Dr Andrew Greenland: 0:07

Okay, so welcome back to Voices in Health and Wellness. This is the podcast where we explore what's shaping the future of care, from inside the clinic to the heart of the community. I'm your host, dr Andrew Greenland, and today's guest brings a rare blend of clinical insight and entrepreneurial energy to the table. Joining me today is Dr Eric Bloom, doctor of Physical Therapy, board Certified Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist and founder of Bloom Performance and Rehab. Eric has built something unique a fast-growing practice that's not only redefining patient care in Arizona, but also extending its impact through corporate wellness partnerships across the US. At the intersection of rehab performance and preventative care, eric is helping to bridge the often-missing link between clinical outcomes and everyday wellness. So in today's episode, we'll dive into how he's scaling his vision and why integration, not specialization, is the future of medicine. So, eric, thank you very much for joining us on the show Thanks for having me, Dr Lee.

Dr Eric Bloom: 1:00

I appreciate being here.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 1:01

Thank you Really appreciate your time, so could you maybe talk through what your role looks like at Bloom Performance and Rehab? Just to kick us off.

Dr Eric Bloom: 1:08

Yeah, so I started this probably about eight years ago. So I've been out in practice 16 years. So I wanted to figure out. I saw the trend early on in my career with just the way medicine was going and I think this is not just here in the States, but you know, care is getting a little bit diminished for whatever reason, whether it's revenue is the, the prime driver or some other you know component of it. So I want to kind of find a way to try to bridge the gap between still providing quality care but having a sustainable, successful business. So I'm eight years in and been through quite a unique dynamic with you know kovat and some other avenues that as business owners, you know we run into roadblocks and other problems that we can't expect, so kind of always it's up and down with it. So I was knowing, as time was going on, I've always wanted to have an integrated practice at some point. So I was able back in 2019 to purchase my own suite that I work in right now to be able to integrate other forms of you know health care providers, whatever it might be. So for a little while prior to COVID, I had an anesthesiologist that was in here doing some work with me, so he was a friend of mine and kind of got tired of, you know, just doing specific surgical work. So we wanted to integrate some clinical work. So we were working together to try to find a more efficient, effective way to address patient problems in office from a you know, management of truly the medical side, along with, like, the physical therapy side, to expedite that process, give patients, you know, care that they typically wouldn't get as efficiently and quickly and find a way to alter that. And so that kind of started the whole process with it.

Dr Eric Bloom: 2:50

And then back in 2022, early 23, I'm a founder, one of the co-founders, of Unwind Wellness, which basically is bringing non-traditional modalities like red light therapy, exogen with oxygen, pemf, things like that, to figure out how those, from a science standpoint, can be integrated into a practice to provide alternative measures besides just medicine. So my big premise was medicine, wellness it's all on the same spectrum. It depends on where that patient is. If somebody's sick, injured, hurt, have surgery, they're more medical driven. Someone's passed that process and now they're recovering Well, their medical care doesn't stop and now becomes wellness.

Dr Eric Bloom: 3:33

So we wanted to find a way to make it medically driven from a wellness side versus you know, some of these just random wellness facilities that pop up and may not have a medical component to it and figure out where along that spectrum is a patient and how do we keep them in that spectrum and more on the healthy wellness side versus having to resort back to the medical injured side. Because we see that all the time, right, people get better, they're done well. We don't do much to sustain that and keep them from getting back um, whether or not hurt or injured. So I wanted to find a way to have them continue to be in my practice but not always treat them on the medical injured hurt side, and so that's kind of how we integrated a wellness component and it's still in the early stages but we're seeing some pretty cool changes and benefits for people.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 4:17

Amazing. I think you mentioned in our email conversation that you were blending clinical and corporate wellness. Is that right and are you can?

Dr Eric Bloom: 4:25

you tell?

Dr Eric Bloom: 4:26

how you structure that from the kind of the corporate side yeah, that's kind of dependent on the individual kind of corporate component. So, um, one of my co-founders here has kind of been more in the business corporate world and so he was at a huge company around here and, interestingly enough, their companies, one of their biggest focuses, was adding wellness services to their employees. Because they're starting to figure out helps with retention, helps reduce costs, things like that which most maybe companies don't focus on as much. So we wanted to find a way well, how can we integrate data-driven, research-based modalities to help that? So we recently just were involved with one of our local hospitals in a fairly well-known institution in dignity health care out here with one of the hospitals that's two miles down the road, in their nurses week and providers week the last couple of weeks. So we opened up doors for them. Free services, just kind of treat them on. Hey, listen to wellness aspects of it, how it impacts you as a provider, what can you do for you, how can we integrate care for you as well? And so that's kind of a slow start of the corporate wellness that we're adding. And then as time goes on and we figure out what the needs of each corporate partner might be. What are they looking for One of the partners we've been looking at.

Dr Eric Bloom: 5:36

They do like BMI testing, old school testing, body weight nothing that's really that accurate. And so we've got like a 3D body scanner that we've been using for a while, and so now it gives us more data, and so our whole premise of everything we do is we don't know where you're going to go if we don't know where you're starting from, and so we try to get as much baseline data as we can to figure out, when we're doing some of these non-traditional modalities, where are we seeing changes down the road, and not just, you know, external changes. So we've also been trying to find, you know, companies to do different blood work or different biometric testing, things like that that we're slowly getting into, because then we can actually show that not only are you looking better, maybe externally, you're feeling better, we're actually seeing those changes internally in your body as well. So it's not just an appearance, look, it's kind of a total package that somebody's improving on got it.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 6:26

Do you have any particular kinds of clients or companies that you're working with on the wellness side, and is there a particular kind of companies that are more on the uptake for this kind of approach?

Dr Eric Bloom: 6:36

So I think getting in the in the healthcare system I mean you and I both know as providers I think sometimes we prioritize our health maybe less than you know some of the patients, because our whole role and I see it in the community you know I go out and you know people talk about like oh hey, I see one of my healthcare people like we always run into patients with it and then if I take time off, you know they're like hey where were you?

Dr Eric Bloom: 6:57

I'm like well, I had a doctor's appointment or had to take care of my own stuff.

Dr Eric Bloom: 7:01

You know and I think sometimes it's a misconception that you know healthcare workers don't need any health care themselves, you know, and so I think that's one big trend that we're seeing is a lot of these hospitals or companies are trying to figure out how to provide treatments or wellness modalities to their own healthcare providers, so that we don't forget about them, because I think we're.

Dr Eric Bloom: 7:22

It's a very common thing that gets left behind is how do we take care of ourselves when our primary goal is to take care of others, and it's just something that's harder to trend, and I think companies that value that we're starting to see better retention rates.

Dr Eric Bloom: 7:35

They're noticing that, you know, there may be less resources spent for time off and having to find coverage and things like that, and so we also look locally right now on companies that value wellness, and so we're trying to find companies that have wellness programs or that are looking to add wellness programs. So we know that there's at least interest from them, and maybe they don't know how to integrate it or implement it into their own business, but we do, and our goal is to figure out okay, what are your needs, how can we work together? And so we goal is to figure out okay, what are your needs, how can we work together? And so we're trying to figure out how to have the baseline information and products available for them, and so we just partner with them so they don't have to figure out how to do it on their own.

Dr Eric Bloom: 8:12

That's where our job is coming into play, is we're trying to integrate that into the wellness aspect for them so they don't have to do it because that's not their primary role. So if you're, you know, an engineering company or a tech company, you're likely not going to have. You know, you may have a wellness person on staff or something like that, but you're not going to probably have as much experience that we might have integrating this, you know, for several years. And so we're just trying to find people that have an interest of adding this to their business to hopefully, you know, keep their employees healthier, happier and just enjoy where they go to work every day Brilliant.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 8:46

What major shifts are you seeing in rehab and wellness space right now, and especially in your local area in the Arizona market?

Dr Eric Bloom: 8:54

So the big change is a lot of, you know, smaller companies like myself, you know, especially the last five years, have kind of gone to a bigger corporate realm and so within the last year or so there's been several different single owners like myself that have kind of come together and we've kind of created our own little mini network where we kind of have like a sister company. Now that we've created that oversees all of us just to help expedite with some of the back end things, as it's harder to run all your own billing, all your own HR, all of that stuff.

Dr Eric Bloom: 9:24

So instead of having to go to a true corporate field, we can still run and own our businesses like we've created with it. But it's taking some of that back end burden off of our hands and so that's a big thing that we've been trying to add. And so with that kind of partnership and merger we've got a like a physician assistant that comes in, and so she comes in once a week, and so she comes in once a week and so if we need something medical we don't have to worry about referring out to somebody else, waiting for that time frame and referring potentially to an orthopedic specialist. So we're trying to integrate even more than just the wellness side. Like how can we add a true medical side as needed, quicker and efficiently? Like in my clinic, in all of our locations we do diagnostic ultrasound. So you know there's a lot of effectiveness with that with certain conditions. So if somebody walks in, we're not waiting, you know, weeks sometimes for a high cost MRI. If it's not necessary we can get a baseline, look then determine kind of what route to go. So we're just trying to make things more efficient and effective, and arizona is one of the. I guess you can kind of stay leader with what's being done in the pt world. So a year ago they've given all kind of physical therapists the right to order any imaging as needed as well, and so we can do simple x-rays. There's even a potential that we're trying to figure out how to use it like simple blood work if we need that for a patient. Um, things that we can do.

Dr Eric Bloom: 10:44

So we're trying to figure out one what's our scope of care? What works for us? How do we integrate with a medical provider as needed, like where do we find that limit of what's appropriate for us? But also efficiently with the patient? And having somebody in here that's kind of a sports med, non-op trained person allows us to bounce ideas off them, work together together and we're seeing massive changes. So, like an example is I had a lady that came in here. She went to go get an MRI, took her three or four weeks to get in there. She shows up and they canceled it on her because it said oh, your insurance required something that they told they didn't right. So by the time we actually had her come in here to take a look, she literally was almost done with care by the time.

Dr Eric Bloom: 11:21

Somebody else needs to get another image, and so people are getting treated. They're getting what they need quicker and faster and more efficiently, and so we're trained to understand. Is it appropriate for, you know, pt? Is it appropriate for a referral? Where are we at? And so we're trying to minimize, you know, an immediate referral to a surgeon if unnecessary, because for them they're getting overwhelmed too.

Dr Eric Bloom: 11:44

I mean, there's so many patients in arizona that's growing. We know there's a massive need for health care providers. So if we can kind of ease some of the burden for the I want to say, less important but not as specific surgical cases, a lot of doctors are liking it. So then they know when we refer to them they've kind of passed all of those non-op things that are, hey, these are not working, or here's what they've done, and it's expediting that process for them as well too. So we're seeing kind of a seamless transition, which often you don't get in many states or who knows around internationally as well how that works. But we're seeing a huge change with integration and really patients are loving it.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 12:18

Amazing, would you say. Companies are becoming more open to preventative and wellness focused care. I think, by the previous thing you were saying in conversation, you've had some health care providers which are wanting to do things for their staff, which is great because obviously medical professionals need it. Or is it an uphill climb?

Dr Eric Bloom: 12:35

in general, I think it's still an uphill climb to an extent because they're larger companies, but there's a lot more people that are changing for it and I think generationally things just change. You know, I think Whoa, light shit off here. I think it's kind of a generational change. So some of the younger, you know generations, I think, have more things that they're interested when they come out of school as a job than maybe what I did 15 years ago, than maybe what somebody did 30 years ago, just because there's new technology and things available that we didn't have. So we're having to adapt to the market, the technology, to what that generation wants and I think for them they want a job that feels like they can be integrated, stay there kind of, have a lot of their needs met and you know, sometimes it's not easy to meet all of those.

Dr Eric Bloom: 13:25

But we're seeing a health and wellness program is a big thing. So I've been on forums and looking at different research things and they're finding out that you know a lot of people want health and wellness and so we can talk to, you know, different companies or you know we're even trying to integrate what we call kind of a strategic partnership with other medical practices that want to add this. Like they're finding that retention rates are better, employees are maybe wanting to go work there because now they have access to something that normally they might have to pay on their own to go elsewhere. Well, now it's actually in their own office, so it's still an uphill climb. I'm big on looking at the literature and researching everything, and so we always know that the research says one thing, but to get into clinical practice it takes some time. So, but someone's got to try to kind of grind away and get that change done, because if not, if no one's willing to push through, and you know we get stagnant or we know it's going to go in the opposite direction.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 14:18

Got it. So, with the changes in the industry, how are you positioning yourself at Bloom to stay ahead of things and sort of be market leader, bloom?

Dr Eric Bloom: 14:25

Johnson. So I think the big thing is really that integration and pushing like the wellness aspect. So just looking around and knowing the market like it's very unknown to a lot of people, you know, and we're finding out that as patients are coming in they're looking for some of this stuff and not knowing where to go. So if we offer this, knowing they're already looking for it, for us it makes sense. Then why do we need to potentially refer them elsewhere? So it's great from kind of a twofold standpoint. Patients want it.

Dr Eric Bloom: 14:57

I mean it could be good for a kind of a secondary revenue generation, because if they're trusting what we're doing on one aspect of it, then why can't we find a way to integrate something else that patients are already looking for, that we know they're going to go somewhere else too. But now if they know they trust what we're doing medically, why would they not trust us on a different avenue with it? And so it's trying to educate, inform, teach people that. But I think if we're not making a change and pushing forward, I mean I think we're going to see a big decline, especially with some control from insurance, reimbursement, things like that that we can't control. So we've got to be able to control the things that we can, and some of those are different business models, different approaches, modalities, techniques, things like that to continue to increase revenue but also provide quality care and services that patients are going to be looking for to help in their healing process, got it.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 15:48

So what's working well for you at Bloom right now in terms of all your initiatives and the things that you do and some of these things you've mentioned, but what's particularly working well for you as a business?

Dr Eric Bloom: 15:57

You know, I think the things that are really working the best are working with you know either those other, you know doctors, physicians, surgeons, that understand what we have to offer and so we've got people that come directly to us that'll be like hey, go to this pt place because we know they offer wellness modalities as well.

Dr Eric Bloom: 16:15

That, I think, would be good for you. So we're starting to see a small little trend of you know, not even just physical therapists but other health care providers that are starting to know more about this stuff, because it's not really traditional medicine by any standards. And the thing that people don't realize, like a lot of this stuff has been around since the 70s and 80s. I mean, nasa was kind of the first one to experiment with some of the, you know, pemf and some of the red light, and then they use it for kind of other reasons and they slowly kind of integrated it. There's more research on what it did at the cellular level, things like that. So for me it's always been a medical component, but it's just never been well known. So if we're now able to figure out how to work with other providers that know the benefits of it, now when a patient comes, I think their expectation is, hey, I'm not just going to get pt, or like what they think is the basic care, they're getting additional things that a lot of other places don't offer, because both their provider and then coming to see us, our goal was trying to be as efficient and effective in your care, and so here's how we're integrating these together. So, and as time goes on, trying to find more and more people that understand about it, and I think it's with anything that's new out there, you're always gonna have some of those early adopters that want it, people that are hesitant and say no, and then that middle population that wants to learn more, and so we're really trying to work with those providers that understand the benefit of it, that maybe they've used it, and I think what we're finding is, you know, even kind of like yourself with whether you're a non-traditional medical writer, whether you're a naturopath, functional medicine doctor, even chiropractic care, things like that that we would consider non-traditional. We're typically more open to some of those changes and ideas because they're already using some of that, and so that's kind of where we're seeing that benefit, and so I think there's always been too much of a clash between providers.

Dr Eric Bloom: 17:59

Like I always tell all my patients I'm like, if you're going somewhere and you're getting the benefit that you need, I'm never going to tell you to stop doing something. Let's find a way to work collectively together and find, maybe something that's being missed. Instead of being like, well, no, that's not being done the right way, like, how can we add to your care and not feel like you're starting over and so I? That's a big push that I do.

Dr Eric Bloom: 18:17

I think a lot of people get turned off and they say like, well, I told me that you're getting benefit from them, so why am I going to tell you not to go? Let's find a way to add things that are being that you aren't currently getting with different things that we can offer, and then see how, collectively, that treatment together is going to improve your care. And so we're starting to notice more and more of those providers that you know are more collaborative. Instead of, you know, feeling like we're, um, you know, two different businesses fighting for the same patients, we're seeing that, hey, we can actually work together and be successful and not push against each other interesting and, on the flip side, what's been sort of frustrating or slower than expected as you sort of grow and take your business forward number one thing.

Dr Eric Bloom: 19:00

Like anything, patients don't really fully understand a lot of the new additions and we kind of get stuck in our old ways. And you know there's still some that's like, well, let me see if I can, you know, do more research or figure it out, or I've never heard of it, so I don't know about it, and you know that that's kind of a challenge. And then you get some people who are like, well, I don't know about it. However, you know, I trust what you've done for me, so if you're bringing something in, I'm willing to learn more about it. So I think it's it's always a unique challenge because I think patients are always hesitant. And I mean the reality is, I think to some extent we've all probably been burned a little bit by something in the healthcare community, whether it's a provider, you know an insurance bill or something where it's like you show up and it gets canceled, like I think there's just that natural hesitation at times, and so I think they're they're they're kind of that fear driven component of well, I need to make sure I'm fully ready to understand what this new part is, because in the past it hasn't worked well for me and so I see a very kind of unique, complex patient population myself here, where that is definitely what's happened. They feel like they've gotten burned by the community, the you know different medical providers, maybe even from like medications, because they have reactions to it and they're told well, this is the only thing that can help and so they're not sure where to go. So anything that's new to them it's kind of an immediate like hesitation that kicks in because they're like well, here we go again. This is the same thing I've done before. So it's trying to be honest and open with people and say, hey, here's the information, here's more information, we do research on it, like this is where it's at like and just just exposing people to the reality of this.

Dr Eric Bloom: 20:38

There's a lot of false information that's out there. They may hear one thing from somebody but don't completely understand the story and it's like well, that's, that's not the normal. You know that's, that's probably a bad story or something that you didn't hurt correctly. But you know how do we get patients to understand and what I tell them? I said my goal is for you not to come back and see me on the medical side, if we're adding this, my goal is for you to stay healthy and to continue, maybe under my care, on a different realm, so we don't have to treat you to get you back to baseline. Why can't we keep you from baseline and beyond? I don't want to just get you back to your baseline levels. And so, as they start to understand that, more we give them more information about it, I think they're starting to realize, you know, being proactive is really the best way, instead of being reactive in medicine, which is mostly what we do we don't focus on keeping people healthy.

Dr Eric Bloom: 21:26

We focus on keeping or getting someone sick to get them back to being. You know that baseline health. So how can we be proactive? And there's some people that are interested, but I think there's just naturally a hesitation from patients.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 21:38

Are there any particular modalities that patients are more skeptical over than others?

Dr Eric Bloom: 21:48

more skeptical over than others. So I think right now the and here the pemf right, that's not as known um, like ewot. The ewt is similar to like a hyperbaric chamber, so they've kind of heard of that. Red light, I think is the more well-known thing. I mean, you know a lot of like dermatology places have been using. I tell people like, well, think about blue light. You see, they probably don't realize it, but I'm like.

Dr Eric Bloom: 22:04

Your dentist has been using that for you for years different lightweight spectrum different process, but lights being used all over the place. You may just not realize it. So that's more known. I think it's more of like the flashy modality, but, um, I think pemf was just not understanding and like they're thinking magnets and electric like do what? How is that going to work? And so that, ironically, is probably the one that got the most medical value more than anything with it. So that's the one. I think that's a little bit of a harder push initially until they use it, they see it, to understand the changes to it. The other ones are a little bit more known, I guess, and uh, whether it's online or by friends that have done something to it or they least have heard about it where the pmf is kind of the more unknown one.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 22:47

But I think honestly probably has some of the most advantageous benefits for people if you understand how to use it correctly um, is there any particular metrics or kpis that you focus on in your business, the ones that are most important to you, and or anything that you're particularly focused on trying to improve?

Dr Eric Bloom: 23:06

Yeah, I think the big one is trying to figure out. You know, retention is always, is always, key for me. I think there's, and I've talked with other business owners and everybody always wants new patients and I'm like I that's not really my focus. My focus is to retain the good ones that we have. So if you're always trying to get a new patient, it feels like you're trying to start from ground zero all the time.

Dr Eric Bloom: 23:30

We're now being in business long enough, like a lot of my I guess you would call like new cases that come into my office are old patients because they know where we're at and so that's an easier not sell in medicine. But their expectation is already understanding like, hey, I know you've helped me before, this is something new, I don't have to try to. You know, hey, here's what we do in pt, here's how our company works, here's what our plan is like. They already know that that works and so we also try to look at you know how many people come to us from past or former patients. Same thing like with expectations. Their expectation is probably already going to be that, hey, they may get some help here because they know somebody that's already been here. Where, if you just find somebody new, random online that just finds your office doesn't know anything about you.

Dr Eric Bloom: 24:16

It's like you're starting, like I said, from like day one all over again and now you've got to gain that trust and understanding where, if you can keep a variety of people that have been through here, that have been shared with others, you know.

Dr Eric Bloom: 24:28

That's why you know personal testimony or referrals from past and current patients are always easier typically to work with because their expectation is, hey, I know I'm likely going to get better here, whether, even if they don't think about it or not, because they know something that's been through here. Where the harder ones are, you know I have been to PT several times, or other medical providers. I never got much relief. I know that they're already in that guarded state which interesting with my background from a neuroscience standpoint we know that that increases their pain response. So I'm already dealing with somebody that's in a heightened state coming in to see me on day one because they've already been built by the system. So that's a much harder change versus somebody coming in expecting like, hey, I know I'm going to get better because I've been here, or my friend or whoever was got better. So that's what I'm anticipating when I walk in the door.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 25:20

Interesting. So you mentioned retention. So have you got any sort of key insights about the things that lead to good retention and things where you find is probably a cause for them to drop?

Dr Eric Bloom: 25:31

I think benefits of showing up right. I think value is the biggest thing and I think you know value is kind of a word, but the value is going to be like what are you here for? Like, what are you trying to achieve? And so if your goal is like, hey, here's, I want to get out of this, I try to be as realistic with them on day one, like somebody's trying to come in with a major injury and their goal is to go back and run. You know, a marathon every month, like, okay, it may not be realistic. However, let's figure out what is realistic to get you back to that. Where do we kind of find a common ground?

Dr Eric Bloom: 26:01

So I think the retention is really tied to realistic expectations, both from the provider and from the patient.

Dr Eric Bloom: 26:10

So we've had, like, a current patient that's come here and she told us she left another office because she's like oh, I'll get you back, you know full running in two weeks. And she's like, well, based off what I've looked up online, she's like that just doesn't match up, and so she was already hesitant because what she found online as a patient didn't seem to match up with what was being said in clinic. And so I think, realistic expectations.

Dr Eric Bloom: 26:34

I always tell people some of the greatest things I can tell you is I don't know, but I can probably find out. So I think we try to solve all the problems for everybody or think we know all the answers, and that's probably the greatest answer I can tell somebody or I don't, but I know somebody that does. Or hey, here's what we need to do first, before you come back, because then they feel like they're getting the care they need and not just trying to be kept as a patient for purely a business model. And so that's something that I definitely found is people having the trust which, honestly, has been lost a lot in healthcare, because they feel like a lot of times they're just a number versus an actual patient in a problem. So I think retention is really tied to trust and realistic expectations on both patient and provider interesting, so fast forwarding, sort of six to twelve months.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 27:21

What would you let? Where would you like to see bloom go in the next six to twelve months?

Dr Eric Bloom: 27:25

my ultimate goal is I'd like to be a little bit less in clinic and do more from a teaching standpoint. So I'm also clinical faculty for tufts university and their PT program down here, so I actually get ready to go teach here in a few weeks, and so I think the biggest thing, the reason why I like to teach, is there's a lost integration, I think, between academia and research and clinical, and so at least here in the States that's kind of the big trifecta of what we're doing as far as like the big three with it. How do you integrate research with, you know, patient preference, the clinical side, academia, and I think there's a disconnect.

Dr Eric Bloom: 28:06

So like I've got a student here right now that's from Tufts that I taught and he's quickly learning that, wow, like there's a little bit of a difference between what we're we're taught in school versus what the clinic is like, and so when I try to teach, I want to be able to be realistic with students that, hey, this is the baseline info you got to understand how to work this, but now let's teach you how to clinically reason and have rational for what we're doing and why we're doing it in the clinic. And so I would love to be able to have a clinic that's continuing to grow without me being the primary provider, and be able to educate and teach some of the younger up and coming clinicians on how do you sustain and run a business like this in a world that's ever changing. How do you integrate a medical model that we have with a wellness model? How do you actually take, you know, what you learn in school into the clinic? And I think that's a lost art lost art not just in PT, but I think that's for every student that comes in.

Dr Eric Bloom: 28:56

I know that's how I was. You know I had. I went to Duke University for PT school and I feel like I had a great training, but there's only so much that you can do at school before you get into the clinic, and so just trying to figure out. How do you integrate that better? Um, so, as a patient or the provider starts early in his career, they're not feeling like they're on an island and they're like, wow, man, this is way different than I taught in school. So when I try to teach, I teach them you know what we need to do clinically for the academic session, but it's like, okay, now how do we actually integrate this to real life practice and use this on a patient? That's where they seem to start to get a better understanding of that, because they're now reasoning versus just picking a technique and using it I'm big on education as well, so I've got some academic roles at the university.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 29:42

So I'm completely aligned with you in education, especially when you want to kind of spread your word about how you do things and to give a different approach. But I suppose the question is how you're going to release yourself from your business to do so I've I've already started a little bit so with kind of some of this partnership.

Dr Eric Bloom: 29:58

It's giving me the ability to not have to work as much behind the scenes and so they can take care of the things that I was putting odd hours into. And, you know, something simple is just like HR and hiring some of that. So part of why I did it is one it allows us to have a more integrated practice that I couldn't really do fully on my own, gave me the ability to open up and do more, and so now I can really push the wellness side. You can kind of push the teaching side, like things that I feel like. For me, when things started to get become a better provider and understand the whole system, all of these things were integrated like you need to understand what you got to do in academia.

Dr Eric Bloom: 30:35

But then what does the research say that supports that? But then how do you take those to integrate it with the clients? Okay, now the clients there, the patients there, now they're at a point where they're back to where they want to go. Well then, how do we integrate a wellness program to keep them healthy, right? So I feel like we get taught in little blocks of certain things. So this is the medical side. You know this is the academic side. Here's this side. Well, how do we fully integrate that so that the spectrum of care for a patient, from their kind of starting point to their ending point, is more consistent? And so the only way to do that is someone that's willing to kind of take that chance and try and integrate it and hopefully see it works and have more people wanting to do it.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 31:19

If you could remove one roadblock overnight, or challenge or a thing which is limiting what you do, what do you think that would be?

Dr Eric Bloom: 31:24

I'm mostly in the insurance world out here, and so this is one of my immediate changes I wish every clinic, every hospital could take every insurance right, everybody, regardless of where you at, got reimbursed the same, because then you're now at a standard where care drives the quality, not the other way around. So like if I, if a patient knew, like hey, if I go anywhere, like I'm going to have to pay the same Providers know I'm going to have to make the same right Now. Like well, I only have one option, well, that's your only option with it. Like it makes it harder for it.

Dr Eric Bloom: 31:59

So if we can make everything on a level playing field, then I think you're gonna see a difference where quality is gonna have to eventually come to the top with it, because the patients know well, like, hey, if I go somewhere else and everything's on a level playing field, I'm gonna go get what I want to do. And I think we've held ourselves less accountable over time as providers and it's not as simple as just you know that aspect, but because there's obviously a lot to do with patients and their mindsets and what they have to do. But I think if you just make it as simple as you can, where competition will speak for itself which is a good thing where it should boost the quality of everybody that's being done, because if you're not really putting in quality to your patients but you're getting paid 25 more than what I am for the same contract and I'm having to do, more work just to make up that difference, like, for some reason there's a level of you know, fairness that I think it's thrown out the door with it.

Dr Eric Bloom: 32:51

So if we make everything across the field reimburse the same, pay the same, no regards with any of that then it's thrown out the door with it. So if we make everything across the field reimbursed the same, paid the same, no regard with any of that then it's going to really make those people that are higher quality stand out and patients will know that because there's not going to be any difference for them or for us Got it.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 33:05

I think I've spoken to quite a few people in the US and I think everybody has mentioned the whole insurance reimbursement thing as one of their roadblocks. And we don't have in the uk in the same way. We have a sort of government-funded health system, but it seems to be a universal issue with all the us based health and wellness practices.

Dr Eric Bloom: 33:23

So that's interesting yeah, and it's kind of interesting because we get a lot of canadians that come down here too, and so we get a lot of americans like, oh, I would love to be in canada. They're like, I come down here for us because the system up there limits what I can do Right.

Dr Eric Bloom: 33:35

So I think the the guiding solution and answer is all of healthcare is probably not the greatest. It could be, whether it's, you know, nationally funded, privately funded, a combination like we've got to figure out a way to get back to what's the premise of what healthcare is about. And we all know in healthcare I mean it's one of the largest business industries, you know for each economic source in each country like it's a humongous revenue generator but we didn't go into it for just that right. Like obviously we wanna make a good living, but we're here to treat patients and so how do we not let a system govern what we do for somebody? But knowing that right now we've got to kind of play in the system, that we have to be able to still make a living to get quality for a patient, and I think that's why you're seeing, you know, even retention of just providers is dropping all the time. I mean, I forget what the stats are, but man, the number of like pt specifically that I know that basically get out of the profession every year is, I don't think, at a point where we're having that same comeback as new providers. So I think our total number is either very steady over each year or even starting to drop a little bit below that, because people are just getting burnt out a little bit or they don't look at alternative options.

Dr Eric Bloom: 34:49

And so I mean, entrepreneurs are very different. You have a different mindset of what you want to do, and we know that nothing is ever easy, so you always have to encounter roadblocks and so it's always like, well, how can we change that? And if you don't have an entrepreneurial mindset and you're just a provider which is great, because we need those but you're starting to see that this isn't, it's not working for me, like why would I do all this work? And it's just just, you know, making my quality of life worse. And I think we're seeing people change the industry.

Dr Eric Bloom: 35:15

I know in my class of school, like I already know, a ton of people that have gotten out of the field the last five or ten years. You know they didn't last long, so that's not a good trend for health care and you put all the time and effort and knowledge into it and you know people are leaving. Then this kind of waters down the quality of medicine that we're providing. So there's got to be a better way to do it from both a private and a kind of federal national level too. But not sure what that is, but hopefully someday we'll get there.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 35:40

Brilliant. Eric, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. It's been such an insightful conversation. I'm sure there's lots of learnings here that will resonate with our audience, so really do appreciate you giving up your time for this session. Thank you so much appreciate it.

Dr Eric Bloom: 35:52

Yeah Well, thank you, dr Greenland, and we'll keep in contact and you keep pushing along with what you're doing, like the only way we make changes is someone steps out and tries to make the change, so I appreciate your time with getting me on here. Thank you, all right, take care, have a good one.