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if you're a physio listening to this which you most likely are imagine yourself when you go see a doctor or a dentist or any allied health professional the easiest way is just to put yourself in the patient's shoes and just treat people how you want to be treated it's like what we learned in primary school right and if we just take that simple principle and apply it on ourselves i think we can go a long way

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In today's episode, we'll explore how trust, resilience and collaboration are key to thriving as a physio in private practice.

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From building meaningful rapport with patients to embracing rejection and knowing when to delegate, we'll discuss how showing up consistently and authentically can drive success and growth in your practice.

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Dan Cheng is the owner and head physio at The Flexing Physio based in Melbourne, where he treats a variety of clinical presentations and he is passionate about helping new grad physios feel more confident in practice.

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Today's discussion was one I'm sure you're going to enjoy.

1:04

I'm Sarah Yule and this is Physio Explained.

1:12

Dan, thanks so much for joining us today on the podcast.

1:16

Thank you for inviting me. I feel like a little kid finally being able to talk to the hero.

1:24

Physio Network has always been such a a big part of my clinician life, and it's been since I was a student.

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So to be able to jump on a podcast with yourself, speaking to the people who listen to the podcast, thank you for having me.

1:39

It's great to be here.

1:40

Oh, well, I think the energy and reciprocity goes both ways.

1:45

So let's dive in. As a physio, your technical expertise and one's technical expertise is essential to But it's also the ability to really connect with your patients that often makes that difference.

1:59

And trust is built gradually, one moment at a time, and it can at times be lost quite quickly.

2:05

So how have you found the balance between your clinical knowledge and rapport building in your practice?

2:11

Yeah, that's a great question. And that's something I'm super passionate about.

2:15

As a physio who's been working for about five years, I'm at that stage now where you're starting to feel pretty confident in your day-to-day.

2:23

You've seen enough patients to have a bit of pattern recognition and you can be a little bit more blunt, but in a confident way, if that makes sense.

2:33

When you first start as a new grad, you're often umming and ahhing when patient asks you, so how long is this going to take to get better?

2:41

You often second guess a lot of things.

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But now I'm about five years out and now I'm feeling a lot more confident when I do give them their timeframes.

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So I feel like I've worked for five years.

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I've seen that many patients in my career so far.

2:57

In my experience, I found that rapport building is super, super duper important.

3:03

And the clinical knowledge, actually, it is still important.

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But in the first consult, especially when you meet the person for the first time, your clinical knowledge probably doesn't mean as much compared to how well you can connect with them on a human level.

3:19

And I've had so many experiences where when I do have a really good result when it comes to rapport building and you build that trust, you might actually make them a little bit worse.

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Obviously, not what you want to hear when they come back for the second time, but then they don't.

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blame you. Essentially, they actually just say, oh, look, it's probably just the injury itself and they don't go blaming you.

3:44

But on the other hand, I've had situations where maybe I didn't build as much rapport as I could have, slightly made them worse, and then they've come and attacked me.

3:53

And that's never nice. And that's like, as a physio, as a young physio, that's like your biggest fear.

3:59

So I think rapport building is is super important and you should try to spend the first at least three or four minutes in the initial consult just trying to connect with them on a human level.

4:11

I think those are fantastic points and I know there was a study done a couple of years ago on what are the qualities of a good physiotherapist and a lot of the points that are listed, I'm racking my brains to remember it now, but a lot of the points listed are beyond clinical.

4:26

There is clinical competency listed but the main points were sort of around those non-clinical attributes and around rapport building of, are they responsive?

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Are they caring? Do they follow up? All of those things.

4:40

Yeah, which is interesting because when we first graduate uni, we put so much pressure on ourselves to perform clinically.

4:48

And can we do that Lachman's anterior draw test?

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Can we diagnose them in the first 30 seconds of meeting them?

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But then all that stuff becomes less important when you realize, hey, if they don't even trust you, you can give them the best exercises, you can give them the best programs, but if they don't trust you, the likelihood of them adhering to your homework becomes less.

5:11

So what are your thoughts then on if you sort of boil it down to some key ingredients, what are the main components of rapport building in a consult?

5:20

Yeah, I think taking away that clinician-patient barrier is super important.

5:26

I often tell people the first impression is the last impression.

5:30

So the way that you go and collect your patient from the waiting room, it starts from there, essentially.

5:35

Well, actually, it starts from when they book the consult, either over the phone or online, the way that the emails that are being sent out for the confirmation of booking, it starts there, essentially.

5:46

And then when you meet them patient for the first time, as I said, the first impression is the last impression.

5:51

So the way you conduct yourself, the way you greet them, all super important.

5:55

But then I also say that body language is another crucial one that we often don't talk a lot about as physios.

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What I mean by body language is when you're recording a podcast with a friend and you guys are just chewing the fat and you guys are seated back, laid back, maybe have a drink at hand versus...

6:13

A scene from The Dark Knight where Batman's interrogating the Joker, and it's extremely intense.

6:19

There's that two contrasting vibes of the room.

6:22

So I often tell people, when you're doing your subjective history for the first time, just sit back, relax, and learn to listen more than you speak.

6:31

And I think that will get you some pretty good results when it comes to rapport building.

6:35

Two ears, one mouth for a reason, hey?

6:38

Those are some fantastic points. So essentially, it's that idea of weaving rapport and the humanness in amongst the clinical knowledge that we are armed with.

6:50

Yes, that's right. Just think about it from this perspective.

6:53

If you're a physio listening to this, which you most likely are, imagine yourself when you go see a doctor or a dentist or any allied health professional.

7:02

The easiest way is just to put yourself in the patient's shoes and say, Just treat people how you want to be treated.

7:08

It's like what we learned in primary school, right? And if we just take that simple principle and apply it on ourselves, I think we can go a long way.

7:16

100%. Absolutely.

7:18

So changing gears for a moment, being a clinic owner yourself and a clinician, rejection and failure is something that we all encounter, yet often it's something that we might try to avoid.

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but it's an inevitable part of the journey.

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And I think the most successful individuals learn to embrace it.

7:38

How have you approached rejection and what role has it played in your growth journey?

7:44

That's a really good question because I've owned this clinic now for nearly two years.

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And especially in the first couple of months where I was really trying to get my name out there and let the GPs in the area know that I'm here, And I've got availability and I can see your patience and I'm kind of good at what I do and I can really help you guys.

8:03

The first few months, I found I became really good friends with rejection.

8:09

And let me just say, it doesn't get easier.

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And I think after you go home and lock yourself in a room, I think after you do that, I think you've got to just embrace the fact that when people reject you, You need to try and take it professionally and not personally.

8:27

And this quote, I think, comes from Gordon Ramsay, which is quite ironic because he's pretty good at dishing out insults and rejection to his workers.

8:36

But yeah, I think that goes a long way.

8:38

If you can learn to understand that when someone rejects you as a physio, they're most likely not rejecting you as a person, but they're rejecting your services.

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And perhaps that's just not what they need at that point in time.

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So that's okay. Learn to move on and go on to the next one.

8:55

There's always another GP clinic.

8:57

For myself, I just embrace the idea that you have to cast the net wide.

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And when it comes to clinic, physio clinics and GP clinics, I find that you go to say 100 GP clinics, you might only get three really good referrers.

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And you know what? Honestly, that's all you need to set you up.

9:16

If you've got three decent referrers, that's all you need.

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So cast the net wide. And

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then hopefully the fish you get are good fish.

9:42

I think those are great

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points. I think the idea of not taking rejection personally, I can't remember who said the quote, but it's this idea of having productive regret.

9:59

So you learn from your errors, but also if you're going to fail, fail well.

10:03

So at least understand why someone might not be coming back or why someone might not like your services, being comfortable with that and then moving forward.

10:12

Yeah, that's true. And I'm glad you raised that point because then starting to work as a physio, you obviously start meeting clients and You might be promoting your services.

10:21

You might be trying to rebook them for X amount of weeks or X amount of days.

10:25

And they might go, they might say no. And they might not give you an answer.

10:28

Might be a financial point of view. It might be because they don't trust you anymore.

10:32

It could be anything. So how you take that rejection and understand why, as you said, and then learning and then becoming better so that that reason never becomes a reason for a next patient to say no to you.

10:45

100%. There's always the things that we can...

10:48

control and there's always the variables like the financial circumstances or whatever it might be that are beyond our control.

10:55

On your consistency point of your consistency with referrals and just segwaying into the power of consistency, success is really about this single breakthrough moment, but it's the result of consistent effort over time.

11:10

And I think as Simon Sinek says, it's not about being the best, it's about being better than you were yesterday.

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How have you found persistence and consistency have shaped your path to success?

11:22

I'm glad you touched on that point. Have you read the book Atomic Habits or heard of it?

11:26

Oh, yes. There's that idea of the ice turning into water and you might be raising the temperature degree by degree, but then you might not see any changes if the temperature is still under zero.

11:39

You might be Chipping away at it, you might be showing up every day.

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But then once the temperature hits over zero degrees, well, then that solid ice cube starts changing state and then starts melting and becoming water.

11:51

And then you start seeing the results. So that first couple of degrees, you're moving, but you might not feel like you're moving.

11:59

So that's been sort of my motto for the last year and a half since I started this clinic.

12:04

And to be completely honest, when I started this clinic, it wasn't because I wanted to start it.

12:10

My wife, she's a really driven, ambitious person.

12:13

She works as an accountant, so she's very number-based.

12:16

And she just said to me, look, you've reached your financial cap.

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I think it's time that you think about opening a clinic.

12:21

Nudge, nudge, nudge. Anyway, long story short, I ended up biting the bullet and we just went for it.

12:27

So this is a very long story condensed to a two-sentence.

12:31

So the idea of consistency and showing up just couldn't be truer when it's applied to my life.

12:37

currently opening this clinic. I think just showing up and this can go for both having a successful clinic and also anything in life, whether it's physical, like running goals or bodybuilding goals or whatever physical goals you have.

12:52

There's nothing greater power in the universe than consistency.

12:57

And this is something that I like to tell my patients as well when it comes to their health.

13:02

So yeah, sorry, I forgot your question, but that's my thoughts on that.

13:06

So what I heard from that is recorded, your wife is always right.

13:12

And number two, consistency is important as clinicians and as the message that we provide to our patients.

13:19

Yeah, yeah. And just you raised another good point there, which is just being 1% better than you were yesterday.

13:26

So from a physio point of view, you want to be working on your clinical excellency.

13:31

So having resources like physio network or reading articles you don't want to try and read a million articles on day one and then then that's it but then just trying to chip away at it day in day out and then eventually over years and years of consistency you're going to have all that knowledge banked and you're going to be able to apply it better onto your patients great advice

13:53

I recall a conversation that I had with a wonderful physio, Darren Ross, who's been on here before as well.

13:59

In the context of our referrers, he's very good at consistently sending out thank you for referring letters.

14:06

And it's something that I endeavor to do as well.

14:08

And sometimes you can feel like you're sending these letters out and out, but eventually that consistency does pay off because you are in that referrer's ether by virtue of the fact that, oh, actually they've sent six thank you letters in the last couple of weeks.

14:25

So there's definitely merit to us as physios being consistent with that reciprocity of thanking someone for a referral as well.

14:35

That's right. And then when we relate with GPs and when they send us a patient, being good at sending a letter back, even though GPs may or may not read it or they might even just skim it, but that's reinforced every time you send that thank you letter or update letter, you're reinforcing that relationship you have with that clinic and with that GP.

14:56

And then the payoff is that you'll be in their mind more, more likely, and then they're more likely to send new patients to you for treatment.

15:05

A hundred percent. And I think it's that ripple effect of who we are as a clinician and what our method of practice is as well.

15:13

It's an extension of our own brand as Sarah Ewell and Dan Chang.

15:19

That's it. Yep, absolutely agree.

15:22

Now that your wife has encouraged you to set up this fabulous clinic, as your responsibilities grow, learning when to delegate or outsource tasks can be quite a game changer for you so that you can focus on growth.

15:37

How do you decide when it's time to hand off tasks and trust others to step in?

15:41

Yeah, this is another great question because I've had this clinic for nearly two years.

15:46

And at the moment, the person you're speaking to is the physio, the admin staff, the cleaner, the security guard, everything.

15:57

So yeah, I'm currently doing most things around the clinic.

16:00

And not going to lie, it's pretty demanding on both the mentally perspective because there's a lot of things to think about.

16:08

At the moment, though, I'm pretty fortunate that my accounts and all that are all being handled by my wife.

16:14

So numbers stuff, it's all her.

16:16

So she's got that under control. But there will come a time where I do need to perhaps hire a reception staff and learn to delegate roles.

16:25

I'm actually not too sure when that point is coming.

16:28

I'm actually trying to think about whether it's time to put on another physio or not.

16:32

Because at the moment, my books are getting quite full, thankfully.

16:35

And I've only got so much time to do the stuff that I need.

16:39

And it's hard to tick every single box as a solo artist.

16:43

practitioner. So yeah, this is something that I personally struggle with.

16:46

And I think if you've opened a clinic and you're in similar shoes to me, you might also understand their feeling.

16:52

I think where the next step comes is when I really do get too busy and I start to reduce the quality of certain things.

16:59

That's where I'll go. You know what? I need to start thinking about delegation and hiring help.

17:05

Absolutely. It sounds like that would be a pretty wild Christmas party with you playing all of those roles.

17:11

Yeah, just me talking to myself.

17:14

Thank you so much for your time today and for all of those pearls of wisdom.

17:19

I think we can all implement those into our practice tomorrow.

17:23

sounds good yeah and i just want to encourage anyone that's listening to this whether you're a young graduate or you've been working for 20 000 years i just want to say keep on fighting the good fight and i know that in the world of physio there's so much misinformation and they said this is where following good networks like physio network on instagram can be really good to help you stay up to date and yeah keep changing lives one sit to stand at a time Excellent words.

17:53

Thanks so much Daniel.