myth that people run into where you hear them say about their therapy that you have to do like a lot of corrective education with folks when they come in.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I think one of the big things when folks come in is they don't. Some of them don't know why they're there. They don't understand the benefits of physical therapy and what it is. They don't understand that we've gone through a doctorate level of education. They just think that, oh, like, this guy must have passed a weekend course and is some fancy personal trainer, and that's not the case.
Speaker 3:Like behind an orthopedic surgeon, physical therapists are the musculoskeletal experts.
Speaker 3:Like that's what we do, that's our jam, that's what we do all day long in outpatient orthopedics.
Speaker 3:I would even say that we might know a little bit on par, if not more, than your general practitioner, because, remember, they have to be able to do the common cold and do all these things, this wide breadth of stuff we get to focus in on the body and how it moves Right, and those things that go into just making ourselves well.
Speaker 3:So I would say one of the biggest things for our patients is just dispelling the rumor of one yes, we are educated, yes, we are ready to get you better too and this sounds so cheesy and something that a therapist would say, but it's movement is the medicine and kind of breaking down that wall of fear, because a lot of the folks that we see are afraid to move because the last time they moved it was painful, right. So now we have to educate them and that's going to be the biggest piece. And there's so many white paper studies, mike, that I could bore you with education versus anything else we do, just teaching people why we chose that exercise, why it's important for them and why they need to continue to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you make a great point. I mean and I talk about this like when I'm talking to doctors and bedside manner is a big thing and surgeons no offense, I know you're a Florida orthopedic surgeon. I've had some great surgeons at Florida orthopedic but generally they're like I caught, this is what I do. I come in, I caught, you leave, you talk to my staff type of deal. They they're, they're not their mind doesn't work like connect those two types of things. So I was, fortunate, my surgeon who did my elbow, my shoulder, at Florida orthopedic, he was great. I've talked to you about him.
Speaker 2:Um, but part of it is like hey, look, you know you had rotator cuff surgery. Okay, now go see this physical therapist and it's your job as a physical therapist to say, well, the reason you're doing this movement is because we need to loosen this part and the reason you're doing wall crawls is because that does this, that and the other. The education is a big part of it. You're right, a lot of people go into it and they don't understand like, hey, I had surgery, what does it entail? What does post-op actually entail? When I get in there and you guys get your hands on me, that can be a little bit scary too. You're going into it.
Speaker 2:My biggest thing, misconception-wise for me has always been like, look, I'm just under six foot, I'm 200 and we'll say 20 pounds, maybe 25 ish. Right now it's early in the week, but like I get into physical therapy and I'm like, look, I just left the gym three months ago before this surgery, or eight weeks ago, and I was lifting 65 pound dumbbells, why do I have a five pound dumbbell? Like I want to speed the process up and I would think one of the things for you guys is kind of being the governor on some of these people that come in, especially your weekend warrior guys who are ready to get right back at it. You know kind of me in that mold a little bit. Hey, listen, buddy, I know you're an athlete, but you need to slow down because if you rush this, this is what happens. Is there a lot of that that goes on day to day?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, for sure, because everybody it sucks being hurt. It's not fun being hurt, and you know, regardless of if you're just injured or if you've had surgery, like it's not fun and everybody wants to get back to their life and the things that make their life enjoyable as soon as possible. But there's this thing called the rate of healing. Right, it's's just physiology, like you can't beat it. There's nothing legally that we can do to speed it up. You know, like, if you're, if you're barry bonds, you know, uh, if you're a rod, you know maybe you're putting to something there with those two individuals that might be outside of natural forces.
Speaker 2:But okay, we'll use those as examples.
Speaker 3:It's not something that I would necessarily recommend as a healthcare professional. So, describing them the rate of healing, and I'll tell you, like you're talking about the weekend warriors, but what comes to my mind more is the young, 17, 18-year-old ACL patient. They do their ACL surgery and within a month they're feeling pretty decent to the fact. They're like Matt, I think I can run, and I'm like I know you think you can run, but your graft is not ready to run, and that's something that we need to remind them. Sometimes their brain feels they're ready, but the tissue is not.
Speaker 3:And just going over the tissue health, I'd love to tell you that I've never had an ACL patient re rupture because they push themselves too hard. But they have, and then they come in like, oh man, I blew out my knee again. I'm like what'd you do? I was like man, my knee was feeling so great and I decided to just run a post route and my buddy threw me a dart and next thing I knew I was on the ground again. It's like, well, you shouldn't have been running in the first place. You, your, your graph wasn't ready, your tissue wasn't ready. So, yeah, we have to be the governor, we have to be the bad guy every now and again with those athletes and let them know they're realistic. I always think of Adrian Peterson. I'm dating myself with Adrian Peterson, but the dude's a freak athlete. He was able to have his ACL surgery and come back before the year was up. Now everybody thinks that that's what it should be.
Speaker 2:It's not.
Speaker 3:You have ACL surgery to safely get on the field. It's a minimum of a year to get out there on the field and compete again like you used to.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of people that have hurt people, you brought up Adrian Peterson because you're a Bears fan. He's someone that's hurt you tremendously over the years. We'll get into that in a second we don't have to go there.
Speaker 3:No, we'll go there.
Speaker 2:We're definitely going to go there because I had a good draft, so we're going to go there because I had a good draft, so we're going to go there. But so one of the things I find interesting, though, is like when we were growing up and we talked about this a little bit too is like I played multiple sports. Like I played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball or track in the spring, so my body was moving different ways with different movements. Do you find now because what happens, at least the way I see it, is kids kind of specialize, especially here in Florida, a lot of kids play baseball year-round. So do you find you're seeing more Tommy Johns, more rotator cuffs, like, is that stuff more prevalent, whereas when we were growing up you played so many different sports, you weren't putting that constant onus on the elbow, the shoulder, et cetera. Is that kind of like your frequent flyers? Is that some of those things that are going on?
Speaker 3:No, it's, it's a real thing. I mean, you bring up the baseball players Like I, I see numerous baseball players currently and it's it's overuse. It just really is it's overuse. And there's the, the, the the days of it's baseball season, now it's basketball season, now it's football season, now it's track season, are gone. It's like no, you're a baseball player, because what happens is is whether the athlete or the parents get scared of them falling behind and so they have to continually play. It's one of the big things that I talked about is cross training. I'm like when you actually get an off season and off season might only be a month and a half, really realistically it's like in that month and a half, like I don't need you throwing a ball, I want you swimming, I want you you're shooting a basketball, I want you any. Just do anything, anything that isn't baseball. Maybe it's a soccer player, it's the same thing. It's like go ride a bike, go be a kid, go do something outside. That isn't so sport specific all the time.
Speaker 2:You know, what's funny is when I lived in Atlanta I played rec league softball with Atlanta Braves. Closer who won a World Series was on the pitcher's mound winning the 1995 World Series Mark Wohlers Great guy, super nice guy. He was actually my right fielder. Watching him throw people out with the cannon that was attached to his arm was hilarious. But one of the things he had said we had talked about him and I had talked about this. This is going back 15 plus years ago and he said Mike, he goes, goes.
Speaker 2:I didn't learn how to like to snap my wrist until I got to triple a with the Braves, like when I was a kid in high school throwing a baseball. It was the same movement over and over again. It was never changing the grip, I never snapped my wrist. He goes. I never had that, that kind of that stressor on my elbow and it helped me to throw close to 100 miles an hour. He goes.
Speaker 2:I just worked on the movement and the motion and the consistency and it wasn't until I got into the major leagues, when I was really in triple-a and coming up through the system, that they showed me the proper way to do it. He goes and he, he was like a big proponent of like. I never want to see a kid at high school level watching them snap that wrist to throw that curveball. If they grip the ball a certain way, they can do it. Now I don't know the technical stuff of it like I watch greg maddox videos of the way he threw the ball and he was just a master. I mean, you'll like that, that's clubs and braves I appreciate that you brought it back around I brought it back around.
Speaker 2:But, like mark woolard said the same thing, he was just like dude, kids are ruining their arms and then going to physical therapy, when I had my shoulder, there was a cavalcade of baseball players with shoulders and elbows and basketball players with knees, because all they're doing is just that pounding on it. That's got to be frustrating. I know you're a parent. Your son plays sports and stuff. Do you make sure you're kind of practicing what you preach at home with him so he's not fully invested in one thing where he's putting that stress?
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny that you think that my kids will listen to me.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's right. My bad, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3:That won't happen. I can get other athletes to listen to me, just not the ones that live in my house, All right. So that's a whole nother story. Now, if I can get one of my colleagues to tell them magically, amazingly enough, they're like oh, you know, I'm supposed to cross track. I really should.
Speaker 2:Good idea.
Speaker 3:What a great idea that is. Do that. But to answer your question, like we try to really encourage them not to specialize, um, you know, I I, like my daughter grew up playing soccer. She played at a high level right, and she just recently played her last club game and she's off to college. But she also played volleyball. She also ran track, you know. She tried to do these other things that would just kind of cross train and also, and she had fun doing it and that's that's a lot of things that these kids forget about is this is supposed to be fun. Athletes the way you know the physical therapists do, the way you know an athletic trainer might treat, uh, an athlete. There is such a huge mental component that goes along with treating an athlete because as soon as you are treating an athlete that is not physically able to provide worth to their team, they instantly think that they're not worth anything.
Speaker 3:So now they're on a shelf, they're sequestered from their team, they are mentally broken, like that's a lot of. What we do as well is not just the education piece but building the confidence back and showing them that you're going to get back to where you were. All right, you just got to listen to us.
Speaker 2:Well, that is the hardest part, like back in 2020, I had a couple of different surgeries I had a shoulder thing, a back thing. I got down to like 176 pounds and you've seen me, my frame is pretty big. I look at pictures of that and I feel like I had spent like time in a POW. It was really bad, like I was sun POW camp. It was really bad. I was sunken in. It was really bad. And your brain, you're right. You're like well, am I ever going to get back to this feeling of where I can feel stable? And even me I joked about the weight. Look, ideally, at 210, you can actually see abs. I actually have abs At 220, there's like four of them, you know. But at 230 I feel like I feel strong and like strong. So it's finding that balance and when you're and I'm not even calling myself an athlete at my age like athlete, being an athlete is not throwing my back out when I brush my teeth, type of deal. That's kind of.
Speaker 2:That's athletic for me, yeah but there's a comfort zone for everybody, and when you're're an athlete you're right Like there's a psychological component to it. So not only are you a physical therapist, but you are kind of doing that mental game with them too. That's pretty. I made a joke about it at the beginning of the pod, saying, you know, like other than my mental therapy, but I could see how that would be a big component to it. So, speaking of mental therapy, let's talk.
Speaker 2:There's two questions I'd like to ask. We'll kind of combine them together. One is usually I'll ask people what do they do for fun? And the other is you know what's a hardship you've overcome? So we're going to say, like we know you're a Bears fan, so there's a hardship right there. And then it's partially what you do for fun and it's partially a hardship. Why don't you kind of fill us in? You're originally from illinois, right? So you're from the midwest. You escaped your winters out there. What got you to florida and how do you keep some of your tabs on your teams back there in in the chicago area and out there?
Speaker 3:Right Well yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, thanks, yeah. So you know, I grew up in central Illinois, you know, throwing hay bales during the summer, living in a hay loft, and that was enough to learn that I wanted to go to school and have a job where I worked in the air conditioning, right, and then the winters were awful, just terrible. So as soon as I could get down to Florida, um, I went to University of St Augustine for physical therapy school and then, you know, uh, met a lovely lady there. Uh, who's now my wife and oh, that's who you're talking about.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, yeah right, well right, but she's a gator. How did that happen?
Speaker 3:were you just like slumming it in Gainesville and you're like wow wow, now, now you're going after the Gators too, like I see, it's fine they've won the national championship.
Speaker 2:She's still extremely happy over that she's.
Speaker 3:she's fine with it. I'm okay with it. Like you know, the basketball teams are doing okay right now. Football's coming, it's going to happen. It's going to happen again. As far as keeping tabs on, yeah, I'm a Bulls fan. We got bounced in the playoff game. So, whatever, we got trounced, we didn't just get beat, we got the wheels beat off us.
Speaker 2:You got trounced by the team that got trounced by the team right. You lost to Miami.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we lost to Miami and then Miami got the hell beat out of them, but that's right.
Speaker 2:That's a blemish. We'll leave that off. Let's talk about Caleb Williams. Okay, yeah, let's talk about it. You drafted a tight end in the first round.
Speaker 3:All right. So here's why we drafted that tight end. Okay, and this is going to be the head coach effect. The head coach, he's coming from Detroit. Detroit did okay, they're all right. They had an all right couple seasons. They got a guy there, laporta right, he's decent. He's decent. That is a head coach coming in is making his impact, a Laporta. So that's what they did, that's what he did.
Speaker 2:But the question is when that draft pick gets announced, what is your first reaction?
Speaker 3:You don't want to know. I can't say it out loud because I don't know.
Speaker 2:This is not for children. You can say whatever you want.
Speaker 3:I won't say that I was really excited about it. Okay, just checking. But as you see, I've reasoned it out to myself over time.
Speaker 2:You've mapped out the thought process so you could eloquently discuss it without blowing your head.
Speaker 3:I'm believing in the process officially.
Speaker 2:I gotcha, I gotcha. I think my take as a Giants fan who's long-suffering. I like Caleb Williams. I think from a talent standpoint he was clearly like regardless of how it plays out the first year circumstance has a lot to do with that Like he was in a system, he's learned in the system. The offensive line wasn't great. There were circumstances to all that stuff. I think long-term he's going to be okay and I think they're building a good team there. I think the biggest thing from watching it from the outside is you had to get rid of your coach. I mean, Iber Flues was not great, um, and I think you know you probably have one of the brightest young offensive minds as a coach. So the problem, really the problem for you guys is that division is so ridiculously tough right now. It's like the NFC East was in like the 80s, you know, like in the early 90s. It's really brutal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good. I mean, am I happy, though, that they've spent a lot of money in free agency on building that offensive line? So you know, if we can just give him just a half second more to make the decision, I think we're going to be fine.
Speaker 2:Okay. So let me ask you this with the kids have you like indoctrinated them? Are they Bucs fans? Are they Tampa Florida fans of teams, or have you like dragged them into your nightmare with the Bulls and the Bears and whoever else?
Speaker 3:Well, I didn't drag them, For whatever reason, they came willingly into this pit of despair.
Speaker 2:That's what they call brainwashing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know why he wants to be a Bears fan, but they root for the Bears. So it's a split household. So they get a little bit of options. They get the Dolphins and they get the Bears. I'm not saying they're great options, I'm just telling you that's what they are.
Speaker 2:They are definitely options.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got the bulls and the magic. So my, my wife grew up going to magic games. She's from Orlando originally so uh, yeah, she grew up back in like the shack and Penny and Nick Anderson days Nick Now Nick Anderson. Part of the 1989 Flyin' Illini, I went to University of Illinois, so that's also one of the schools that we root for. My son is a big Illinois fan.
Speaker 2:Nick Anderson also the guy who questioned Michael Jordan for wearing his number 45 or made some sort of comment about Jordan wearing 45 and not 23 and unleashing Michael Jordan to wreck the magic's little run that they had going on there. Listen, we can talk for hours and hours about sports, which we generally do when you're wrecking my elbow but what I really want to focus back on is this what is the one thing like? Like I'm going to give a testimonial. So I know you know you're a clinical director with Florida Orthopedic. I've had surgery at Florida Orthopedic. I'm not going to mention my doctor's name specifically, but he was really great. My experience with Florida Orthopedic was fantastic. I will say my experience working with you on treatment on my arm has been fantastic as well. So, whereas, like, I actually worked out today and my arm isn't screaming, my shoulder feels good. I will say that anybody listening to this or watching this one of the things from a physical therapy standpoint, having gone through it quite a bit, is understanding. There's that pain that you need to go through. Like I leave the clinic with you and I'm like I'm not going to be able to move or move my arm for like four days and then I sit a little bit and all of a sudden it's like wow, it actually feels better. So it's getting through that pain to get back to where you're normal again.
Speaker 2:But if you want to promote like I don't, it's up to you. How do you want to promote? Do you want to have? Do we want to promote like I don't, it's up to you. How do you want to promote? Do you want to have? Do we want to use this as a way for you to get some students to come in and want to meet with you, we can give that contact information out. If you want to give any other contact information out for how to reach you, if you just want people to come look at you at crunch on the weekends, you can give that information out. Um, whatever you're, whatever with, I'm going to give the floor to you to kind of promote a little self-promotion.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, so for Florida Orthopedic, my role has changed over the years, where I'm not as patient-facing as I once was. So once again I'm giving more support to my clinic managers and to my staff to try to help them provide the right amount of care and have the tools at their fingertips to have a successful career, like I have with patients. Now I do a lot of recruitment for Florida Orthopedic. I do tons and tons of interviews and along with that I do tons of mentorship as well. I have no problems answering hard questions for new graduates or students that are coming or getting into PT school, or maybe they're about to graduate PT school.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of turbulence, I will say, in the physical therapy world right now, just because of it's now a doctorate level, right, so that means that costs to go to school have risen. I will say that the salary has risen a little bit, but it's not kept up with the price of school. So it's one thing. This is the stuff that I mentorship young kids with. I say young kids, kids that are thinking about getting into PT schools.
Speaker 3:The first thing you need to look at is your debt to salary ratio, like. Look at it Like if you know that you're coming out of school right now and you can look this up in Indeed, a normal new grad right now is probably going to start somewhere in the mid-70s, high 70s, right 70K, mid to high 70K. You need to make sure that the school you go to that that's about what it costs for you to get through the program. If you're going to a school that is going to cost you 200K and then you're coming out of school and you think you're going to make that per year, you've been misled water for yeah you've been misled, and that's really a lot of things.
Speaker 3:that I do is try to have that real talk with folks on what to expect, and not just monetarily, but then also the stuff that we had talked about earlier, like knowing that there's different ways to to logistically set up your schedule to still be successful and not burn yourself out. So anybody listening to this, whoever listens to it, they're more than welcome to reach out to me at any time If they just need a little bit of guidance, if they have questions about the profession. Maybe they want to get into it, Maybe they're on the verge of burnout and they want to get out of it because they don't realize that there's other options out there. That's that's really.
Speaker 3:You know what, what I do every day when I say I support all of my staff. So my staff right now is around one hundred and twenty five people that I support. Right, these are people that you know I want to make sure are not experiencing burnout, that are still able to, you know, have success with their patients but then also have a successful personal life outside the clinic. You know that's really what I do all day, every day. So those questions and those opportunities are always open for me, for anybody.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you a couple of quick bullet point questions as we kind of button this up. Number one first question is you said there's soon to be 15 clinics. Where's the 15th clinic coming? I'm assuming you need to staff that. What's the location, area of that Sun City?
Speaker 3:So well, Sun City is one that we're looking to staff right now, the new clinic down the road and I don't know if I'm able to say yet, because I don't know if the ink is- Don't say because I don't want to have to have people edit this there's a new clinic coming soon in the Tampa metro area.
Speaker 2:There's going to be job opportunities.
Speaker 3:There's going to be job opportunities. There's probably going to be two clinics that are going to be opening in the Tampa St Pete area by the time we get to the end of 2025. Okay, and we're going to continue to grow.
Speaker 2:So when you say I'm having these conversations with kids when they're getting out of school, what is that? Kids graduating their undergrad. So the conversation you're having about choosing a PT schools with kids that are 2021 ish, is that generally the group, the age group?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we'll get. So. Another thing that we do at our clinics is to even get into physical therapy school. You usually have to log a certain amount of observation hours and this could be, you know, a college age student in undergrad, or sometimes it's even a high school student and they don't know if this is what they want to do. So we let them come in and observe and get observation hours and you know when they're here and they're asking if they haven't been accepted yet to a physical therapy school or they're just kind of getting into it. I love being able to help them make the best financial choice for them so they can get the quickest ROI on their investment in themselves.
Speaker 2:So that brings me to my next bullet point question is is there a particular program that you would recommend students look at or seriously examine from a cost perspective as well as a curriculum perspective? Maybe one that might be local, right here in Tampa? Do you have any in mind that?
Speaker 3:would be good. No, I mean, that's great. Now I personally, I'm going to say I went to University of St Augustine. It's a private school.
Speaker 2:And you paid through the nose.
Speaker 3:It's. I wear this. That's why I got a tie on. I was brainwashed. I wear this tie every day. If I don't wear it, I don't feel like I'm at work. All right, that's another thing we can get into another day. All right, I'm having a t-shirt.
Speaker 2:That's all I do. It's all right, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3:It's good. Good for you. You look good in the t-shirt, right. I look great in the tie. It's the way it works, all right. Yeah, just go with it.
Speaker 2:It's like the same narrative as a tight end. You've built yourself up in that thought process. Listen, I'm not going to burst your bubble. You look very nice in your tie.
Speaker 3:Appreciate it. See, I knew you'd come around to that idea, but no, locally. If we just kind of look at the numbers on physical therapy programs that are actually trending upwards in their enrollment USF right here in Tampa they're having a very, very high. Every time you graduate, you graduate from physical therapy school you have to pass a national board exam. Right, their numbers for the first time taking the test pass rate is extremely high right now, so they're doing a great job with their curriculum.
Speaker 3:They're doing a great job with their curriculum. And then two it costs less than 80 grand to go there, Like it's a really good bang for your buck type of school. You know, I said there's another school out there in Southern California that is charging 200K. Like that's not where I would suggest people go if you're looking for a quick return.
Speaker 2:You're not affiliated with USF. Let's just make that completely clear. This is just you being in the field and having your nose to the grindstone and your ear to the ground, or whatever cliche I want to use. You know what's going on and you're not working for USF. You're just saying from what you see for the value proposition between the curriculum and the cost, usf is a good program.
Speaker 3:if you're thinking of going into PT, it's a good program, and that's not to say that there's not other great programs around here. They're fantastic. We have graduates from every single physical therapy school in Florida that work for the Florida Orthopedic and they're great. Once again, it's University of St Augustine. I would still encourage people to go to University of St Augustine. It's just you got to make sure it's the right choice for you, and I think that's where it is with. It doesn't matter if we're looking for employment. It doesn't look if we're looking for enrollment into a school. Do you fit into that environment? Is it where you're going to get the best out of it and, if so, go Sometimes. It's not always about the money. It's about where you're the best fit.
Speaker 2:For me it would be about the tie. I'm not going to go to St Augustine because I'm just not going to wear a tie every day. But, as we wrap this up because I know I've now disgusted you with that little jab in there at the end, but we'll include this when we post this and put it out there. But how do people reach you? Is there an email, a phone number? What number? What's the best way? If somebody's listening to this or watching it, they say, hey look, I want to pick Matt's brain. What's the best way to get ahold of you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the best way is probably my email. So that's mblevins B-L-E-V-I-N-S-D-P-T at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to include that in this post when we put out the blog. Matt, thank you so much for being on, thank you for helping me with my elbow and my shoulder, and folks if you're listening to this. If you need PT, obviously you're going to go through your doctor, but Florida medical Florida orthopedic sorry is definitely the route to go. I've used them multiple times for surgery, for PT Florida orthopedic Get with your doctor, go to Florida Orthopedic. Matt is training and developing the staff there to help give you the quality of care that you're looking for.
Speaker 2:And if you're a student and you're out there and you're looking for some direction and some guidance I'm not going to repeat it, there's too many letters. After it, it's mblevinsdpt at gmailcom. I think I got it right, but we're going to include that in this blog, in this post, in this video, so you'll have it. Reach out to him, pick his brain, annoy the crap out of him, talk crap about the bears or the bulls. Whatever you want to do, ask him where you should go and spend your money. And in the meantime, matt, thanks again for being on. We appreciate you coming on the Branding Highway and we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1:All right, alright, mike. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed your ride down the branding highway. This has been a 16W Media Group production. Don't forget to take the next exit at 16W. Visit 16W Media Group dot com if you want to be part of the journey. Reach out to info at.