16W Media Group Presents The Branding Highway

Weekend Warriors, Slow Your Roll Before Your ACL Does

• Mike

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Ready for a rehab reality check that actually helps you heal faster and stay sane? We brought regional clinic manager Matt Levins onto the mic to talk about what separates thoughtful physical therapy from the dreaded mill, and why hiring for character and coachability can be the difference between a clinic that thrives and a team that burns out. Matt shares a simple but powerful benchmark—10 to 12 patients in an eight-hour day—that preserves one-on-one time, deeper education, and better outcomes. If you’ve ever felt rushed through a plan of care, this conversation will give you language and tools to advocate for yourself.

We break down what physical therapy really does, beyond bands and tables. Education is the engine: understanding why an exercise matters, what tissue it targets, and how the rate of healing governs progress. Matt gets candid about being the “governor” for weekend warriors and ambitious teens fresh off ACL surgery, protecting grafts and guiding smart milestones so enthusiasm doesn’t become a setback. We also explore the mental side of injury—how identity can wobble when you’re sidelined—and how therapists rebuild confidence with small wins and clear goals that reconnect athletes to purpose.

Parents and coaches, there’s a section with your name on it. Youth specialization is driving overuse injuries in baseball arms and basketball knees, and Matt offers practical cross-training ideas to spread the load and keep kids loving the game. Students and new grads get an honest playbook too: run the debt-to-salary math, look for programs with strong first-time board pass rates, and choose clinics with real mentorship and sustainable productivity standards. Florida Orthopedic’s model shows how the right environment supports patients and protects clinicians.

If you care about smarter recovery, better care, or a sustainable PT career, this one’s worth your time. Share it with a teammate, a parent, or a future therapist. And if you found value, subscribe, rate, and leave a review—tell us the biggest rehab myth you want us to tackle next.

SPEAKER_00:

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_02:

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 Levins. 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. I like to do like a dead pool, break down the fourth wall so people could see. Uh I have really bad tennis elbow. I'm really old. I have arthritis in my shoulders, my back. Uh other than doing mental therapy, Matt works on my on this vessel that I'm carrying around the skin sack that I have here that uh 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.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So with my role as a regional clinic manager, I give support to 14, seem to be 15 different clinics right now. Um so that's basically just kind of setting the right environment for not only the clinicians, but for the patients to be successful.

SPEAKER_02:

And in your day-to-day, uh, you know, you're not only like 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?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. I mean, like you said, skill set is great. You know, I mean for what we do, at the end of the day, they've already passed the licensure exam, like 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. Um, 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. Um, some are good, some are bad. Yeah, this it's the cell phone, uh, it and the texting and everything else. Um we're 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 it 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. Um, 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 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.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think a big part of it, you know, if you and I have talked offline about this is number one, yeah, having the skill set, but like being teachable, right? Because when you're a kid, and I say 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 stuff. 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. So being teachable when you come in, because yeah, like I like you've worked on me, so I know your skill set is on point. You could teach people the 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? And how important is it being able to adapt to the program that you guys put out?

SPEAKER_01:

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 to get better? I think that's extremely important. Uh, one thing that you touched on or that was the like the productivity standard, like what should they expect? And 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 gonna interview, at least have some questions ready, like something. How much money am I gonna make?

SPEAKER_02:

How many hours do I have to work? Uh what's my vacation schedule? Uh right, how much blood do you extract from me every day through sweat and tears and blood? What what is the what is the going rate?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Is it so but one qu yeah, exactly? One question though, I I encourage them to ask is the productivity 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, right? Um, 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 a 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 um, you know, everything we don't want to be. We want the one-on-one time with our patients.

SPEAKER_02:

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 public. So you're just beeping somebody through. You want to feel like you're seen and you're getting your point across. 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. Um, 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 know, you're at this level with Florida Orthopedic, but one time many moons ago, many moons, I see the gray hair. What how what was it like for you when you were coming out? Were you did you go through like a mill? Did you have a mentor? What was your experience when you were coming up?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I've I've had the experience of the mill, um, enough to know that that's not anything I ever want to be associated with. Right. Um, but I do know that they're still out there. And, you know, I I've I've talked to many uh a young therapist 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 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? Like, well, they made me see 25, 28 patients a day. I'm like, well, no wonder you hated it. Like, like someone hurt you, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

You've been wounded. You you've been wounded in the ortholab. You've been wounded with a surgeon, right?

SPEAKER_01:

So it's like it's like it doesn't have to be that way. I can show you that it 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_02:

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 a myth that 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_01:

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 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. Like behind an orthopedic surgeon, physical therapists are the musculoskeletal experts. Like, that's what we do, that's our jam, that's what we do all day long at outpatient orthopedics. Um, 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 in those things that go into just making ourselves well. Uh, 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. Two, 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, uh, and that's gonna be the biggest piece. And there's so many white paper studies, Mike, that I could bore you with that just talks about the importance of education versus anything else we do. Um, just teaching people why we chose that exercise, why it's important for them, and why they need to continue to do it.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know, I you you make a great point. I mean, and I talk about this like when I'm talking to doctors, and and bedside manner is a big thing. And surgeons, no offense, I know you're Florida Orthopedic surgeon. I've had some great surgeons at Florida Orthopedic, but generally they're like, I cut, this is what I do. I come in, I cut, 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 and my shoulder at Florida Orthopedic, he was great. I've talked to you about him. 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? Like, what does post op actually entail when I get in there and you guys get your hands on me? And and that can be a little bit scary too. Like you, you're going into it. My biggest thing, misconception-wise, for me has always been like, look, I'm uh just under six foot, I'm 200 and we'll say 20 pounds, maybe 25-ish right now. It's it's early in the week. Um, but 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 meeting 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_01:

Oh, yeah, for sure. Because everybody, it sucks being hurt, it's not fun being hurt. And you're 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 just it's just physiology, like you can't beat it. There's nothing legally that we can do to speed it up, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Like if you're if you're Barry Bonds, you know, uh, if you're Arod, you know, maybe you're alluding to something there with those two individuals that might be outside of natural forces, but okay, we'll use those as examples.

SPEAKER_01:

It's 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 you're talking about the weekend warriors, but what comes to my mind more is the young 17, 18-year-old ACL patient. You they do their ACL surgery, and within a month, they're feeling pretty decent to the fact you'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 is sometimes their brain feels they're ready, but the tissue is not, and just going over the tissue health. I'd love to tell you that I've never had an ACL patient rerupture because they pushed 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. Um, you know, I always think of Adrian Peterson, and even I'm I'm dating myself with Adrian Peterson, right? But the dude's a freak athlete, so 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. Yeah, it's not. You have ACL surgery, you're 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_02:

So you're you're 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.

SPEAKER_01:

We don't have to go there.

SPEAKER_02:

No, we'll go there. We'll we're definitely gonna go there because I I I had a good draft, so we're gonna go there. But so one of the things I find interesting though is like when we were growing up, and I you know, 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, etc. Is that is that kind of like your frequent flyers? Is that some of those things that are going on?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's it's a real thing. I mean, you bring up the baseball players. Like 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 whether the the athlete or the parents get scared of them falling behind, and so they have to continually play. Um, it's one of the big things that I talk to them 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, which if you 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 know, just shooting a basketball, I want you any just do anything, anything that isn't baseball. You know, and 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 fun outside that isn't so sport specific all the time.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, it's funny is when I lived in Atlanta, I I played, it's you know, 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 Wallers. 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, you know, this is going back 15 plus years ago. And he said, Mike, he goes, I didn't learn how to snap my wrist until I got to AAA 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, 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 would never want to see a kid at high school level watching them snap that wrist to throw that curveball. 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're like that. That's clubs and brave. Yeah, I appreciate that. You brought it back around. I brought it back around. But like Mark Wollard said the same thing that he was just like, dude, you you kids are ruining their arms. Like it, and then going to physical therapy when I had my shoulder, there was a cavalcade of baseball players with uh 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, you're, you know, your son plays sports and stuff. Do you make sure you're you're kind of practicing what you preach at home with him so he's not fully not fully invested in one thing where he's putting that stress?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's funny that you think that my kids will listen to me. Oh, that's right. My bad. I forgot about that. That won't happen. I can 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-train. I I really should. Good idea. What a great idea that is. Yeah, to answer your question, like we we try to really encourage them not to specialize. Um, you know, I I like my my daughter grew up playing soccer, she played at a high level, right? And um, 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 you know 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, and we talk about me treating athletes, and I think if you've never treated 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. 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 gonna get back to where you were. All right, you just gotta listen to us.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that is the hardest part. Like back in 2020, I had a couple different surgeries. I had a shoulder thing, a back thing. I got down to like 176 pounds. And and 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 camp. It was really bad. Like I was sunken in, it was really bad. And your your brain, you're right. You're like, well, am I ever gonna get back to this feeling of where I can like feel stable? And even me, like I joked about the weight. I like look, ideally at 210, you can actually see abs. Like 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, uh being an athlete is not throwing my back out when I brush my teeth, type of deal. That's kind of that's athletic for me. Yeah, but there's a comfort zone for everybody. And when you're an athlete, that it you you're right, like there's a psychological component to it. So not only are you physical therapists, but you are kind of kind of doing that mental game with them too. I that's pretty, I made a joke about it at the beginning of the pod saying, you know, like uh 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. These two questions I 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 gonna say, like, we know you're a Bears fan, so there's a hardship right there, and then that'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 the Chicago area and out there?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Well, yeah, you're right. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Yeah, so you know, I grew up in central Illinois, you know, throwing hay bales during the summer, uh, 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 the University of St. Augustine for physical therapy school, and then you know, uh met a lovely lady there, uh, who's now my wife. Oh, that's who you're talking about. All right, just yeah, right. Well, right. But she's a gator.

SPEAKER_02:

How did that happen? Were you just like slumming it in Gainesville?

SPEAKER_01:

And you're like wow. Now you're going after the gators, too. Like, I see, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02:

They won the national championship. She's still extremely happy over that.

SPEAKER_01:

She's she's fine with it. I'm okay with it. Like, you know, the basketball teams are doing okay right now. Florida, just what football's coming, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen again. Um, but as far as like keeping tabs on on like, yeah, I'm I'm a Bulls fan. Um, we got bounced in the playoff, uh playing game, so whatever. Like we got trounced. We didn't just get beat, like we got the wheels beat off us.

SPEAKER_02:

You got trounced by the team that got trounced by the team, right? Is that didn't you guys lost to Miami?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we lost to Miami, and then Miami got the hell beat out of them. But that's all right.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's a bl that's a blemish. We'll leave that off. Let's talk about Caleb Williams.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, yeah, let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's talk about you drafted a tight end in the first round.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, so here's why we drafted that tight end, okay? And this is gonna be the head coach effect. The head coach, like he's coming from Detroit. Detroit did okay, they're all right, they had an alright couple seasons. They got a guy there, Laporta, right? He's he's decent, he's decent. That is a head coach coming in as making his impact. He's like, you know what? I need somebody that fits that mold, I need a Laporta. So that's what they did. That's what he did.

SPEAKER_02:

But the question is when that draft pick gets announced, what is your first reaction?

SPEAKER_01:

You don't want to know my reaction. I can't right, I can't say it out loud because I don't know my. Listen, this is not for children. You can say whatever you want. Uh I 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_02:

You've mapped out you've mapped out the thought process so you could eloquently discuss it without blowing your head.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, gotcha. Believing in the process, officially.

SPEAKER_02:

I gotcha. I gotcha. I think you know, 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 learning the system, the offensive line wasn't great. There were circumstances to all that stuff. I think long term he's gonna 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, Iberflus was not great. Um, and I think you know, you 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 it's like the NFC East was in like the 80s, you know, like in the early 90s, it's really brutal.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's good. I mean, I am I happy though that they did they spent a lot of money in free agency on building that offensive line. So you know, if we can just give them just a half second more uh to make the decision, I think we're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so let me ask you this with the kids. Have you like indoctrinated them? Are they Bucks 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_01:

Well, I I didn't drag them. They they whatever for whatever reason they came willingly into this pit of disparity. Yeah, I don't know why he wants to be a Bears fan, but they root for the so it's a split household. So they get a little bit of options, they get the dolphins and they get the bears, right? That that's I'm not saying they're great options, I'm just telling you that's what they are.

SPEAKER_02:

They are definitely options, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We got the bulls and 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 Shaq and Penny and uh Nick Anderson days. Now, Nick Anderson, Nick Anderson, part of the 1989 Flying Allini. 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_02:

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. Um, but what I really want to focus back on is this what is the one thing, like, like I'm gonna give a testimonial. So I know you know you you're your clinical director with Florida Orthopedic. I've had surgery at Florida Orthopedic. Uh, I'm not gonna mention my doctor's name specifically, but he was really great. My experience with Florida Orthopedic was fantastic. I will though say my experience working with you on treatment on my arm has been fantastic as well. So um, whereas like I actually worked out today and my arm isn't screaming, my shoulder feels good. Uh, 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 gonna be able to move or move my arm for like four days, and then I ice it a little bit, and all of a sudden it's like, wow, it actually feels better. So it's getting through that that pain to get back to where you're normal again. But if you want to promote, like I don't you 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 you're comfortable with, I'm gonna give the floor to you to kind of promote a little self-promotion.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Um, well, so for Florida Orthopedic, you know, 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 um career like I have with patients. Now, I do a lot of recruitment for Floyd Orthopedic. I do tons and tons of interviews. And along with that, I do tons of mentorship as well. Um I have no problems answering hard questions for new graduates or students that are coming or going getting into PT school, or maybe they're about to graduate PT school. Um there's there's a lot of turbulence, I will say, uh, in the 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. Uh I will say that the salary has risen a little bit, but has not kept up with the price of school. So it's one thing. This is the stuff that I mentorship at young kids, whether I say young kids, kids that are thinking about getting into PT schools, 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 and indeed, a normal new grad right now is probably gonna start somewhere in the mid 70s, high 70s, right? 70K, 70, like I said, 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 gonna cost you 200K, and then you're coming out of school and you think you're gonna make that per year, you've been misled. Yeah, you've been misled. And that's really a lot of things that I do is try to have that real talk with folks on what to expect and uh not just monetarily, but then also the stuff that we had talked about earlier, like knowing that there's different ways to logistically set up your schedule to still be successful and not burn yourself out. Um, 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 you know what I do every day when I say support all of my staff. So my staff right now is around 125 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. Um, you know, that that's really what I do all day, every day. So those those questions and those opportunities are always open for me um for anybody.

SPEAKER_02:

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_01:

So what's well Sun City is is one that we're we're looking to staff right now. Um, the the new clinic down the road. And and I don't know if I'm able to say yet because I don't know if the ink is because I don't want to have to have people edit this extra.

SPEAKER_02:

There's a new clinic coming soon in the Tampa metro area. There's gonna be job opportunities.

SPEAKER_01:

There's gonna be job opportunities. There's probably gonna be two clinics that are gonna be opening in the Tampa St. Pete area um by the time we get to the end of 2025. Okay, and we're gonna continue to grow.

SPEAKER_02:

So when you say I'm having these conversations with kids when they're getting out of school, what a is that kids graduating, they're undergrad. So the conversation you're having about choosing a PT schools with kids that are 20, 21-ish, is that generally the group the age group?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we'll get so another thing that we do at our clinics is to even get into physical therapy school, you you you usually have to log a certain amount of observation hours. And this could be, you know, a college age student and undergrad, or sometimes it's even a high school student, and they don't know if they 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 uh 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, you know, ROI on their investment in themselves.

SPEAKER_02:

So that brings me to my next bullet point question is would you 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 would be good?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I mean that's great. Now, I personally I'm gonna say I went to University of St. Augustine, it's a private school. Okay, through the nose. It's it's I wear this, I 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.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, I'm in a t-shirt, that's all I do. It's all right, it's fine, it's fine, whatever.

SPEAKER_01:

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, um, yeah, just go with it.

SPEAKER_02:

Go with it. It's like the same narrative as a tight end. You've built yourself up in that thought process. Hey, listen, I'm not gonna burst your bubble, you look very nice in your tie.

SPEAKER_01:

Appreciate it. See, I I knew you'd come around to that idea. Um, 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, um they're having a very, very high um 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. 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 it's a really good bang for your butt type of school. Um, you know, I said that 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 on a you don't you're not affiliated with USF.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's just make that completely clear. This is just you being in the field and having your you know, your 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 and you 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's a good program if you're thinking of going into PT.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a good program. And that's not to say that there's not other great programs around here. They're they're fantastic. We have graduates from every single physical therapy school in Florida that work for Florida Orthopedic. And they're great. Once again, it's University of St. Augustine. I would still encourage people to go to the 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 gonna get the best out of it? And if so, don't. Sometimes it's not always about the money, it's about where you're the best fit.

SPEAKER_02:

For me, it would be about the tie. I'm not gonna go to St. Augustine because I'm just not gonna 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'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 a hold of you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the best way is probably my email. So that's um M Levens B L E V I M S D P T at G. Gmail.com.

SPEAKER_02:

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, uh, 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. 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 mblevinsdptgmail.com. 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 uh in the meantime, Matt, thanks again for being on. We appreciate you coming on the branding highway, and we'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, Mike, we hope you enjoyed your ride down the branding highway. This has been the 16W Media Group Production. Don't forget to take the next exit at 16W. Visit 16W Media Group.com. If you want to be part of the journey, reach out to info at 16W Media Group.com.