Monetizing vs Pricing Your Physical Therapy Treatments

Pricing Physical Therapy Services

There are several ways to price physical therapy services. Value-based pricing, third party payer pricing, comparative pricing.

Third Party Payer Pricing

Most physical therapy providers simply use the Medicare part B physician fee schedule to establish a base reimbursement rate then double that rate to establish their pricing.

In my opion this is one of the least logical ways to price physical therapy service, but it is by far the most common way.

Comparative Pricing

In this model, a physical therapy clinic will call several other local clinics to gain an average cash rate then in a somewhat arbitrary fashion choose a price above the lowest and below the highest.

Another form of comparative pricing is to look at what local massage therapists, personal trainers, and chiropractors are charging for services, then base your pricing against that average.

Value-Based Pricing

My favorite of the three pricing models for physical therapy services is called Value-Based Pricing (VBP). In this case, pricing would depend on the value and worth to the consumer.

A grandma who loves to garden and babysit her grandchildren will be charged a lower rate for a post surgical rotator cuff repair plan of care than a professional baseball pitcher who is returning to a multimillion dollar contract.

The plan of care is worth more to the baseball player than the grandmother.

Monetizing Your Service

In the pricing model your client is paying the price. Or your client’s insurance company or employer is paying the price for your services.

In a monetization revenue structure you are taking the value in the service you deliver to your client and finding other consumers who are eager to pay for access to that client or the information generated by the delivery of that service.

Monetization examples:

Selling Education – if I have a referral for a unique, post surgical initial evaluation and plan of care, there may be physical therapy students and occupational therapy students who would want to buy video access (LIVE or recorded) to watch me perform this particular evaluation. Once this has been recorded it because a digital asset that generates revenue for months and sometimes years. 

One initial evaluation that has been recorded and made available to students at a $10 price could generate 10 sales a month for 12 months totalling $1,200 per year. Since it doesn’t lose its value that could be sold for 10 years generating a total income of $12,000.

Selling Ads – YouTube is a great platform that allows a therapist to help millions of individuals who are often underserved around the world. YouTube’s monetization program pays content creators 65% of ad revenue. 

I have recently started monetizing my initial evaluations with a point of view (POV) video of day 1 outpatient physical therapy for total knee replacements.

Selling Community – Creating a paid Facebook group or other online community is another way to monetize your physical therapy practice. By hosting weekly or monthly LIVE question and answer events you are able to charge one time access fees or recurring monthly fees to individuals who are unable to become your patient but benefit from accessing your knowledge and experience.

Conclusion:

There are multiple advantages to focus on monetizing your physical therapy service over pricing your physical therapy service, but the highest level of success would likely come from doing both.

If you would like to learn more about this topic or discuss it in greater detail please consider joining my Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mcrbilling and starting a conversation!