Transforming Allied Health with Communication and Personalisation with Jack Matthews (Ep 51)

What actually makes a great allied health provider stand out from an average one?

In this episode of the NDIS Provider Growth Journey, Michael sits down with Jack Matthews to talk about what is really changing in allied health and why some providers are growing while others are struggling.

Jack shares how a simple shift in approach has made a big difference in his business. It starts with communication. Getting back to people quickly, actually listening, and treating people like people instead of problems to solve.

They talk about how most services feel the same on the surface, but what really sets someone apart is how they show up. From the first point of contact through to ongoing support, it is about making things feel personal, clear, and human.

The conversation also digs into outcomes. Not just writing reports, but actually reducing frustration and helping people move forward in a way that matters to them. Jack explains how focusing on the person, not just the process, changes everything.

There is also a look at what it takes to build a business that lasts. Putting the right systems in place, trusting a team, and creating space outside of work so you can actually show up better when you are working.

This episode is honest and practical. It is about raising the standard in allied health, building trust through communication, and creating a service that people genuinely feel good about.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to the podcast. Today I'm with Jack Matthews, who is one of Perth's best OTs, and he's very, very good in areas that others are not good at. And he's growing his business very quickly while other OTs or other Allied Health are whinging about how hard it is. Well, it is hard. He's growing. So, Jack, what are the things that you've been learning in the last say couple of months about how to grow a business well at a season that's actually hard to grow in? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

I think with that question, the really big thing is communication. People value communication that's effective, that's very strong, but in particular, something that's very timely. I think in this industry, there are so many questions, so many concerns, so many worries. But a lot of the time when it comes to that communication, it's giving people that safe space to give them an answer, to give them an outcome, and to show them that although there are a lot of barriers and boundaries that we might have to overcome, there's ways around them and letting them know that that support network is not by their side, but it's in the ring with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

That makes sense. Okay, so a lot of times Allied Health has a reputation for being entitled, and I'll get back to you when it suits me. And across the board, all like support coordinates used to be like that. You know what I mean? Like across the board, that used to be passable, you could get away with that. 2026, you can't get away with that. So what are you doing as a business to get back to people quickly, to be reassuring when you get back to them, and like you're saying, to be not treating them like Medicare treats people, but treating them like you guys are people, they're people. How are you doing that?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah, I think the way you've ended that question is exactly what we aim to do. A lot of people have mentioned in the past that services they've received has almost felt like a tornado through the home. Someone knocks on the door, these are all the things that need to be done, need to be changed. Here's how you do it, and it's my way or the highway. A lot of the time people just want to be heard. They want to hear what their options are, what the solutions could be, and implementing it. So I think a lot of it just comes down to treating people as people. I think a lot of the time what we do, and I've done this myself in the early stages of my career as well, and still very early on in that career process, but I originally had a scenario where an appointment was treated as though this is the only way. It's one line from point A to point B, this is the only solution. It kind of pulls that person away from being a person. It's viewed as this is the potential hurdle or problem we need to solve. And it categorizes that participant or that client or that patient into that exact bucket. But it just needs to be the case where we continue to observe people as people and bring that personality that everyone has outside of work. I think a lot of the times, as soon as we get into a work uniform, we go, right, this is the role that I play. But I think putting on the work uniform just says this is where I'm representing, but still be yourself. Offer that personable service where people feel safe, comfortable. And I think with that, that's where that service becomes different, as well as that communication.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I love how you're saying a lot of people they turn up wearing their t-shirt thinking that they are their the badge on their t-shirt. They're not, they're humans. Like how I help someone is different to how someone else in my role would help someone. But it's like if you bring your real self, you're as authentic as can be, and you can't have a relationship with someone inauthentic, you know. So I I think that makes a lot of sense. Now, you guys are known as being really good at your craft. Now, that's different from say lemonade. It doesn't matter whether I get Kirk's lemonade, Sprite, or some other lemonade, lemonade's lemonade, it all tastes the same. Okay. But you guys definitely do stand out. What have you done to stand out? What areas do you stand out in? And uh then, like, how do we learn from that?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, I think when it comes to standing out, as you mentioned in that instance, yeah, and some, I guess, people who are enthusiastic about their lemonade, they'll say different brands taste different. And I think that's definitely true. Allied health service providers and occupational therapists, yeah, each service provider slightly different, but as you've mentioned, lemonade is still lemonade. I think it's how everything is packaged, how it comes out in one scenario to achieve the end outcome. I think it's how things are packaged which makes the service feel different. And that starts with the first point of communication to the last point of communication. So what we're trying to do slightly differently in the industry, because we're still offering Atlite Health, lemonade, but we're just packaging it slightly differently from the get-go, whether there's an inquiry or whether there's a referral request. It's straight away finding out what's required, how we can be of best assistance, and what the problem might be and how we can work towards a solution. And that communication starts from the get-go. As soon as we receive a request or contact, it's within an hour information is given to that person so they can make a bit more of an informed decision and go, look, is this particular Allied health provider for me or is it not? And I think that's where we package things in a way that focuses more on the person. Because if our service is for them, fantastic. That's what we love to hear. But if they feel it's not right for them, we would rather help steer them in a direction towards other alternative providers that might be able to do what the participant or person's looking for, but in a way that achieves the outcome in a way that they're comfortable with.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

So I think uh So let's dig in on that. What you're saying is someone sends a a request through your your website or whatever, or they phone you, or something, within an hour they've got the information they need to know whether they're going to proceed with Elevate Health or they're not.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, the biggest piece of feedback we got in the initial stages from a lot of providers in the industry was we reach out to a service, you don't really hear anything back for a few days. By then the participant or the clients change their mind, they don't want to proceed, or most of the time, in that period of time, a lot of anxiety has built up. So the participant pulls away from wanting the service. So we make sure that we have admin staff that are Perth-based that we've worked with before, um, that are able to get back in touch. We say an hour. That's a bit more of our buffer period. Usually it's quite quickly. The only thing that slows us down is if we're on a phone call to someone else who's querying the service. To us, that communication that was efficient was our biggest thing. We started off worrying more about how quick that turnaround was then effective. And now over the years we've been out there trying to work out now how do we provide both effective but efficient inputs.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

That makes that makes sense. And the thing is that you're treating people like people, like if if I have a friend who's having a hard day and they leave me a text and says, Hey, I'm having a really hard day, can you give us a call? I'm not gonna leave it three days. But that's traditionally how Allied Health has treated people, and that's obviously an easy way for you to stand out. And to be honest, it's traditionally how NDOS has treated people. Because I've worked for a lot of people who are like, Oh, our turnaround time we always get back to people within a day. I'm like, a day? If your house was on fire, would you wait a day for the the fire is to arrive? Like, what why why is it okay to treat people like that? Whereas you guys have nailed it down to an hour, which for Allied Health is probably a world land speed record. I guess that comes at a price, that comes at a kick to profitability, whatever. They're not just robots and they're not outsourced call centers. These are people they they need wages. So you've hurt your profitability, or an outside observer might say you've hurt your profitability, but the outcome is that you retain more people and you get a lot more referrals. Do you think it's been worth it? And like, what would be your advice to people who are looking at that conundrum?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

The question on do I think it's worth it without hesitation, yes. The reason is because I'm a firm believer that people start businesses to try and create a difference. Everyone can always discuss, you know, there's the concerns of finances, or you start a business to get as much income as you can, earn more money. At the end of the day, we started our company at Elevate Help to make a difference. And the difference started with helping people get an outcome. So to take that potential concern of revenue generation to provide a service that's quick, that's personable, that's Perth-based, people that might just be a suburb over from you that you're calling and inquiring about. That was our biggest priority. So regardless of the potential financial cost it had on us, we all sleep easy at night going, well, we know if someone inquires, they get contacts straight away. We're interested in the potential frustration they're having, because we believe we've got a solution for an And you obviously do, or you wouldn't be calling them back an hour later.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

You said that you're focused on the outcome. Now we have to be really careful with buzzwords and stuff like that. Because everyone claims to be focused on the outcome, but then not everyone's getting back to people in allied health within an hour either. So I guess when I hear that, a lot of people are very much processed, process, process. Oh, like say a behavior support practitioner. They're like, Yeah, we go see people, we write this, you know, report, we build them for 30 hours and what's the outcome of that report? It may or may not be something useful. And same with say with you guys, with the reports that you do for people, when you say you get people the outcome, like what does that mean in the real world? Like, what is the outcome people get from working with uh a really good allied health or a really good IT?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yeah, from an outcome perspective, we always focus on goals. People discuss what their goals are, what they're wanting to achieve. And in regards to an outcome, what we're implementing is a way that we can help towards that path. Now, sometimes achieving an outcome may not be completing the outcome. I observe those two scenarios as very differently. But when I say that we work towards an outcome or achieve an outcome, what we're trying to do is find the solutions. And if there isn't a direct solution, how can we make a particular frustration 50%, 70%, 80% easier? So that frustration dwindles, so there's a form of solution in place until we can find out how to 100% solve that particular frustration. So the word outcome is definitely one you have to be cautious of in the Allied Health world, particularly when it comes to funding brackets like the NDIS or support at home. Because when someone has a particular goal, that might be a piece of equipment that's well outside of their budget. But as an OT service, we're saying we're here to achieve the outcome. You do have to work within the restrictions that are present. But it doesn't mean that we can't advocate down four different avenues instead of one and work towards achieving that outcome. Your comment around the reports, I hear that loud and clear. I've recently met a participant through the NDIS only two weeks ago now, and they were saying they had a functional capacity assessment done over a year ago, but the plan didn't really reflect what their needs were, but nothing else came from that. For us, that's where we work with the participant outside of the hours. And yes, sometimes it means that, you know, we've only built, let's say, 10 hours for a functional capacity assessment, but we end up doing 12, 15, 20 hours, finding out when that new plan rolls out, what does it look like? Did it achieve what we wanted it to achieve? Did we get that outcome? Or did we only achieve part of the outcome? And how can we review that within that time frame window to say that this new plan doesn't meet the requirements we have and the goals? So yeah, the outcome side of things is a very uneasy side of things when it comes to the allied health world at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, and I understand a lot of people like, well, I did my job, I wrote the report. But I what I love is hearing you even talk about, well, what's the frustration? How do we reduce the frustration? Because at the end of the day, you're paid for your report regardless of whether it's useful or not. At least if you if you're reducing frustrations, that's immediately useful. Like my mum needed an OT to go and help her with some stuff, and honestly, I was like, ah, let's let's see how this goes, because you know, working with your mum, you you sort of you don't always have the highest expectations. But that OT kicked massive goals. That OT's got my mum, my mum doing crosswords, reading books again, watching, watching 30-minute shows, that was never going to happen without that OT. But it was because that OT wasn't average. They didn't turn up for a report, they turn up to solve some problems and they kick that goal. What goes through your head when I say, you know what, Jack, I can I know you're the real deal, but like what goes through your head when I say, how does someone know when an OT or Allied Health is the real deal versus someone who's just doing a report?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

There's probably two ways that people know if someone is the real deal. And when I say the real deal, for me personally, that comes down to how someone feels they connects with that particular service provider. So the first that I always say to people is often gut feeling. When you're sat there with someone, often I like to believe that if you're receiving a service that you're comfortable with and you know have a higher likelihood of achieving a goal, they will show genuine curiosity in terms of what that person's frustration is. So that first one, that gut feeling of going, do I feel as though this person is putting their time, but also their creativity into going, look, what frustrations are you, I guess, encountering day to day? Here's our possible solutions. What ones do you feel most comfortable with? So that very tailored approach and that is very easily picked up from that gut feeling. And I think the second option is knowing that that provider is there for the best outcome for you. And that becomes apparent when they start saying things like, Look, this is what we can do. However, I think an outcome can be further developed if we get these people involved. It's about creating that network around someone in going, look, this is where I specialise and what I can do for you. However, your outcome is just as important as it is to me for you to achieve it. And I think that's where we can build people around us to really ensure that we get that progression.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

All right. Well, I mean, heck, that makes sense. And you need to be able to pick the good ones from the average ones, because when it's your mom, or if it's your son or daughter, you don't want someone average, and you don't want someone who's just a walking t-shirt instead of someone who actually cares. One last question, because a lot of people listening to this, they're directors of NDIS businesses. You were telling me off air about how you've got so many hours of your life back in the last couple of months, and you've changed how you do work so that you're not wearing yourself out 50, 60 hours a week. What are some of the changes you've done in your business that have freed you up to have a life so that you can have this business last the next 20 years instead of the next 20 weeks?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah. And it's a great question because I know as we've discussed off camera, you know, my work days were 11 hour days, Monday to Friday, and I leave out Saturday because instead of 11 hours it might have only been six. And to me in the past, that didn't count. The things that I've found that have worked well for myself is systems. But also having clarity on what direction you want to go in. I think it's too easy when you are running a business and trying to be a director wearing a few different hats. It's very easy to go, oh well, I know I can do it, so I should just do it. But I think the time you start to put into working out what is your direction, where is the goal for the business, and putting those systems in place, like having two people that are based in the admin specialized role, who are Perth-based, who you can just bounce between throughout the day, delegate tasks to, makes a huge difference. So I think that strategy development around the systems you have in your business is huge. But the other thing is what you do outside of your business that makes a huge change, which is still something that I've got many years to learn on. But it's what you can implement in your day-to-day routine that's external to work that actually helps you show up better for work. And it sounds unusual because if you had to said this to me two months ago and said, look, Jack, get involved in something outside of work because you will show up better when you're at work and be more productive at work, that wouldn't make sense to me because the time spent on something personal versus work-based is now split. So therefore you can't give as much time. But I think there's something to be said around the clarity that the mind has when starting a work day, because you've been able to differentiate between this is my work and these are the goals that I'm striving to achieve. But here's my personal life and here's how I'm going to show up better in this sector so that when it comes to work, I can show up twice as energized, twice as focused.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Wow. What's been the impact on your marriage? Because you if you've cut, say, 10 or 15 hours off your work life, how's that help?

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Enormous. It's to show up more is really what it is. Instead of 11-hour days, you're back to a normal working routine, an eight-hour work day. It's how you can show up for those in your life, particularly my wife, Amy, being more present at home, being able to give more, to have more energy. It creates a big difference. And then because you do that in your personal life, when you come back to that work hat, you go, look, I've actually got something to give because I feel more fulfilled in more areas of life.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah. So she's now got a husband who's a better product. He's got more time with her, and when he's with her, he's not always on his phone.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

I'd like the thing so.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

We'd have to ask her, like, send out a survey. And if you're a big company, you send out an automated survey. But I know how your company works. You'd get one of your admin team to phone on. All right. Well, Jack, I love how real you're being. Thank you so much, for helping us see that it's not always about extracting the maximum profitability from what we've got, but it having that quality leads you to that long-term profitability. And uh I find it personally inspiring that you've cut a whole heap of time for your work week. I think that's just great. Well done. Fantastic. Thank you very much, and thank you for having me here. You're welcome. And if people want to get in touch with you, how do they find you, Jack?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, absolutely. So we're on Instagram, on Facebook, as well as just, of course, our website. So we're elevatehealthservices.com.au, and all our information is there for you to see.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Great. And if you're driving and you forget that, send me a message and I'll pass you his details. Love your work, Jack.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Fantastic. Thank you.