Exploring Physical Therapy's Financial Benefits with Dr Brett Dick
About the Guest(s):
Dr. Brett Dick is a specialized physical therapist and the founder of Limitless Performance Physical Therapy located in Big Flats. He obtained his degree from the University at Buffalo and developed a unique approach toward physical therapy by establishing his own clinic. Brett focuses on delivering personalized care, primarily helping active adults, gym-goers, and runners. His work centers around addressing the root causes of physical issues and avoiding unnecessary surgeries through preventative care. Brett also regularly conducts sports-related clinics, reinforcing his commitment to a holistic view of health and fitness.
Episode Summary:
In this engaging episode of Money Roots, host Amy Irvine sits down with Dr. Brett Dick, an accomplished physical therapist and the founder of Limitless Performance Physical Therapy. They dive into a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of personal finance—medical expenses related to physical health. By applying preventative measures in physical therapy, individuals might significantly reduce or even avoid costly surgeries and extended recovery periods. This episode guides listeners through understanding the financial and health benefits of proactive physical therapy.
Throughout the conversation, Dr. Brett Dick dismantles the conventional perceptions of physical therapy, emphasizing the importance of identifying and treating the root causes of physical discomfort. With an individualized approach, Brett discusses how active listening, careful evaluation, and specifically tailored exercises can lead to better health outcomes. This proactive method not only improves quality of life but also provides substantial economic benefits by potentially reducing the need for more invasive medical procedures. Listeners are encouraged to consider physical therapy not just as a post-surgery step, but as a vital component of overall health management.
Key Takeaways:
- Aim to address the root cause of physical issues to potentially avoid unnecessary surgeries.
- Engaging in preventative physical therapy can yield both health and financial benefits.
- Limitless Performance Physical Therapy offers a unique, personalized approach, diverging from the traditional PT model.
- Initial sessions focus on understanding and evaluating the problem for tailored treatment plans.
- Physical therapy can be integral to maintaining quality of life and minimizing long-term healthcare costs.
Notable Quotes:
- "Addressing the whole body and figuring out where those weak links are, what muscles are weak and different areas, and fixing that could definitely be a huge game-changer."
- "Being proactive about it is way better."
- "Working with someone else because there's two or three people I'm working with in an hour time slot."
- "I always do a phone consult, talk to them for like 15 minutes about what's going on before they even come in."
- "You can definitely save like thousands of dollars by avoiding having a surgery."
Resources:
- Limitless Performance Physical Therapy: Explore more about Dr. Brett Dick's clinic and approach through their website and social media platforms.
- Connect with the podcast and Rooted Planning Group on their social media platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram for regular updates and resources.
Don't miss this insightful episode of Money Roots, where traditional finance meets health to transform how we perceive personal and financial wellness. Listen now to explore how physical therapy can be a smart, proactive investment and stay tuned for more enlightening conversations!
Transcript
Welcome to Money Roots, the podcast where personal finance gets personal.
Speaker A:Each week, Amy and her guests dig deep into the world of finance, making it more approachable and understandable for everyone.
Speaker A:No matter where you are on your financial journey, from savings and investments to budgeting and planning, we'll bring you practical advice, inspiring stories, and expert insights.
Speaker A:We believe that everyone has the potential to grow a healthy financial future, and we're here to help you nurture it.
Speaker A:So whether you're a financial guru or just starting to plant the seeds of your financial knowledge, this is the place for you.
Speaker A:Get ready to uncover the tools and strategies that can help you thrive financially.
Speaker A:So, without further ado, let's dive into today's episode of Money Roots.
Speaker B:Well, welcome back, Money Root listeners.
Speaker B:I'm excited to have a guest with me today on the podcast, Dr.
Speaker B:Brett Dick.
Speaker B:He is a PT specialist, a doctor that specializes in physical therapy, and one that both Brett and I have had the pleasure of working with over the last couple of years.
Speaker B:Both of us had some little, I would say, glitch in our giddy up, and so we.
Speaker B:We were able to work with him.
Speaker B:And as I got thinking about things that are important to some of the listeners, certainly when it comes to medical advice and some issues with our bodies and potentially having surgery or not having surgery, that is a big financial impact.
Speaker B:Not just from a standpoint of, okay, yes, the surgery and the financial impact there, but the time off from work and the recovery and all that that goes along with it.
Speaker B:So I thought it would be really great to have a conversation about the benefits of seeing, seeking out physical therapy.
Speaker B:And so before we go down that road, Brett, why don't you give us a little bit of history about yourself, maybe share just a tidbit a tad bit, I guess you want to say, about how you decided to get into this profession and a little bit about what it is I think people have in their mind.
Speaker B:You know, I have surgery, I have to have physical therapy.
Speaker B:But both Brett and I were proactive about it.
Speaker B:We actually sought out physical therapy to try to avoid having surgery.
Speaker C:So I grew up in the area in Big fl.
Speaker C:I went to Corning School District, and I remember one day somebody came in to talk about Career Day, and they were talking about pt, and I was always, like, interested in sports and things that were active.
Speaker C:So I kind of looked into it more, and I thought that was exactly what I wanted to do.
Speaker C:So I kind of had that in my mind.
Speaker C:And I ended up going to University at Buffalo because they had a physical therapy program there.
Speaker C:So I got my degree there and I didn't really love the typical like PT model.
Speaker C:So when I graduated I just decided that I wanted to open my own clinic.
Speaker C:And so I opened Limitless Performance Physical Therapy in big flats.
Speaker C:And I help people that are active, the gym goers, runners, a lot of people that kind of get lost in the typical system and people don't have answers for.
Speaker C:So yeah, that's where I'm at.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you do some clinics throughout the course of the year too?
Speaker B:Occasionally, I know like some running clinics and some clinics around, um, you know, the, the sports, like what you're talking about.
Speaker B:So the idea being, you know, you can be preventative and injuring yourself too, right?
Speaker B:Or trying to not injure yourself or you can take maybe you have a little bit of a, like I said, a glitch in your giddy up.
Speaker B:That's, that's been long term.
Speaker B:And you're trying to figure out is it form?
Speaker B:I know when you were working with me, you said that one like, it's almost like one side drops a little bit more than the other side when I, when I walk.
Speaker B:And so that's causing my body to be out of alignment.
Speaker B:And I was seeking a lot of.
Speaker B:And I still do preventative care otherwise, like chiropractic care and those kinds of things.
Speaker B:But it was amazing the time that we worked together how very simple exercises initially led into some more complex ones.
Speaker B:But those very simple exercises just helped my body sort of re.
Speaker B:Center itself.
Speaker B:And it's, it's.
Speaker B:I always explained it to people as like, if you're a golf player and you've never had any golf lessons whatsoever and you've developed all these really bad habits as a golf player, and then you decide you're going to go hire somebody to actually teach you how to swing properly, your body feels like that's foreign to you, like that's a foreign swing because you've always done it this other way.
Speaker B:And that was what I noticed initially was it felt like my body wanted to revert back to the old way of me doing certain things.
Speaker B:And I had to.
Speaker B:And I still do those exercises.
Speaker B:I kind of mix them up here and there, but my body can, can very easily revert back to that old form.
Speaker B:And I know for me, again, it was a hip thing, right.
Speaker B:I knew that my hip was out of alignment and I didn't know if it.
Speaker B:But it was causing pain in my knee.
Speaker B:That's where the real pain was, was in my knee.
Speaker B:And I'm thinking, gosh am I going to require like knee surgery?
Speaker B:And having had a lot of clients over my 30 year experience thinking, oh, I've heard how painful that is.
Speaker B:Very.
Speaker B:Fortunately, Brent had had some experience with you and to avoid shoulder surgery, thinking he might need that.
Speaker B:And so we worked together to try to correct some of those form issues more than anything.
Speaker B:And so when you said that you launched your practice to try to avoid the traditional pt, Tell me a little bit about when you're working with people, because it's not the traditional sort of PT practice.
Speaker B:What's your process when people come to you for that kind of care?
Speaker C:Yeah, so, yeah, we try to.
Speaker C:The root issue is like the main thing, like you mentioned, like addressing the hip issue that was causing your knee pain.
Speaker C:I think those are the big things that get missed a lot with traditional pt.
Speaker C:Somebody, somebody comes in, they have knee pain, so they give them all these knee focused exercises and then it doesn't get them better.
Speaker C:And then they're just like, well, I guess maybe you need surgery then.
Speaker C:But addressing the whole body and figuring out like where those weak links are, what muscles are weak and different areas and fixing that could definitely be a huge game changer for people in avoiding surgeries, unnecessary surgeries.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you, the way that you charge, and everybody would be different.
Speaker B:Like if you're thinking about what, you know, the way that people charge to get pt, you charge for.
Speaker B:Well, at least we signed up for sort of a package.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So we said, okay, we're going to pay for this package.
Speaker B:And you don't work with insurance companies, but we could submit the claim to the insurance company if they would cover it.
Speaker B:Now, we didn't get preapproval or any of that kind of stuff, and we didn't end up submitting it.
Speaker B:But that would be.
Speaker B:If a physician said you're going to need some kind of.
Speaker B:Or they could get a doctor's note saying they needed pt, then that's something that potentially insurance would cover.
Speaker B:It's just that the person would have to submit it.
Speaker B:But one of the things that we loved about working with you, and I think if anybody listening to this is seeking physical therapy, is that you didn't you, you're not limiting the coverage or limiting the service to what the insurance company says you can do.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:And that, that's, that's why I wanted to do what I wanted to do.
Speaker C:Because a lot of the traditional PT places, they got to do a lot of things that aren't really best for the patient, like whether it's like somebody sits there with a hot pack on their back for, for 10 or 15 minutes just because I got to be over.
Speaker C:So here's working with someone else because there's two or three people I'm working with in an hour time slot.
Speaker C:So yeah, I can spend a full hour.
Speaker C:We can, we can look at exactly what's going on and keep eyes on what you're doing and make sure that what you're doing is going to help you and that kind of thing.
Speaker C:That's one of the biggest things.
Speaker C:And yeah, like you said, typically get people in for like a plan of care package kind of thing so that we can make sure that we hit every different aspect too.
Speaker C:A lot of people get discharged before they're really ready to go because they're like, oh, your knee feels better now, we'll kick you out the door because you're good to go.
Speaker C:And then the real root issue, like I said, doesn't get addressed and the pain comes back.
Speaker C:So yeah, we always make sure we kind of take people through like a three step process of like reducing pain, addressing the root cause, and then just building more resilience and making sure that you're good to go.
Speaker B:And typically, because I came to you, like I said, for knee pain and it was, the diagnosis was actually it's not your knee, it's your hip.
Speaker B:And that, that was something that, I don't remember if it was the first or second session, but I think you questioned where the actual pain was coming for from after the very first session.
Speaker B:Like, are you sure it's coming from the knee?
Speaker B:It's taking that time, like you said, the individual time to analyze it.
Speaker B:Have you ever kept track of how many people have come to you preventative like that and determined that yes, it's actually avoided surgery and you know, versus people that have had to go on and actually have surgery.
Speaker C:Yeah, I don't mean specific numbers of how many people I've helped avoid surgery, but it's a large, it's a large number of people that I work with especially because I do see a lot of people who do end up going through different routes of like getting injections or going to a different PT and all these other things.
Speaker C:And then a lot of people do come to me as kind of like a last resort, like, okay, I'll give it one more shot before I attempt surgery.
Speaker C:So I do, I get that story a lot.
Speaker C:And yeah, I don't have specific numbers, but it's, it's a large number of the people that I End up.
Speaker B:It's a self care side of things.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's taking care of ourselves.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's making sure that we understand how our body is functioning.
Speaker B:Do you find that most people that come to you because of your location, they are some sort of sports injury or is it really across the board?
Speaker B:It could be something from like occupationally driven, like, you know, the way I sit at my desk or the way that I stand at work.
Speaker B:Or is it kind of across the board as to what you see?
Speaker C:It's definitely across the board, but largely like people that are either go to the gym and work out or like I said, they're like, I work with a lot of runners, but there's definitely people who either they just walking is their exercise or people don't necessarily do any like real exercise.
Speaker C:Maybe like 10 or 15% of the people I see would be just people who have neck pain or back pain sitting at their desk at work and stuff like that.
Speaker C:So yeah, I definitely see things across the board as well.
Speaker B:So when you think about the.
Speaker B:I say the structure that we have as people.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:What are the.
Speaker B:Where would you say are the majority of people that you see anyways?
Speaker B:Where is the majority of the problem or the points of problems, pain points that people are coming to you with?
Speaker C:Yeah, a lot of people have shoulder and back pain.
Speaker C:Those are probably two of the biggest things that I see.
Speaker C:A lot of hip pain as well.
Speaker C:And a lot of those things stem from like issues in your, in your core region or just stability at those, at those joints.
Speaker B:The stability side of things.
Speaker B:You're saying like that.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, with the hip.
Speaker C:With the hip, the outer hip muscles, big stabilizing muscle of your hip when you're walking and running and things like that.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, and so, I mean, quality of life is always something that we think about that's really important to people, especially as we age, unfortunately.
Speaker B:Would you say that the majority of people that you work with are showing it's probably an injury or it's probably something repetitively that they've had for quite some time and it's gotten to that point of, I would say inflammation that's so severe that's causing pain, or are you also working with younger students that I say students, but younger people that maybe have some kind of athletic injury?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's definitely a mix of both.
Speaker C:I honestly, I see a lot more like older adults, like active adult people that like I said runners, they're definitely those types of people that they push through a pain and then they just finally can't take it anymore, and then they decide they need to get some help from someone.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the problem with waiting too long is the fact that they're in such pain.
Speaker B:And unfortunately, I think to set an expectation, it didn't.
Speaker B:The pain didn't start and happen overnight.
Speaker B:It's not going to be solved overnight.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So they come to try to get some relief.
Speaker B:And it takes.
Speaker B:I know for me, it.
Speaker B:It has taken even past the time that you and I worked together, it was much better, you know, from.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And the only reason we aren't working together at the moment is because I'm in Florida.
Speaker B:So it just that remoteness.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But the.
Speaker B:The time that we worked together, it was getting better, and, you know, it was starting to feel better and feel better in longer periods of time.
Speaker B:But it even took beyond that period of time continuing to do those exercises before I realized, hey, no, I'm not noticing, like, it's going two or three weeks and.
Speaker B:And then, you know, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm not.
Speaker B:I'm not feeling that deepness of the pain.
Speaker B:And if I overdo it, I definitely, like, yep, that was more than I should have done.
Speaker B:Go back to the basics.
Speaker B:Do some of those really early entry stages.
Speaker B:But it does take a few weeks or months to actually see the full fruition of the treatment.
Speaker B:The therapy, actually, I would say work.
Speaker B:So I always like to set that expectation.
Speaker B:If somebody's listening to this podcast and they're like, yes, that's what I need.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I've let this injury, you know, get to me.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I'm having a lot of shoulder pain, knee pain, whatever it is.
Speaker B:I think I'll go work with a physical therapist.
Speaker B:Have the expectation that they're not miracle workers.
Speaker B:It does take time.
Speaker C:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:If you.
Speaker C:If you wait longer, the longer it takes to recover from things.
Speaker C:So, yeah, definitely.
Speaker C:Being proactive about it is way better.
Speaker B:But the good news is, I mean, we spent, you know, 45 minutes to an hour each week with each other, and that's all, like, I wasn't off from work for extended periods of time.
Speaker B:I wasn't applying for disability.
Speaker B:I wasn't, you know, I didn't need to be away from my co workers, my friends, my clients, all that good stuff.
Speaker B:So just, you know, taking.
Speaker B:Investing in myself for that one hour while I was with you, and then about 45 minutes initially every day, and then, you know, every other day to practice.
Speaker B:What you gave me was about the time frame that it took, and I Did the math on that to come up with.
Speaker B:Of course I did the math right.
Speaker B:I did the math on that to say, well, what did it cost for me to actually go through the therapy?
Speaker B:Like, what was the per minute cost?
Speaker B:So if you were to guess what, what would you say the permanent cost is for your services?
Speaker B:Just if you were to take a wild guess.
Speaker C:Never thought about that.
Speaker C:That's probably like under a dollar.
Speaker B:Oh, I lost you there.
Speaker B:What did you say?
Speaker C:Probably like under a dollar maybe.
Speaker C:I don't, I don't know.
Speaker B:So you cut out on me just a little bit.
Speaker B:But it was like the total, the grand total cost is what I calculated was.08 cents.
Speaker C:Oh, wow.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's lower than that was a.
Speaker B:Lot lower than I thought.
Speaker B:Now I did, I was faithful to what you told me to do and how often you told me to do it.
Speaker B:So everybody's output might be different, but it was 0.08 cents was what it ended up being.
Speaker B:And so, you know, when I look at that and think, okay, well what would the cost be if I had to be off from work and lose, you know, only get part of my income or if I had to be paying a high deductible premium because I had to have surgery and follow up PT on top of that?
Speaker B:And so when I added all those potential costs up, it jumped up to 15 cents.
Speaker B:So.08 cents, not 8 cents.08 cents.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So not even a full cent to 15 cents.
Speaker B:So you think about like, okay, so I'm the numbers person.
Speaker B:I think about stuff like that.
Speaker B:What's something costing me relative to what it could cost me if I had to be out of work?
Speaker B:And I only took a six week period of time thinking, well, somebody was out of work for six weeks and they got 60% disability during that time.
Speaker B:If somebody's not going to get 60% disability during that time, it could be an even larger cost.
Speaker B:And then all the copays and coinsurance is on top of that.
Speaker B:So there is some economic savings in kind of taking care of your body, not just from a standpoint of like the physical side, but from the economic side too.
Speaker B:So happy to share that math with you if anybody ever wants that.
Speaker C:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker C:You can definitely save like thousands of dollars by avoiding having a surgery.
Speaker C:And there's a lot of back and shoulder surgeries that happen that are, that aren't necessary.
Speaker B:Well, I think.
Speaker B:Is there anything that you would love to share, like if people are interested in exploring physical therapy as an alternative to their care or on top of their current care system.
Speaker B:Is there anything that you would like to share with them as far as expectations?
Speaker B:Because I think that this isn't an area that people often go to as a, hey, I'm not feeling well, my body isn't feeling well, let me go seek out physical therapy.
Speaker B:It's let me go talk to the doctor.
Speaker B:And I never even talked to my doctor about it.
Speaker B:I went directly from seeing it work really well with Brent to I'm just going to go try this.
Speaker B:I'm not even going to have a conversation with my doctor.
Speaker B:I'm not suggesting anybody do that.
Speaker B:Of course, like that would never be.
Speaker B:I'm not saying that everybody should do what they feel they're comfortable with, but if somebody does say, yep, I need a little bit of self care, I'm feeling these aches and pains, let me seek out physical therapy.
Speaker B:What would, in every practice, I'm sure is different, but what would they expect?
Speaker B:I know you said earlier you try to do like a three stage analysis, but what are some of the things that you would want them to know coming into working with you?
Speaker C:Yeah, so actually that's a big thing, is that you really don't need to go to your doctor before you come talk to me.
Speaker C:A lot of times people will do that and they get sent down a route of either pain meds or injections or surgery that are totally unnecessary and add more costs even.
Speaker C:We even talk about pain meds and injections that are an additional cost that a lot of people incur.
Speaker C:But yeah, definitely, if somebody comes to me and they're interested, they think, hey, maybe, maybe you can help me.
Speaker C:I always do a phone consult, talk to them for like 15 minutes about what's going on before they even come in, just to make sure that this seems like something I can help them out with.
Speaker C:And then if it's not, then I'll kind of point them in the right direction.
Speaker C:But yeah, I definitely want to make sure that we can help people and kind of save them a bunch of headaches by going other places.
Speaker B:Well, bruh, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show and to get some information about how physical therapy works, how people can work with you.
Speaker B:And we're going to put some notes, some comments in the show, notes for people, some contact information and ways that they can reach out to you if they're interested in caring for themselves this way.
Speaker B:And if there's any bits of information that you'd like to share with them, links or anything like that.
Speaker B:We'll make sure that we grab those and put them in the show notes as well.
Speaker B:So we really appreciate your time.
Speaker B:We know that this is a part of your busy season as well as people are coming off some crazy winter tightness.
Speaker B:I think that's part of the problem that I always have too is my body gets really tense and tight when I'm cold and that can cause other line of issues that are happening.
Speaker B:But we do appreciate your time.
Speaker B:Time and again, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker C:Thanks for having me.
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