Where Physical Therapy Goes From Here

So the sort of existential question around physical therapy is when is it going to grow up and be a real doctoring profession? I feel like we have for many, many years given it lip service.

And so 2026 to me is that inflection point where we have the chance to really, really grow up and be that doctoring profession.

And why is that? Well, we've had this incredible, unprecedented demand by patients for physical therapy.

We've won that battle.

Years ago, I used to tell people I was in private practice physical therapy, 70% of the population didn't know there was such a thing as private practice physical therapy, and the other 30% didn't care, right? And so now we have people who are desiring what we do, particularly on the musculoskeletal side.

And so we have, we no longer need courses on marketing.

Our patients are coming to us in pretty substantial numbers.

We've had significant growth in the profession.

It's going to slow down a little bit this year and already has partly because of the storms, I guess.

So that is that has been the emphasis, you know, for years.

And I know you've done this as well.

And we've had other podcasts where we compare notes on what our predictions are for the year.

And I've done it many, many years, some some years, I bet a little better than others.

And, you know, it allows me to just reflect on the profession where we're at.

And also it allows me to really be in community with a lot of PTs because a lot of these aren't just my opinions.

I talk to an enormous number of people on the academic side, on the private practice side, those that work in hospitals and acute care, those who, you know, work.

in non PT roles and those who are clinicians.

And I try to get perspectives and where the pulse of those is at.

And I've had the privilege to work alongside so many PTs over the years that I wanted to stay really, really involved in the profession that's allowed me to do that.

But when I look out this year and I see what's happened is, you know, we have patients wanting us.

We have more employers directing their own employees to digital, primarily digital solutions, but at least it gets the term physical therapy in there.

You have You know, Medicare and Medicare Advantage, the graying of America, getting unprecedented utilization in physical therapy, the combination of those two.

And so it's it's time for us to embrace technology and grow up as a profession.

And so I made, I think, you know, four or five predictions along the lines of, you know, You know, first of all, you know, all the areas around RTM and what that is going to do, remote therapeutic monitoring.

And now that it has been sort of normalized, if you will, or has been given its street credibility, what does that mean? Then I made some.