Forging Your Own Path with Anthony Maritato

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[00:01:18] Welcome back to Untold Physio Stories Podcast.

[00:01:20] I'm your host Dr. E with Modern Manual Therapy Edge Mobility System

[00:01:23] and our four-month online mentoring program Modern Rehab Mastery.

[00:01:26] Dr. Andrew Rothschild isn't with me today but I have a very special guest, Tony Maritado.

[00:01:31] How's it going today Tony?

[00:01:32] I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:01:35] Yeah, no problem. Well Tony is really active on LinkedIn.

[00:01:40] He and I had made an amazing post on Rock to Recovery about five therapists you should follow.

[00:01:46] So I'm really honored to have been on that list and it was filled with a bunch of people

[00:01:52] that I think you should follow. I'll link to that in the show notes.

[00:01:54] But along with all the amazing content and stuff he posts on LinkedIn,

[00:02:00] he posted something recently that I thought would have made,

[00:02:04] maybe I think it's going to make an amazing story because you don't hear it too often.

[00:02:07] So why don't you give a quick intro and background and then tell that story about

[00:02:16] your PC clinic. Yeah, so and I think it's funny that we connected on LinkedIn because

[00:02:21] I just recently got on LinkedIn. I've been on YouTube and Facebook forever.

[00:02:26] Before we started recording, I had said that this is such an honor to connect with you in person

[00:02:31] because you were one of the first people, one of the first voices that I started following on

[00:02:36] social media when I joined Facebook. So this is just a huge honor. Thank you so much for

[00:02:42] having me. So my name is Tony Maritado. I go by Anthony on Facebook but in real life I'm Tony.

[00:02:49] I am a private practice owner and what's a little different about my story was I owned a small

[00:02:56] private practice physical therapy clinic before I was a physical therapist. The 32nd version,

[00:03:02] I had graduated from Penn State with a degree in kinesiology. I was a strength and conditioning

[00:03:08] specialist. I opened a small personal training studio on CS De Key in Sarasota, Florida

[00:03:14] and within a couple months I realized every single person coming to me needed physical therapy.

[00:03:21] They would benefit from a workout but they needed physical therapy. My mom had developed

[00:03:26] frozen shoulder. I was with her when she was going through the rehab process and I just

[00:03:31] totally fell in love with physical therapy. So I've always been a business owner. I've

[00:03:37] always been entrepreneurial. I was that kid in the neighborhood that would always do something

[00:03:41] for a dollar and I was like, okay how do I own a physical therapy clinic? I reached out to a

[00:03:47] director of rehab at one of my local hospitals. We were friends and I was like Scott what do I

[00:03:52] do? How do I do this? And he was like well first you become a physical therapist then

[00:03:57] you connect with referring physicians. You work for a hospital. You build network. Five

[00:04:02] years later you open a physical therapy clinic and I was like there is no way I am going to

[00:04:06] do all that. That's the typical PT clinic blueprint right there. Old school.

[00:04:13] So I said alright what's the shortcut? So I knew an amazing physical therapist. She was the

[00:04:18] kind of person that lit up the room when she walked in. Every patient loved her but she was

[00:04:22] a traveler and so I don't know how I did it. I convinced her to give me three months.

[00:04:28] She was scheduled to go to Turkey. She was going to do an overseas assignment. I said look

[00:04:33] please just give me three months. Join my personal training studio. I will build the business around

[00:04:38] you and then I will find another therapist to replace you. Well what you don't know

[00:04:44] sometimes is better. We were so green we had no idea. I thought I could hang a business card

[00:04:49] at the sandwich shop and flood my clinic with patients. I didn't know I wasn't even allowed

[00:04:54] to own a physical therapy clinic. So what ended up happening was we were all cashed.

[00:04:59] Okay so you do have to be a PT or medical professional or what?

[00:05:06] To be a Medicare contracted clinic you have to be a PT in Florida to own a portion of

[00:05:13] that clinic. So before we contracted with Medicare no problem. I was owner. She was my

[00:05:20] employee. Once we decided to contract with Medicare step out of the cash base world

[00:05:24] and remember this is 2001 going into 2002 I had to give up my ownership. She was 100%

[00:05:32] owner but she was leasing, subleasing space in my personal training studio.

[00:05:38] And so that's what we did. Long story short she's now my wife. We have four beautiful boys.

[00:05:44] We grew from 1,800 square foot space in Siesta Key to five locations between Ohio and Florida.

[00:05:51] We learned a lot of hard lessons. We had a lot of struggle but we still kind of protect the

[00:05:57] core value of why we did it in the first place. We love patient care. We love helping

[00:06:03] people. We believe we could deliver a better patient care experience. We could make more money.

[00:06:09] We could do it without all of the baggage that comes with large corporate physical therapy.

[00:06:15] And so that's what we've always done. And any time we run into a roadblock like we want to

[00:06:21] do something just like I did back then, I was like how do I do this rather than just accepting

[00:06:28] the fact that everybody says you can't do this? So that's kind of where we are today.

[00:06:33] It's funny. There's actually a post I posted on LinkedIn today. I replied there's a girl who

[00:06:39] her niche now is helping people transition to non-clinical roles. And she often posts about how

[00:06:48] she got all this flack. And where would you and I be if we listen to the naysayers?

[00:06:55] I mean I basically posted like every single transition I made, I always met with adversity

[00:07:02] from other physical therapists. I mean even when I said like I graduated with like a BS

[00:07:08] and an MS. When I was going with my BS and MS, 26 years ago actually not even 26, that's when

[00:07:14] I graduated 26 years ago. I should say that 31 years ago when I entered a program and they're

[00:07:21] like oh you know all the masters programs were new, theses were new. All the bachelor's

[00:07:29] PTs were like you don't need a master's. So that was flack number one right? Then as soon

[00:07:36] as I graduated I entered one of the first transitional TPP programs before it was even

[00:07:41] called transitional, University of St. Augustine. I thought people are going to be excited like oh

[00:07:47] wow you're going for your doctorate? I got the same all the PTs who were now masters

[00:07:52] were telling me you don't need a doctorate. My own PT professor I caught up with her like

[00:07:58] within a year because I started this program two days after I graduated. I had one weekend free

[00:08:04] I started this program and I remember seeing one of my PT professors who was a neuro professor

[00:08:11] in an airport somewhere both traveling. She's like oh what are you up to?

[00:08:14] And I said oh you know I'm specializing in manual therapy, I'm doing in the middle of

[00:08:18] a residency, I'm going to get my doctorate. She's like oh that's such a bad idea. You

[00:08:22] should have basically just worked, you should work in a hospital as a generalist to figure

[00:08:27] out what you want to do. I'm like I already know what I want to do why would I, she wanted

[00:08:30] to do it for five years. I'm like what? Imagine all the wasted time I would have had if I just

[00:08:38] had been a generalist for five years thinking like I don't know, I mean I already know what to

[00:08:42] do. Who are any of these people to tell me what I should be doing? Then I was leaving

[00:08:49] private practice and I'm going to open up my own clinic like oh well that's a really bad idea,

[00:08:54] reimbursement is so low. Then I'm opening up my own clinic, I decided to be a clinical

[00:08:59] peer reviewer and they're like oh man you're selling out the profession but it actually paid

[00:09:04] so much better than a physical therapist. Then I'm like oh man you're going to leave,

[00:09:10] we're going to go out of network and go cash based? That's a bad idea. Every single thing

[00:09:14] is a bad idea. You know I saw your post this morning and I started to type my reply but then

[00:09:20] I jumped on a podcast and I couldn't finish it and it's so true. You mean this podcast?

[00:09:28] No, a different one. I just got off an earlier podcast but it's so true because in my experience

[00:09:35] over the last 22-23 years in the profession most of the people who say no you can't do that are

[00:09:41] physical therapists but it's such a weird dynamic because we're the first ones to tell patients

[00:09:47] you can do anything, we're going to find a way for you to do anything, we're going to work

[00:09:51] around the obstacles that you're facing but when we're talking to other peers it's like the

[00:09:56] first thing is no you can't do that. I remember going back so the therapist that I had recruited

[00:10:03] who's now my wife, she was like I wasn't a physical therapist or she was like you have

[00:10:08] to go become a physical therapist. You love the profession, you love what we do and the

[00:10:12] truth is if you want to grow this business to any scale therapists do not trust non-therapists

[00:10:18] so if you have those letters after your name you're going to instantly connect with

[00:10:23] any therapist you want to recruit and it's true that's been my experience but when I was

[00:10:29] going to go for my master's degree in physical therapy I realized I was missing five prerequisites.

[00:10:36] I didn't have any chemistry, I didn't have one of two biologies, I didn't have one of

[00:10:42] two psychologies and I was missing one of the physics and so of course five prereqs.

[00:10:47] What PT school is ever going to let you in with missing five prereqs? Well I said this would have

[00:10:54] been 1990, gosh was it two no it's 2003, 2003 so I was like I'm just gonna apply I don't care.

[00:11:03] I already own a physical therapy clinic what what's the worst that's going to happen they refuse

[00:11:08] me. I applied to like five programs in Florida, I got accepted by two, one of them was a longer

[00:11:15] program with no added education just they took a summer off so I was like forget that.

[00:11:22] So I got into FIU down in South Florida, they told me the one criteria was I had to do a chemistry

[00:11:31] during my first year in PT school because I didn't have any chemistry. It's like all right

[00:11:35] no problem. In my mind I was like they're gonna forget there is no way they're going to

[00:11:40] keep track of me doing a chemistry and I did register for a chemistry class. I dropped the

[00:11:46] chemistry class once I realized there is no way they're not going to let me graduate because

[00:11:51] I don't have a chemistry. I got into the program, skipped all of my five prereqs, never took

[00:11:57] them, graduated you know got my licensure, I'm accredited whatever. The interesting thing is

[00:12:03] the reason why I was missing those five prereqs was because when I was at Penn State

[00:12:08] for my undergrad this was like 97 to 2000. I finished the four-year undergrad in like three

[00:12:14] years because I and I was able to take advanced level courses. I was in courses with so many

[00:12:22] amazing professors that had so much published literature. I learned so much because I wasn't

[00:12:28] sitting in a chemistry class that I was never going to use you know and I just feel so

[00:12:33] blessed and gifted because my entire life has been like that. Like I know what I want,

[00:12:38] I know where I'm going, I'm gonna get the fastest path to get there in the best way possible

[00:12:43] and just like you it's like if I want to be a practice owner why am I gonna waste time being

[00:12:48] a generalist or if I want to specialize in something why am I gonna do all that other stuff

[00:12:52] when I know exactly where I want to be in three years? This story really took some turns

[00:12:58] man I didn't even know where you're going with it. I thought that they were gonna say like oh

[00:13:01] my license was revoked all of a sudden someone's gonna hear this be like we're revoking this guy's

[00:13:06] license because clearly he's a danger to the public because he didn't take chemistry 101.

[00:13:14] I mean how do you even know how to iontoferesis man you know iontoferesis

[00:13:19] it doesn't even make sense to you. But I think that this is what we see with great clinicians

[00:13:25] you know I always try to balance the art of what we do with the science of what we do

[00:13:31] and I think you're amazing at that. I mean your perspective on manual therapy is really what

[00:13:35] attracted me to you in the first place and so when I think of the greatest clinicians that I know

[00:13:41] they tend to be divergent thinkers, they tend to find alternative paths to achieving the outcome

[00:13:47] that you know the patient is seeking and I think if we can embrace more of that creativity

[00:13:53] it makes a lot of people uncomfortable but it's really what makes the difference between average

[00:13:58] standard of care and what I would consider your standard of care. Your standard of care

[00:14:03] is very different than the standard of care. Yeah yeah well I really appreciate that I certainly

[00:14:09] did not invite you on to have my head any bigger be any bigger than it is. I'm gonna

[00:14:15] have to increase the size of these headphones so I know you have like a YouTube channel

[00:14:22] and everything where can people find you online? Yeah so my profession facing YouTube channel

[00:14:27] is Learn Medicare Billing. I've got a patient facing YouTube channel it's Total Therapy Solutions

[00:14:33] you know my main thing is I like to tinker, I like to play with different ideas and different

[00:14:38] concepts. I'm a master what is it a jack of all trades a master of none that is me but

[00:14:45] anybody who wants to reach out and connect I'm on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Pinterest

[00:14:50] come find me on Pinterest. What do you post on Pinterest? Well here's the thing so you and

[00:14:55] I were talking before we hit record about Google slapping individual websites and taking

[00:15:01] away your traffic. I've got a big directory website that was growing like crazy I'm a little

[00:15:07] SEO nerd on the side and the most recent Google update crushed my traffic dropped me like 70%

[00:15:15] so I said okay I'm this is a website for physical therapy and physical therapists

[00:15:21] it's very conducive to images my personal niche is knee replacement I'm gonna jump on Pinterest

[00:15:28] and over the last couple months my Pinterest has grown. I share primarily stuff about knee

[00:15:34] replacement visual you know information about knee replacement but I'm getting a thousand clicks

[00:15:40] from Pinterest to my website all totally free organic from Pinterest. I think I'm jumping on

[00:15:47] Pinterest today. You would do amazing on Pinterest you would do really well. I mean I gotta check out

[00:15:54] this Pinterest are you feel like they allow like medical pictures of like knee replacements

[00:15:58] and stuff? They do and it's a blue ocean there is such a small amount of competition

[00:16:04] for a kind of niche specific content with the manual therapy interventions and the things

[00:16:10] that you do from a professional to professional perspective it would do amazing but then even

[00:16:17] actually I'm thinking about maybe I shouldn't am I gonna even post this part of the podcast?

[00:16:24] Yeah everybody would do well to at least investigate if you're looking for traffic all free

[00:16:30] quick growth Pinterest has been really great. Hey I appreciate that knowledge mom that's great

[00:16:36] thanks for coming on Tony it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having me I look

[00:16:39] forward to connecting with you more. All right so if you guys have any comments or similar

[00:16:45] stories you want to reach out to Tony or myself make sure to hit us up on social media please

[00:16:50] rate Untold Physio Stories five stars wherever you listen to podcasts that goes for you too

[00:16:55] Tony if you haven't rated my show five stars please rate me five stars and as always you

[00:16:59] guys have a great day.