Good Neighbor Podcast: Pittsburgh
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Pittsburgh. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Leila Carter helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Pittsburgh
E69: Function Reforged: Revolutionizing Physical Therapy Beyond Insurance Limits
What makes Jared Caroff with Function Reforged a good neighbor?
Ever wondered if there's a better approach to physical therapy than the rushed, insurance-driven model most of us know? Jared Caroff is proving there is with Function Reforged, his innovative physical therapy practice designed specifically for athletes and active individuals.
After eight years in traditional PT settings, Jared grew frustrated with the assembly-line approach that prioritized patient volume over quality care. This sparked his vision for Function Reforged – a cash-based practice where he can spend meaningful time with each client, whether they're marathon runners, powerlifters, or weekend warriors who just want to stay active without pain.
During our conversation, Jared dismantles two persistent myths about physical therapy. First, contrary to popular belief, paying out-of-pocket can actually be more cost-effective than using insurance when you consider the quality and duration of care received. Second, physical therapy isn't merely a prerequisite to surgery – it's often the very thing that helps people avoid surgical intervention altogether.
What truly sets Function Reforged apart is its flexibility. Recognizing that traditional clinic visits don't work for everyone, Jared offers virtual sessions, travels to clients, and is opening a physical location soon. This adaptive approach ensures that care fits into clients' lives, not the other way around. As an active competitor himself in powerlifting and various sports, Jared brings firsthand understanding to the table, embodying his philosophy that our bodies "whisper before they scream" – and that listening to those early whispers can prevent major injuries down the road.
Whether you're dealing with nagging pain that's affecting your workout routine, recovering from an injury, or simply want to optimize your athletic performance, this episode offers valuable insights into how modern physical therapy can help you move better and feel stronger. Check out functionreforged.com to learn more about Jared's approach to keeping athletes healthy, happy, and hitting new personal records.
To learn more about Function Reforged go to:
https://www.functionreforged.com/
Function Reforged
(412)360-8293
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Lila Carter.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a physical therapist? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, jared kerif, with function reforged jared, how's it going?
Speaker 3:it's going great. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:excellent. Thank you so much. We're excited to learn all about you and your business, so please tell us more about your company yeah, so my company is called function reforged.
Speaker 3:Started as a outpatient, cash-based physical therapy practice, I do both in-person and virtual physical therapy services, and we're now also providing running coaching, so we're kind of broadening our scope a little bit as well.
Speaker 2:Very good. How did you get into this business, Jared?
Speaker 3:So I've been a physical therapist for was it eight years now. I started out as a manager of a outpatient clinic, did that job for four years and kind of got tired of the just the nature of insurance-based physical therapy. It's a lot of. You just have to see a lot of people in a day. You feel like you can't give everybody the amount of attention that you feel like they deserve or that you want to give them. So once I left that job and had an opportunity, I started my own out-of-pocket-based practice so I could spend as much time with my clients as I needed to and give them what I feel like would be the best possible experience when it comes to physical therapy.
Speaker 2:What is one myth, or maybe misconception, that you would like to address today when it comes to your industry?
Speaker 3:So I think there's two that I'm going to touch on, if that's all right. So the first one is that out-of-pocket pay for physical therapy isn't worth it if you have insurance, and not true one, because if you end up doing the math, you end up spending a lot more time for a lot less money paying out-of-pocket than you actually do, based on like average co-pays and the average plan of care in outpatient therapy right.
Speaker 3:The other thing is that physical therapy is just not a gateway to surgery. You see that a lot People are like oh yeah, my doctor said I have to do PT before I get insert surgery. But PT can actually save you from having to get surgeries, which is honestly a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. As we know that marketing is the heart of every business. Who are your target customers and how are you attracting them to the practice?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when I started Function Reforged, my primary clientele are athletes and specifically I work a lot with lifters and strength sport athletes and runners. So as far as lifters power lifters, olympic weightlifters, cross, crossfit athletes, you know, and then also like arm wrestlers and then a ton of ball sport athletes, and then I got really into, you know, the running community as well. So I've been working a lot with marathon runners, competitive like five and 10 K runners, so that that's kind of been my target audience. But I see people all across that spectrum, right. So not like professional athletes per se, right so the average person who enjoys running, the average person who enjoys lifting weights and injuries, holding them back from it, like that's what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you ever thought about starting your own podcast to get your message out there?
Speaker 3:So I started doing a podcast with somebody else you guys had on here. Actually, his name is Tyler Bordick. He owns Stronger Personal Training in the South Hills, so him and I do a podcast together, actually.
Speaker 2:Very good yeah. Outside of work, what else do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Oh man, so well. I do competitive powerlifting. So lifting weights is fun for me. I know it's not for a lot of people, but I do enjoy it. I like to get into as many sports as I can. So you know, I recently did a canoe race out in the state of Washington. I like to do climbing, I've done competitive arm wrestling, I'm in a. I'm doing the PSL pickleball league here, so we'll see how that goes. But I got two dogs and I'm married. We love going, hiking and traveling and doing all that kind of stuff. It's a blast. Honestly, I love my time outside of work.
Speaker 2:Very nice. So, jared, please tell our listeners one thing that they should remember, or something that should stick with them, about function reforged.
Speaker 3:So I think getting like if you've ever had to deal with injury or you don't want to have to deal with injury, you know you don't.
Speaker 3:You don't have to wait to go to PT or to see somebody or to talk about it until it's like too late, you know you don't have to wait until you're injured. Like a lot of my clients are people who might've had injuries in the past and they don't kind of know how to get back into training, um, so I help a lot of them with that. So it's kind of a mix of, you know, physical therapy plus like strength training or getting them back into a running program, um, but also don't hesitate if you're injured. You know to reach out because I provide services, like I travel to some of my clients, um, I'll have a new brick and mortar location coming soon and I also do a lot of things virtually do a lot of combination based on you know what people need. So no matter what the needs of the person are like we like Function Reforced, like we can we can meet those needs. So you know you're not always having to drive to a clinic to see somebody, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like that's so key and I'm so happy that you said that, because so many people, especially athletes, right, I feel like they suffer in silence with chronic pain, you know, and they just feel like, oh well, this is just part of being an athlete. You know I'm going to sacrifice my body for the sport. But really, it's like how you need to nurture that voice that's saying you know my body is going to start whispering at me until it's screaming, and if you don't listen to the whisper, then you know it'll start screaming at you.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like.
Speaker 2:You're the perfect person to kind of go to, kind of as a preliminary action before it gets too bad. Even you know to kind of help people maintain their wellness before that.
Speaker 3:That's the goal we want athletes to stay healthy and happy and keep getting better and hitting prs and doing what they love. You know injuries happen. We can't prevent them, but you know we can do everything we can to minimize our risk too absolutely so.
Speaker 2:How can our listeners learn more about function reforged?
Speaker 3:so you can find me on my website, functionaryforgedcom. You can find me on Instagram just at functionaryforged. I also write a blog. It's up on the website. I also send emails out. You can sign up for that as well. That's mostly where I do most of my stuff. You can find me.
Speaker 2:Very good, yeah, we'll be looking out for you. Well, jared, thank you so much for being on our show. We really appreciate your time today and we wish you and your business the best moving forward thanks, I appreciate it thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast.
Speaker 1:To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnppittsburghcom. That to GNPPittsburghcom. That's GNPPittsburghcom. Or call 412-561-9956.