ARE YOU READY TO BE A REHAB FREELANCER?

Imagine what your rehab clinic would be like if half of the therapists were temps and freelancers.

Would you have to compete even harder than you do now to hold onto one of the few full-time jobs with benefits–so the large corporation that employs you decide it was more cost effective to “contract out” the work you do?

In today’s competitive, ever changing healthcare economy it’s almost a given that at some point you’re going to have to re-invent your professional self. You’ll have to assess at your strengths, your experience, your relationships, and your mastery to take the leap of faith into uncharted territory.

The new healthcare economy doesn’t need therapists who follow orders and perform therapy as usual. It needs just the opposite. The therapist of the future will need to have an entrepreneur mindset who can see an unmet need and create an innovative services or products that addresses what the market is willing to pay for.

Do you have the survival skills needed for future employment in healthcare?

Therapy Freelancers

By 2020, 40 to 50% American workers will be freelancers. (Thomas Fisher “The Contingent Workforce and Public Decision Making”) A key quote on the rise of the contingent workforce:

“For the private sector, the rise of a sizable free-lance workforce will transform what we think of as the ‘office’. As Dana Shaw, a Senior Vice President for Staffing Industry Analysts, sees it, “Currently,the average mix of contingents in the Fortune 100 is 20-30 percent of the workforce, but it will evolve to 50 percent” by 2020.”

The article goes on to suggest that governments at all levels need to respond to the rapidly growing number of contingent (freelancers, contractors, temps, etc.) workers with new policies and approaches.

In other words, your professional degree in therapy and years of clinical experience may not have prepared you to compete in the new marketplace. This is where physical therapists often decide to shy away from market forces in private practice, opting instead for the safety of a larger entity that is run by so-called business and marketing experts.

Unfortunately, it might not be as safe as it seems and it might not be the type of work that is professionally satisfying

You might be asking what a freelance healthcare worker looks like or what skills must be mastered to be a freelance therapist.

Develop Your Expertise

Competing for jobs in growing freelance workplace is like completing in a triathlon. Unlike a marathon or a bike race, a triathlon presents a unique challenge to even the fittest of athletes. A triathlete must complete three separate but continuous endurance disciplines. The most popular types of triathlons include swimming, biking and running.

The total time of all three events counts toward how well you perform. You can be a great swimmer but a lousy runner and not do well. Or you could be the fastest biker but sink like a rock in the water and not be competitive. Elite triathletes pride themselves in being total athletes, as evidenced by their competitive performance in multiple events.

To survive in a freelance workforce you’ll need three types of expertise:

1. Clinical expertise
2. Business expertise
3. Marketing expertise

This may be your first stumbling block as you feel you have mastered your clinical expertise over years of practice and providing therapy to patients but haven’t had the opportunity to learn business and marketing.

Rest assured and be encouraged, you are not aiming to be a jack-of-all-trades but rather a master of the essentials ones. You don’t need to have a masters in business and marketing to be excellent at the basic fundamentals that make a business successful.

Big hospitals and corporations may be slow to recognize the growing professional disastisifaction among their full time and part time staff. Few adminstrators are paying attention to the bright therapy entrepreneurs who have taken note and are taking their talent directly to the marketplace.

Many therapists, thanks to technology, will choose to become freelancers who work for themselves. They will be willing to  trade financial stability for professional and personal freedom. Freelancers impact will felt more in the future as Fisher predicts that by 2030 the majority of the workforce will be independent workers.

Are you prepared for the freelance therapy workforce? Many therapists need to be but aren’t.

What is one action step you can take to improve your expertise for the future?

 

Announcements

I’m launching a Cash Practice Pilot Course for therapists interested in starting their own private practice on January 13th 2016.

The course promises to help students build a solid business foundation that will take students from a practice idea to seeing their first patient. I’m limiting the class to 15 students because I will provide one-on-one coaching to help students do whatever it takes to launch their own practice pilot clinic.

The Pilot Course will start on January 13, 2016. There are still a few open spots for new students.

If you’re interested please email me at heypaul@paulpotterpt.com and type Pilot Signup in the subject line. I’ll arrange phone call so I can answer your questions about the pilot course.

You all are amazing people and you are doing some pretty amazing things. Keep it up. I hope to inspire, encourage and provide you quality information so that you can continue to make a difference in your part of the universe.