The 3 Most Discussed Topics at PPS 2024
Paul reports from PPS 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland, on staffing shortages and onboarding, how acquirers are responding to the rate cut, and how to evaluate new technology for your practice.
Full transcript
Generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability.
Good morning and welcome to the private practice section conference here at the Gaylord National in National Harbor, Maryland. Here's the floor right behind us, the private practice section conference 2024. And I can tell you having been here now for three days, this is absolutely one of the best PPS events that they have ever put on. Why? Well, I think the private practice section and the APA, obviously, they do a brilliant job at blending large practices, choirs, publicly traded companies, private equity back companies, and small privately held physical therapy practices.
Why is it so important to make that blend? Because how can companies improve whether they're big companies that can talk to small practitioners and get tidbits of information or small practices getting wisdom from some of the larger companies as well and I think that sharing of information has been so phenomenal especially at this conference. So why has this conference been so special? Well, some of the major topics that are being dis discussed here and I'm going to talk really mainly about three of them. First is staffing shortages.
Big companies are having the issue as well as small privately held companies. And what are some of the thoughts around that on how companies are not falling into that staffing shortage? Because at the same time, anytime you have a shortage of anything, what happens? The price goes up. So when you have a staffing shortage, the cost of physical therapy, physical therapists is also going up. How do we tackle this? Well, first of all, when you're recruiting, you need to have a very slick recruiting platform that a therapist can get on and very quickly fill out their name, if they're a therapist, and an immediate response to when can they have an interview.
In that interview, you need to tell the story and you need to have some of your staff tell the same exact story so they get a real good feeling of the culture that they're going to have. The biggest thing is on boarding. When therapists join a new company and the onboarding process is fragmented and doesn't happen on a systematic process, there's a big chance that you're going to have a retention problem. Training, on boarding, const consistent training maintains good solid retention and it's that retention where you are able to make gains in your profitability because you're not continually having to replace therapists.
That's been a huge topic of discussion here and I think there's been a lot of ideas thrown around. So, make sure you come back next year so you can hear some of these ideas. On the other front, it's on the merger and acquisition landscape. What's going on with this rate cut? What's happening in the industry now? And what we're hearing from acquirers as well as from potential sellers. First of all, yes, there's a rate cut. Money becomes cheaper as large companies leverage, and I mean leverage to pay higher multiples and to have higher values.
But the way the acquirers are talking, they are going to be very selective in the companies that they're going to be willing to acquire. Why? Because in 2021 and 2022 when they also had inexpensive capital, they made some mistakes. So they're going to be very selective. So what we've been talking about and what I think a lot of folks here are talking about is how can you be prepared and how can you be ready? And that's going to be a topic for another day. But you have to be prepared for this market because the acquirers are ready.
You have to match their readiness if you want to be at the top of their list. So what is the third thing that's being talked about? As I look back here, I cannot tell you how many of the booths this year are focused on innovation. Whether it's innovation for AI, innovation for remote patient monitoring, there is a lot of innovation that is coming into our industry. So what do you do? Do you go out and just start buying all the innovative things that are going on?
No, you have to be very selective as well. And that's why this conference was so phenomenal because you could actually talk to the people who are selling these devices and you can get a really good insight at some other potential clients that they have and users that they have to better understand whether their product is truly making absolute changes in your business. If it does not improve performance, you don't need it. Finally, if you did not attend the private practice section conference this year, I urge you to attend next year.
Orlando, Florida could not be a better venue, and I look forward to seeing you all next year. And for now, I am going to sign off. If you would like to talk to me or have any questions, just click below. Let's talk. Thanks. Have a great weekend.
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