PT TechTalk: Increase Profits in Your PT/OT Practice with StrataPT
Article Summary
- Take us back to the time where she was helping physical therapy practice owners such as myself and others across the country, she was helping them with their billing.
- So as you mentioned, yes, originally StrataPT was founded as a billing company, but shortly, it was only a couple of years into it she realized that the practices she was working with were using multiple systems, three, four different systems to manage their scheduling, manage their documentation, managing just general operations and then they had their billing system as well.
- Basically, if a new practice owner such as myself, if I were to approach you guys and do a demo and check out what you have to offer, I have to do, or it’s basically streamlined on… it’s on purpose set up on your end to make my life easier and probably make things more efficient where I would have to do the billing through the service in order to use your EMR and vice versa.
- Focusing on PT, OT, and speech, no ophthalmology, no other allied services or ancillary services, focusing on the rehab side of things, and even within that, do you have a certain ideal practice or an ideal client who is anywhere from startups, to mid-tier, to larger, or what would you say is your average?
- Now, on the customer service side of things, you had mentioned over our first call that, and I want you to tell the audience, what’s the time if a practice owner submits a support ticket, you have an internal messaging system, basically like an internal chat, where if I am a practice owner, if I have a question, if I have an issue or something, what’s your response time at StrataPT?
Dave Kittle:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to PT TechTalk Podcasts. This is episode 102 and this is Dave Kittle. I’m a physical therapist and practice owner here in New York City as well as a partner at CashBasedPhysicalTherapy.org with my partner there, Ron Miller. We’re helping physical therapists from across the country get more leads, get more new patients and establish time freedom. So check out CashBasedPhysicalTherapy.org for more on that.
And I am pumped to finally catch up with our interview, our guest today, Adam Peacock. He is one of the team members and partners at StrataPT. You can check them out at Strata, S-T-R-A-T-A-P-T.com. And we’re going to hear everything about how it started as a billing company with his wife Kim and is now a full-fledged medical record management company. We’re going to hear all about it. Adam, first of all, thank you for your time, thanks for jumping on here and it’s so excellent to get you on the podcast to hear more about StrataPT.
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. I appreciate it, Dave. Thanks for having me on.
Dave Kittle:
Absolutely. Let’s go back to the origin story. Originally your wife Kim had a billing company and that’s basically how all this started. Take us back to the time where she was helping physical therapy practice owners such as myself and others across the country, she was helping them with their billing. Tell us how it went from Kim doing the billing, and expanding into this now robust piece of software, practice management software, medical records and where it’s now the full robust offering. And now you’re in the business as well.
Adam Peacock:
Yes. It actually started back in 2010. So Kim was actually the director of operations for five different outpatient clinics here in Florida and Ohio. And she saw the need for… During that time, she brought the billing in-house for those practices, but she also saw the need for being able to help other practice owners with their billing. She saw that the billing was getting more and more complicated, and that’s when she ended up launching StrataPT in 2010.
So as you mentioned, yes, originally StrataPT was founded as a billing company, but shortly, it was only a couple of years into it she realized that the practices she was working with were using multiple systems, three, four different systems to manage their scheduling, manage their documentation, managing just general operations and then they had their billing system as well. And having those multiple systems she also realized that most of them didn’t communicate with each other. So there was a lot of inefficiency there going on that really drove her to figure out how we could bring everything under one roof to have a truly all-in-one platform to manage the schedule and the documentation, all the practice management, but also have a team on the backend that’s providing the service component to manage the billing and manage all the revenue and also provide benefit verification.
Adam Peacock:
So that’s how it was in 2010, and it was about 2012 when we were actually approached by some engineers that were already in the PT industry. They had the history of another platform that they were working on and they had managed for years. But they also saw a shift in the industry where a lot of the support they were seeing was billing-related and realized that so many of the practices they were working with just had so many billing questions and didn’t know where to turn. So that’s what put them in the hunt for looking for a billing company to work with and figure out how we could put our brains together and create a true all-in-one product.
Dave Kittle:
Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about your background and then when did you join the company and what role you’re playing right now.
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. When Kim first started the company I was in pharmaceutical sales. So I was drinking the Kool-Aid in the corporate world. And it was a few years, it was about 2015 when things were shifting and the corporate world was much different than operating in the small business world. And at that time, the company was continuing to grow and Kim needed help with the operations of the company. So I ended up leaving corporate America in about 2015 and went from a volunteer to actually working full-time with her to continue to run the business and work closely with the software engineers to continue to develop the product that it is today.
Dave Kittle:
That’s awesome. In the pre-interview and over the call that we had before this, we were talking about differentiators, we were talking about medical record companies and billing companies in general, and we’re going to talk about, in today’s interview, kind of the other, not the other options per se, but kind of like the landscape and what can companies such as yourself… How can StrataPT be a differentiator? What are your differentiators?
The one thing that caught my eye was when you mentioned a new client, a new customer, physical therapy practice owner, for example, there’s not a software EMR that you’ll use, that you’ll allow someone to use on its own. Basically, if a new practice owner such as myself, if I were to approach you guys and do a demo and check out what you have to offer, I have to do, or it’s basically streamlined on… it’s on purpose set up on your end to make my life easier and probably make things more efficient where I would have to do the billing through the service in order to use your EMR and vice versa. So I can’t come in and piecemeal and say, “I’m going to have my billing done in-house, or done somewhere else, but I want to use your EMR.”
At StrataPT you guys will do it all, and if not then you’re going to refer them somewhere else or they’re going to have to go elsewhere. And I thought that was really interesting in terms of knowing who your ideal client or your ideal customer is, and I think that was a big differentiator that I picked up when we talked. And just like a physical therapy practice should typically have who’s their ideal patient, who can they help best and that helps with marketing, it helps with sales, it helps with everything. So you kind of attract a certain individual and you may repel a certain individual, but when you’re attracting your ideal client it’s probably going to be a lot easier for you guys.
So internally, do you guys feel like that’s a differentiator where you stand versus in the market?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah, absolutely. A couple of things that we’ve always held true to is from the beginning, first of all, staying in our lane with only focusing on PT, OT, and speech. We’ve been approached by a lot of practices and companies that want us to do billing and provide our platform for ophthalmology, podiatry, a number of other specialties. And we’ve always maintained the belief if we want to truly be experts in what we’re doing, then we need to stay in our lane and stick. When it comes to the software platform, could it be used for other specialties? Sure, it could be, but when it comes to the billing side and making sure that we continue to be experts to make sure providers are getting paid, that’s been a huge part of what we’ve done.
So to your point, we’ve had practices where they are PT practices that just want to use our software and we’ve had to turn those practices away and say, “In order to work with StrataPT and use our services, you get everything. So not only the software platform, but all the revenue cycle management services on the backend.” So I guess, as any business owner, you hate to say I’m going to turn business away, but we’ve always held true to continue to be experts and we’ve done that by design.
Dave Kittle:
Focusing on PT, OT, and speech, no ophthalmology, no other allied services or ancillary services, focusing on the rehab side of things, and even within that, do you have a certain ideal practice or an ideal client who is anywhere from startups, to mid-tier, to larger, or what would you say is your average? If someone’s listening, if they maybe fit that, how would they kind of understand if you guys might be the right fit from where you’re looking?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah, good question. We don’t have… From the start, we work with plenty of practices, and some of the greatest success stories we’ve had are practice centers that are coming that don’t even have a tax ID and they’re trying to say I want to do practice and we’ve taken them from an idea to several million-dollar practices. But then also from an established practice standpoint, whether it’s a single location, multi-locations, multi states, the platform is designed in a way that it helps practices really of all sizes to be able to manage their business well.
So I wouldn’t say there’s… As long as they’re within that rehab discipline, then there isn’t really, I would say, a preference over startups versus established practices in our services. We’re treating startups the same way we would treat an established practice. And I guess part of that comes back to… I think one of the other differentiators that we’ve seen over the years is really focusing on providing a level of customer service that unfortunately doesn’t exist in our industry and doesn’t exist in a lot of industries anymore. But we love to see new practices startup out of the ground and become successful practices, but we also love to see an established practice take their level of efficiency, or improve their level of efficiency to something far greater than they’ve ever experienced.
Dave Kittle:
Yeah. Now, on the customer service side of things, you had mentioned over our first call that, and I want you to tell the audience, what’s the time if a practice owner submits a support ticket, you have an internal messaging system, basically like an internal chat, where if I am a practice owner, if I have a question, if I have an issue or something, what’s your response time at StrataPT?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah, right now our average response time is about 14 minutes, which is… We’ve moved communications over to a designated location within our platform so we have practices, whether it’s a therapist or a front desk, or a practice owner that has a question, they’re able to shoot a question over right through the platform. And that way… then it goes right to their dedicated account manager.
That response time, that’s something we really pride ourselves on because oftentimes whether it’s an established practice or new startup practice, we want to make sure they are receiving the level of support they need, whether it’s a question about their documentation or a question about what the status of a particular patient account is. So being able to have that platform built-in, they can hop in and out in between patients and jump in, and when they finish up with that patient they’re able to have an answer there. It’s made a huge difference. And it’s just helped us take our customer service really to the next level.
Dave Kittle:
Awesome. So not only is it a fast response time, but every new practice owner gets a dedicated account manager and they can contact them internally through your system and I think you even mentioned you get a direct phone number to that individual, right? As long as they’re not on vacation. Maybe that gets bumped to someone else, but they’ll be able to contact that person, rather than the practice owner feeling like a number and not like a valued customer.
Adam Peacock:
Absolutely. And that’s where each one, when we do a kickoff call with a new practice that we onboard, they have a dedicated phone number with a dedicated extension to their account manager. So if that account manager happens to be out for the day or out on vacation then there’s coverage from another account manager. So they always have a single point of contact.
Each one of our account managers are set up too. They’ve got a team that they work with. But the goal is that we always want… We don’t want practices to feel like they’re just a number. We want to make sure that they are getting responses and have a level of support in as real-time as possible. And we set up a log, put a huge emphasis on internal systems to help facilitate that, and as we continue to bring on new practices to make sure that the customer service isn’t compromised because of bringing on other practices.
So the platform… I’ll tell you, the other thing the platform we’ve seen in the feedback we received from practice owners is even if there’s communication happening between the front desk and our team, all those messages are archived, they’re all there visible for anybody to read or listen to, unless there are certain permission levels that the message was assigned to that may be only privy to a practice owner, but that gives the practice owners really a 30,000-foot view of all the communications that are happening with their staff and our team. So that way if they want to check it out in the evening or whenever they get a chance to see what’s going on, then they have complete transparency to do so.
Dave Kittle:
That’s awesome. So definitely plenty of experiences and examples of differentiation and being kind of practice owner and customer-focused. Almost like the way that Amazon focuses on their end-user. So let’s talk about price versus value because we talked about all that great stuff first. So that’s like when you’re thinking about shopping around, looking around for a medical record, or a company for billing, or to do both together, I’ve seen so many physical therapists, especially on these Facebook groups where people are asking like… They’re comparing just price only. So they’re comparing apples to oranges and they’re comparing two names, two different medical records and saying, “This one starts at this dollar amount and this one starts at this dollar amount. What do you guys think?”
And I don’t know what it is, but I think hopefully with this series where we’re interviewing other partners, CEOs, and executives at different medical record companies, we can shine more of a light on… There are other ways to minimize your stress and overwhelm, streamline your practice, make sure you get paid on time, and there’s a whole team, like at StrataPT, that can help you do that. So let’s talk about price versus value. What are some things that either objections or issues that you guys run into on price in general, or what are some better ways that we could maybe look at things?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah, I think you hit it really looking at, truly looking at the price versus the value, and having a good understanding of what you’re truly getting because there’s… And on the billing side of things, it’s easy for a lot of companies to shift over the years to outsource in an effort to reduce their costs to be able to offer practices what appears to be a lower percentage. But I think the main thing we always talk about when we have a practice that comes to us and says… They’re shopping around and we always encourage them to do so, see what’s out there, figure out what’s the best fit for your practice.
Part of that is through looking at not only what, let’s say the services are based on a percentage of collection, not only looking at what that percentage is but also what are you getting for that? Is the technology included? Is the service included? What does their AR collection rate look like? Because we… A lot of the practices that we have that transition over to us from other billing companies, when you look at their outstanding AR in 90, 120+ days, they’re leaving 20, 25, 30% on the table. So that difference in let’s say saving 1% on the monthly, what it appears, what’s being marketed as the monthly, quickly turns into that amount plus an additional 20%, 25, 30% depending on what it is.
So that’s a huge part when we’re looking at it from a patient insurance collection standpoint, is looking at what’s actually being done, but also asking the questions of how are you going to… Any billing company, a lot of billing companies are going to say, “Oh, we’ll do X, Y, and Z. We’ll be consistent, we’ll follow up, we’ll submit claims daily,” this and that. But what type of… What are they doing to show that to you with an objective look at the… to support what they’re saying they’re going to do to make sure they’re actually doing it.
So I think looking at that depth, figuring out what you’re actually getting. But also on the technology side, to figure out what’s actually included in my monthly fees. Am I paying extra for appointment reminders? Am I paying extra for data storage? Am I getting verifications with that? So there’s a lot of different things to make sure you’re truly comparing apples to apples. And a lot of times we find that what people truly are getting when you really look at the depth of this product and service being offered.
Dave Kittle:
And it makes a lot of sense. At least the pricing structure when dealing with you guys or someone elsewhere if I’m going to pay you a percentage of collections to me as a business owner it makes a lot of sense because my interests are aligned with yours. Meaning, that whatever you guys are going to help me follow-up with, chase after, check on those claims, resubmit claims if there’s denials, all that type of stuff. I’m paying you guys a percentage of that, or your customers are paying you a percentage of that, and your interests are aligned with their interests versus just paying a software licensing fee, or like a software recurring membership per month or per year without that full incentive.
So it seems like that, at least on the billing side, that is often the case with percentages. But the thing that I like that you mentioned is you being able to show prospective customers your accounts receivable, kind of like your track record. So how do you do that? Is that like… Let’s say if this were a demo, if I’m a prospective customer coming to you guys right now, I’m checking out StrataPT, we’re going through a demo, you’re showing me everything, how do you show a prospective practice owner your performance of your previous accounts receivable? Are you showing me reports of redacted, like your performance of AR collection without other practices’ names on it? How do you present that to me?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. I think we also tell practice owners there shouldn’t be any secret when it comes to your revenue and what’s outstanding. And to your point, our success, your success is our success. We’re in it together. And that’s where we keep with that based on a percentage of collections. If we’re collecting more money, you’re making more money. It’s just a win for everybody. And it’s an incentive to make sure we’re going after every penny owed to the provider.
So from a transparency standpoint though, as I mentioned earlier, all too often that, whether they’re managing their billing in-house or with an outsourced billing company, there often times isn’t a level of transparency to see what is my true account receivables look like? And when we’re going through demos, one of the biggest differences that we have on the billing side when it comes to billing transparencies, is what we call our Strata Clarity Panel. And we rolled that out a couple of years ago as an objective way to show practice owners, or front desk, whoever’s managing, keeping an eye on the status of each patient’s claims, to say, “What’s the status at any given time?”
So every patient has what we call a Clarity Panel within the platform where they can go and access and see here are the dates of the service that have been entered, here are the charges that have been submitted, here’s the status of each one, but also, next to every single charge for every single patient, there’s a play-by-play of what steps have been done from the initial claim submission to the acceptance from the clearinghouse, acceptance from the payer, or if it was rejected, that would show up as well.
So all the way through with the payments, how the payments were posted, all the adjustments that were made based on what was received on that remit that came back. So all the way through. And if there was a denial, then there’s going to be clear notes from our team that shows a play-by-play of what steps are being taken, whether it’s a resubmission of that claim or a first-level, second-level, third-level appeal that needs to be submitted. So all that transparency’s available and that’s made a huge difference to be able to not only… to really support the efforts that we’re putting in.
I remember when we first rolled out the Clarity Panel, I had a friend of mine say, “Well, why in the world would you ever open that up and show all the details of what you’re doing? What if you guys make a mistake?” And I kind of laughed and I said, “If we’re making mistakes there’s something wrong,” and there are times where we’ve made mistakes, but we use that as a learning opportunity to figure out how we can continue to improve and make it even better.
So the Clarity Panel’s been a huge, really an inside look to what we’re doing and provides a lot of practice owners with a lot more confidence in being able to see, being able to let go and say, “Okay, I don’t have to… I actually have more transparency by having Strata doing my billing than I did with my in-house biller, or with this other third-party company that we were working with.”
Dave Kittle:
And what about more of the… You mentioned efficient tools in the pre-interview, so other things that can help a practice owner with their operations. What are some common reports or common tools that you have internally that practice owners can utilize to get a better clinical pulse on their business or a better financial pulse on their business?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. I think one of the main things, and by having everything truly under one roof and one system, it’s allowed for really a seamless communication between the clinical side of the business, the administrative side of the business, and the billing side. And we rely on what we call push notifications throughout the program and the system that creates tasks. So at any given time, on each practice dashboard, there’s going to be tasks that are generated. And a lot of those tasks are generated based on authorizations expiring, or looking at plans of care, or have we even sent that, have we sent that plan of care for a signature, have we faxed it out through the system? Have we collected that patient’s copay?
So there are a number of tasks that are automatic, they’re all being generated in real-time, and the system’s also looking for those types of things, like expiring authorizations let’s say, to say instead of having to pull a report and have someone go through and find all authorizations that are going to be expiring in the next two weeks, the system automatically identifies those and creates a task that shows right up on the dashboard.
So that’s one of many examples of the whole task management system that really is at the core of the operations and helps practices have that 30,000-foot view each morning when they look at their dashboard and say, “Okay, what needs to be done?” Whether it’s a clinical task that a clinician needs to complete their documentation and submit the billing, or if it’s more of an administrative task, or if the patient just wants to be reminded of their birthday. So upcoming patient birthdays, that’s a nice PR type of task that shows up on the dashboard every morning.
So we’re constantly looking at ways where… And a lot of these tasks have been created over the years and implemented based on pain points that practice owners are facing. And we look at those and say, “How can we turn that into… How can we reduce the burden of having to constantly pull reports and look through reports and bring it to their attention as efficiently as possible?” And that’s really what we’ve done.
Dave Kittle:
That’s awesome. So in terms of overall with StrataPT, if most of your clients are on the insurance side of things, whether in-network or out-of-network. So unless someone is a therapist who wants to be credentialed and start accepting and billing Medicare, we’re talking in the pre-interview like if I’m cash-based, or if I’m mostly out-of-pocket, then you just said it, you were like, “Well, then StrataPT wouldn’t be for you.” And I just, I love that because there’s just so much clarity coming from your guys’ side of things where if you’re not the right fit they’re going to let you know, and if you are, they’re going to help walk you through and show you exactly what they have to offer.
So in terms of what you’re seeing on your side of things, what type of growth, or what type of, yeah, what type of growth do you see with more therapists coming to you? Is it therapists that are trying to do some out-of-pocket, but they want to be credentialed with Medicare? Do you see new or existing practices that are shifting more to out-of-network, or maybe remaining in-network? I don’t know. What do you see in the landscape of healthcare and out-patient rehab in the EMR world?
Adam Peacock:
Sure. Yeah, certainly a lot of changes that are constantly going on. Years ago we used to have practices that are starting out and they come to us and they say, “Here are the 30 commercial payers. I want Medicare plus the 30 commercial payers I want to be credential with. Let’s go ahead and do it.” And that’s with the goal of thinking we’re going to get more referrals out of that. But over the years we’ve kind of seen that shift where it doesn’t always make sense to be credentialed and get in-network with all these commercials payers. And a lot of time, with all these third-party processors that are involved with that, end up issuing contracts for much lower rates than they ever were before.
So I would say the typical, we’re seeing a big shift lately with all of the cuts that have been going on, reimbursements impact on the Part A side. For Medicare Part A, we’re seeing a shift in a lot of practices that are opening to do Part B home visits. So that’s, whether it’s an established Part A business that’s open, looking for an additional revenue channel through opening a Part B business, or just a therapist in home health setting for a number of years and wants to go out on their own.
So we often have, whether it’s an established Part A practice opening a new business, or a new grad or a new therapist, they’ll come to us and ask us to assist with the Medicare credentialing. So we’ll help them get everything filled out, their applications are a service that we provide only to the practices that we end up managing the billing for. So I would say the biggest shift that we’ve seen is Part B home visits.
But to your point, when we have practices that come to us that are wanting to go the cash route, and it’s a phenomenal business model if they can do it. But I always tell them, be honest with them, that we’re not always the right fit for that. But we also have practices that go and they do a mix of in-network billing and out-of-network billing, or they’re in-network, they’re contracted with Medicare, but they’ve decided to stay out-of-network with all the commercial payers, which seems to make more sense for them.
Dave Kittle:
Did that 8% cut on Medicare, did that go into effect yet, this calendar year, or is that still imminent? What do you see on your side?
Adam Peacock:
As far as on the Part B side, with the changes we’ve really been seeing on that I was speaking to, is really more on the Part A side. And also, the focus on that continuum of care, following that patient from Part A home health, from the facility when they’re discharged, making sure they don’t return back into the hospital. And that’s really what’s made a lot more providers shift to looking for that Part B business.
Dave Kittle:
Awesome. Let’s do a few like rapid… Not rapid-fire questions, but a few short answer questions, first thing that comes to your mind. I’d love to just hear what you have to say. Ready?
Adam Peacock:
Sure.
Dave Kittle:
All right. What software or app is the most used, that you most use, to run your business to do your job daily?
Adam Peacock:
I’d say it’s our own tech to be honest. We’ve, and I won’t give the long answer. You probably want to keep them to a short answer.
Dave Kittle:
It’s all right.
Adam Peacock:
But that’s a whole nother discussion on the internal systems that we’ve developed over the years, but that’s where we’ve put a tremendous amount of focus on some of our internal platforms as well that really run our entire business now.
Dave Kittle:
Gotcha. Awesome. How about this, in the next five years, do you see, and whether it’s home-based like home care-based or brick and mortar clinic, in the next five years do you see, or do you expect more therapy practice owners, business owners, or less, and why?
Adam Peacock:
I think we’re going to see more over the next five years with the booming population and people living longer, but also again, the shift from that we’re seeing from Part A into Part B. I’d say over the next five years we’ll only see more.
Dave Kittle:
In the next five years do you think there’ll be more insurance billing, the same amount, or less where there are clients and patients paying more out-of-pocket?
Adam Peacock:
That’s a tricky one. I would say until… I mean, there’s always the chance of things changing in the insurance world, but I would say over the next five years I think we’re going to continue to see more Part B Medicare providers and I think fewer providers being contracted with some of the commercial providers and manage them more of an out-of-network setup.
Dave Kittle:
Gotcha. And I can only imagine how challenging it was for you guys to go from a billing company to a full-fledged, robust medical record company, practice management and all that. In the future, if there’s going to be more practice owners, which is what you said, does that mean that there is more room for other billing and medical record companies like you guys, or do you think there would be the same or less through consolidation or something like that? What do you think?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. I think there’s certainly room and good, friendly competition is always good in my opinion, but I think it’s going to continue to get more and more complicated. And I think from an insurance standpoint, we see it already, is companies are finding every reason possible that they can deny claims with the hope that practices aren’t going to have the time, or companies aren’t going to put the resources into following up on that. So I think there’s certainly room for other companies, but I do think there’s going to continue to be more value in having a true, all-inclusive system that’s managing everything like we’re currently doing.
Dave Kittle:
Gotcha. All right. So not just you, Adam, not just you and Kim, but what is the future of StrataPT?
Adam Peacock:
We’re going to continue to… We’ve always had steady growth but in a controlled way. And our plan is to continue to bring on new practices but keeping our growth controlled as well. We have no intention of being a marketing powerhouse that just opens the gates just with the hope of bringing on new clients because at that point then we’re not providing a level of service and our clients start to feel like they’re just a number. And that’s something we’ve refused to do over the past 10 years and we’ll refuse to do moving forward and let that greed take over. So I think that’s where we’ll continue to take care of our practices just like we’ve been doing and continue at a steady growth.
Dave Kittle:
Awesome. There was something that we discussed off record or off video, about a challenging time that you went through and that your family and your daughter went through and that has a happy ending. I want to hear a little bit more about it. I want the audience to hear about it. And then a little bit more about the foundation that was set up and how you guys are raising money for research.
Adam Peacock:
Absolutely. Yeah. A little over a year ago we heard every parents’ worst nightmare that our four-year-old daughter had cancer. It was a time that I can’t even… It’s hard to even process looking back at it now. She ended up being diagnosed with retinoblastoma, had an advanced staged tumor in her right eye. It went from, I remember standing right here in this office and getting a text from Kim when she had taken her… About a week prior she just presented… They thought it was pink eye. She had redness in her eye. So literally within 48 hours, we went from what we thought was pink eye to an advanced stage tumor in her right eye.
I remember leaving the office and Kim and I were out-of-pocket for the first half of 2019 taking care and putting all of our focus on making sure that we supported our daughter as she went through treatment. Thankfully, as you mentioned, she was able to ring the bell after she ended up having her right eye removed. And she’s got a prosthetic now, is doing phenomenal. She went through six rounds of chemo and ended up ringing the bell at the end of April.
And shortly after that, as we’re going through treatment, we spent a lot of time and it was extremely humbling to spend six months on a pediatric oncology floor as she was fighting going through treatment. But we also, she’s always had a very positive spirit and we spent a lot of time quarantined at the house. When we weren’t at the hospital we were at our home because her immune system was so compromised. So during that time, we spent a lot of time baking and she made a lot of cookies. We got to the point where Kim said, “We gotta get these cookies out of the house. We can’t just keep eating all these cookies.”
So we used that as an opportunity to pass out cookies to our neighbors. And that ended up being the beginning of what is now called Kinsley’s Cookie Cart, which is a 501(c)(3) foundation that we set up in May of last year with the goal of being able to give back and help other families and little warriors that are fighting right now. So yeah, it’s been a tough time. It certainly flipped our world upside down, but it’s been a blessing for… Today she’s raised about $125,000.
Dave Kittle:
Wow.
Adam Peacock:
And we’ve been able to create some good partnerships with some great foundations like National Pediatric Cancer Foundation and Make-A-Wish to be able to fund some pediatric cancer research and also be able to grant wishes for little kids, bring more joy into their family.
Dave Kittle:
Well, I really appreciate you being open to discussing it. I know, I can only imagine that it cannot be easy to discuss it over just a podcast episode, or even over a couple of phone calls with me. So I really appreciate that and everyone can hear a little bit more real-life stuff, what happens outside a business and real-life things that you guys had to go through. That whole experience, has that changed you and Kim? Has it changed any way you look at business or the way you make plans or anything like that?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. Man, it’s certainly given us a totally different perspective on life. It’s going from… Seeing what she went through and going from work and very long days and working on the business and we continued to do so, but it also made us realize how strong our team was and how strong our systems were that everyone just stepped up and the business continued to run like a well-oiled machine and we continued to grow throughout the year of 2019 even though Kim and I were focusing on getting our daughter through treatment and making sure we were going to be able to spend future birthdays with her.
So I think it’s the perspective that we have and really to focus on and truly value and understand what really matters in life. And we’ve all, prior to, I know everyone has a bad day, but I say to myself often even the most stressful days, someone else was having a worse day. And that’s something that’s really helped us from even on the business side. As business owners there can be a lot of stress and a lot of different hats you’re wearing, but at the end of the day that certainly brought a whole different perspective, a different way to look at things.
Dave Kittle:
Yeah. There’s nothing else I can say up to that. Wow. But thank you so much for sharing it again. Hopefully, next time we have you guys back you can have Kim, and maybe even Kinsley if she’s available, have all three of you guys jump on for a recap.
Adam Peacock:
Yeah.
Dave Kittle:
And hear how things are going.
Adam Peacock:
Yeah, that’d be great. Love to do that. Yeah, if you get a chance, Kinsley’sCookieCart.org is her website. And her full story is on there to check out. But yeah, I’d love for anybody to be able to check it out and see all the great work she’s doing now.
Dave Kittle:
Yeah, guys go ahead and check out that website. Like I said to Adam, it was really well designed, like really, really well designed. I think it’s great. It looks awesome. And for more, if you are a physical therapist, if you’re an occupational therapist, speech-language pathologist, if you’re a therapy practice owner and you want to hear more go to StrataPT.com. S-T-R-A-T-A-P-T.com.
Other than that, the main website, Adam, what is a good place for someone to connect with you, whether it’s LinkedIn, or an email address, anywhere on social media, or even just the main website, what’s the best way for someone to get a hold of you?
Adam Peacock:
Yeah. Our website’s got a lot of great content on there and a lot of videos, a lot of testimonials there as well to hear it straight from the practices that we work with and I think that’s important to not only hear from someone like myself but also hear from the practices that we work with. So there’s a lot of good information there. Connect on LinkedIn as well. But I’d encourage you to take a look at the website, take a look at some of the videos on there, and also look at… It’s set up in a way to identify if there are certain pain points that you have in your practice, take a look and we try to present things that are very personalized and being able to provide personalized solutions to truly bring the best technology and the best service to the practices we work with.
Dave Kittle:
That’s awesome. Guys, go ahead and check out StrataPT.com for more. And if you’re still listening to this, then stay tuned for the next couple of episodes. We’re going to be interviewing more CEOs and partners and executives at different medical record companies in the out-patient rehab world. So that way you can hear more about the background stories like we just heard from Adam and we’ll hear more and more as we go.
So go ahead and check us out on iTunes, SoundCloud and YouTube. This is Dave Kittle at PT TechTalk Podcast, episode 102. Adam, thank you so much.
Adam Peacock:
Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Dave.