PPS: Our Mission Is Your Success
By Allyson Pahmer
It is fitting that this Impact issue about innovative business and entrepreneurialism coincides with the Private Practice Section (PPS) Annual Conference in Las Vegas because that is also what our conference is about. Countless hours of work go into delivering an event that brings together the best minds in business and practice management to expand your thinking about new business models and renew the entrepreneurial spark that led you to private practice in the first place.
In fact, the mission of PPS is to champion the success of the physical therapist in business. I love the verb champion; its many meanings—advance, support, advocate, give a leg up to, defend, bolster, encourage, go to bat for—guide the programs and benefits that the PPS Board, Committees, and staff develop and deliver to you, our members, every day.
Several years went into studying business models under PPS Board-directed Business Model Task Forces. Physical therapist services have grown in response to societal demand and market forces, but uncertainty over health care reform and its consequences for private practice have stimulated conversation about the business models permissible under the PPS tent. To study and address these issues, the PPS Board commissioned a Business Model Task Force in 2011 and a second Board Business Model Task Force in 2014. (Their reports, as well as the results of an extensive survey of PPS members, are available to members on the PPS website.) In 2015, as a result of the Task Force’s work, the Board released a statement endorsing all physical therapists’ business models that improve the experience of care, improve the health of populations, and reduce per capita costs of health care. The Board also included a Business Innovation goal in the 2015-2018 PPS Strategic Plan that directs the section to “provide a safe and engaging place to share best practice and process improvement, and provide an exciting place to grow creative and disruptive business opportunities.”
Valuable benefits and exciting new programs have resulted from that goal. For example, PPS launched the Peer2Peer NetWorks earlier this year from an idea hatched by the Education Committee. The program, which is modeled after the Mastermind principle, brings together groups of individuals who meet on a regular basis to help each other achieve their highest potential by sharing best practices and holding each other accountable for innovation (see page 24 for more information). The “Class of 2016” was such a success, we’re now recruiting the next group of NetWork participants to kick off the Class of 2017.
The Education Committee is also to thank for PPS-presented webinars this year on forming strategic alliances, alternative delivery models, and cash-based wellness programming, to name only a few. This year also saw the launch of a five-part video series on Marketing your Practice and a seven-part video series on Finance.
The Annual Conference Work Group, responsible for planning the education in Las Vegas this month, takes to heart the PPS Strategic Plan objective to provide a forum for discussion to foster innovation in physical therapists’ businesses. I’m eager to hear Ann Rhoades, Keynote Speaker and author of “Built on Values,” share her ideas about building a business culture that outperforms the competition. So many of the sessions at the conference address business innovation. I can’t wait to hear how you’ve been inspired!
You read in the August Impact how the Payment Policy Committee has commissioned Task Forces on vertical integration and joint partnerships, as well as to develop a framework for a participating provider contract that could be held with a third party payer built on a value-based model. The very magazine you’re holding has been an invaluable resource to so many members in introducing new models of practice and informing members about innovating business models.
The examples above paint an incomplete picture of all the resources PPS has developed and launched since last year’s Annual Conference, all in the service of your success, and all just on the topic of business innovation and entrepreneurialism. There are so many more resources—on management, marketing, HR, and more—that we hope you will explore. I look forward to seeing many of you in Las Vegas. Let us know how we’re doing, and thank you—as always—for your membership.
Allyson Pahmer Executive Director, PPS