Josh Funk on Scaling Rehab 2 Perform and the Business Future of PT

In this episode, Seth Peterson talks with Josh Funk, founder of Rehab 2 Perform, about private practice ownership, business growth, staffing, reimbursement, clinical education, and the future of physical therapy. Josh shares how his own rehab experience at Ohio State inspired him to build a more active, performance-oriented community rehab model. He explains how early entrepreneurial experiments, side hustles, personal training, coaching, and customer service roles helped prepare him to launch Rehab 2 Perform just three years after PT school. The conversation covers practical resources for clinicians interested in business, including SBDC, SCORE, local accelerators, and the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. Josh also discusses what it takes to grow from one clinic to 17, how to understand payer value and internal economy, and why practice owners need to treat staff recruitment with the same strategic attention they give patient acquisition. Josh also describes how residency programs can serve as attraction magnets, career accelerators, and company-wide education engines. The episode closes with a forward-looking conversation about healthspan, diagnostics, wellness screening, and why physical therapists should become more proactive in risk stratification and prevention-oriented care. Key Takeaways 01. Great business ideas often come from bad personal experiences. 02. Josh’s own contrast between high-level rehab at Ohio State and community-based care helped spark the Rehab 2 Perform concept. 03. Microdose entrepreneurship before you cut the cord. 04. Josh emphasizes side hustles, coaching, training, and customer service as low-risk ways to build business skills before opening a practice. 05. Free business mentorship exists. Use it. 06. SBDC, SCORE, local accelerators, and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses helped Josh build business literacy without draining early-stage cash. 07. Practice owners must understand reimbursement. 08. Josh argues that owners need to understand payer value, administrative burden, MPPR, billing differences, cash services, and the internal economy of the practice. 09. Staff acquisition needs a funnel. 10. Many practices have a patient marketing funnel, but no talent funnel. Josh sees this as a major missed opportunity. 11. Residency can raise the floor across a company. 12. A residency program does not only benefit the resident. It creates a pourover effect that can improve the whole clinical ecosystem. 13. Build a process-dependent company, not a people-dependent company. 14. High achievers may leave. The owner’s job is to operationalize their genius so the organization keeps growing. 15. PT needs to move into healthspan and diagnostics. 16. Josh believes the public is ready for proactive screening, risk stratification, wellness, and physical capability conversations. Find Josh and Rehab 2 Perform: https://rehab2perform.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjoshfunk/