About this episode

The episode discusses why patients often stop attending physical therapy after their third visit, exploring the mismatch between expectations and reality.

This week on PT Breakfast Club, Jimmy McKay and Dave Kittle start with a simple patient text exchange and end up inside one of the biggest problems in physical therapy: Expectation rarely matches reality. Dave shares how he responds when a prospective patient asks whether his clinic is in-network or out-of-network. Instead of dodging the question or pushing the sale, he explains the difference between choosing the lowest-cost option and choosing a higher-touch model. That opens the door to a larger conversation about why patients often disappear after visit three. Is it really because patients do not care? Is it because they will not do their home exercises? Or is the experience inconsistent enough that leaving is actually a rational consumer response? Jimmy and Dave talk about the in-network volume model, cash-pay customer acquisition costs, personal training, patient switching, the third-place concept, Equinox, Planet Fitness, Starbucks, Ironman, APTA, payment advocacy, and whether physical therapy can ever become more than a series of appointments. The episode closes with a practical reminder: the easiest growth lever is not always finding new patients. Sometimes it is serving…

People in this episode

Host: Jimmy McKay

Guest: Dave Kittle

Topics covered

• patient experience
• physical therapy
• in-network vs out-of-network
• patient retention
• expectation vs reality
• cash practices
• experience design

Keywords

• patient dropout
• physical therapy
• in-network care
• out-of-network care
• experience design
• cash practices
• home exercises
• patient retention

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: APTA, Equinox, Planet Fitness, Starbucks, Ironman

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