How To Integrate Wellness Coaching Into Your Clinical Practice

Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the catalyst health and wellness coaching podcast. I’m Bradford Cooper, your host, and we’re excited to bring this latest episode. It was one of the very first we ever recorded and we thought this would be the perfect time to bring it back. You see, we have a very large number of clinicians and healthcare providers approach us about the idea of health and wellness coaching. Now, that obviously makes perfect sense to everyone, but it not only makes logical sense, there’s actually an option, an accredited option that people can follow to either incorporate it into their practices, do it as a side business, or maybe even a part of a long-term retirement plan. This week we’ll be down at the American Physical Therapy Association Conference. Since catalyst is the only certification that’s accredited by the Federation of state boards of physical therapists, so based on that timing, we thought this would be a good week to bring it back.

Dr. Cooper

If you’re a clinician, this’ll be right up your alley, but regardless of your background, you’re going to get a lot out of this episode. A lot of intriguing tidbits about coaching opportunities to grow your practice or maybe reasons to get it rolling in the first place from these two that frankly they were on the fence for a while too. You’ll be hearing from two physical therapists, Charlie and David, who have been integrating wellness coaching into their practices for several years, but they’re each doing so in very, very different ways and interestingly, David just emailed me a couple of weeks ago to say he was going to move out of clinical practice and go into full time wellness coaching this month.

Dr. Cooper

By the time you hear this episode, our November 9th and 10th fast track certification training will be completely sold out, so your next opportunity would be February 8th and 9th in Colorado, that’s the weekend after the Superbowl and in terms of weather, we always get that question, that time of year in Metro Denver where the where the course is going to be, it should be beautiful. February is a beautiful month. If you’re a skier and you want to head up into the mountains, it’s great skiing, weather. Typically February is the best skiing month in Colorado up in the mountains. Denver again tends to be fine, so if you’d like to try to combine a little skiing time with a coaching certification, if that’s your thing, that might be a great time to do it. All the details are available at catalystcoachinginstitute.com and as always, please feel free to reach out to us if you want to talk about any of this stuff. Coaching, national board certification, how does this fit with your career? You know, I’m a clinician. What does that look like? Anything email is results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com now let’s jump into the latest episode, one of the first episodes of the catalyst health and wellness coaching podcast.

Dr. Cooper

All right guys. Well thanks for joining us today. Very excited about this one. The first question out of the gate, let me turn to Charlie first. You were both highly qualified, credentialed, respected physical therapists before you ever pursued any kind of wellness coach certification. Why did you decide to go that route a few years ago?

Charlie

Well, for me it was really finding out that it was something that was doable. I didn’t really know much about wellness coaching. I think you introduced it to me. I saw what you were doing with US Corporate Wellness and I’ve always enjoyed the educating parts with patients and seeing that, after they’re finished with their shoulder pain, is there something else you could help them with? And there was a need for that. And so I just found out there was a way to get certified in coaching people, and so I took the step.

Dr. Cooper

Awesome. Awesome. David, how about you?

David

Well, it’s really similar for me. I mean several years back APTA started to encourage us to collaborate with other individuals, other organizations, you know, for wellness and fitness and such as that. And I’ve always taken kind of a wellness approach to physical therapy and I saw a great way for us to have an adjunctive kind of piece of care to the physical therapy part and looked into wellness and it looked like a perfect fit. And so far it has been.

Dr. Cooper

Excellent. Excellent. All right, so we’ll flip it back to David on this one. So we’ll just kind of do a tennis match here. How have you seen the profession, so as physical therapists, PT assistants, how have you seen the profession adopt more of the health and wellness emphasis over the past few years? And then where do you see it going forward from here?

David

Well, you know what we now call the wellness approach used to be called the holistic approach and really looking at the whole person taking, you know, mental and social factors and taking all that together just as kind of a part of the whole person and the impact on their lives. And as I mentioned before, I think that an older collaboration with physical therapy has been with athletic trainers. And I think that wellness coaching, the skillset brings a lot to the table in physical therapy. I see as physical therapists widen their focus, so to speak, that they’re going to see the importance of wellness services and wellness coaching services. I think you’re going to see a big part of that come into the clinic. I think that’s a great change for us.

Dr. Cooper

Great point. Great point. Charlie, anything to add to that?

Charlie

Yeah, for me it’s locally, I’ve seen a lot of my PT colleagues offering wellness type outreach, whether it’s seminars or some other, you know, wellness coaching, lectures, etc. So it seems like in the Phoenix Metro area there’s been a bit of a rise in PTs doing that. I think there’s an opportunity, I think there’s a void there that patients are looking for, for someone to guide them in these areas. And I think PTs are in the perfect spot to take advantage of that if we act on it.

Dr. Cooper

Right. Yeah. There’s already that trusted relationship. Okay. So, again, back to Charlie here. What are some of the ways that you’ve seen your opportunities to utilize the training you received? So you went through the wellness coach certification, you’re already highly qualified as a PT. How did you see that then enhancing what you’re offering in addition to what you mentioned earlier?

Charlie

I think during the subjective exam it was more, you know, talking with these patients, going through their medical history on the form in front of me and having some questions on there that kind of probed into their health and wellness, things like sleep, nutrition, other stress, etc. And I’ve just taken more time when I see some yellow flags, red flags, whatever you want to call them. I see them on there and it allows me to probe a little bit. And then getting into the coaching itself. Its just once they verbalize that they’re struggling in these areas, it opens a door to talk about that stuff. So I just do the education, and obviously going through the certification and learning how to coach people on that, it’s just opened that door. Once they kind of verbalize, hey, I am struggling in my sleep and I never thought of how it affected my performance.

Dr. Cooper

Very good. Yeah. It’s interesting what you said about the subjective piece cause I’ve seen a lot of PTs over the years and that’s almost a throwaway. Yes, we do the SOAP but the subjective is like, Oh, okay, yeah, we got through that. Now let’s get to what matters with the objective aspect of the assessment. And what you’re saying is that piece actually expanded to become a more important role than ever before, after going through the training. Interesting. David, anything to add to that in terms of ways you’ve seen an opportunity to utilize the training you received as you were going through the wellness coach certification?

David

Well, you know, like I said, I’ve always kind of taken a wellness approach to the physical therapy that I do. And honestly, I think it has broadened my perspective on really what we do treat. And really what the goal is, is to give these people a better life, you know, after shoulder surgery or knee surgery or back or whatever, stroke, whatever. Our goal is really more than just strength or range of motion and that sort of thing. Our goal is to restore as much of that person’s life to them as we can. And so all that that encompasses, the coaching training was invaluable to making me really better and more effective as a therapist in that holistic wellness.

Dr. Cooper

Love it. So we want to keep this next, the answer to this next question, anonymous, but any fun and keeping it anonymous, can you provide us with one or two fun little clients’ stories that stick out in your mind is as being particularly memorable or meaningful? David, I’ll let you kind of kick this one off.

David

Okay. Well, you know, I tell people how much fun it is to do coaching, but fun sometimes is not really the best word, but it’s just such a great thing. I have a lady in particular who is a frequent visitor and we are working with her after shoulder rehab. She came in and wanted to continue fitness and wellness and her life kind of took some hard turns and bumps and now we’re working through a life after divorce and things like that. And, we’ve seen her really just grow and grow and grow. She’s been a coaching client for about four months now and she’s just over the top happy and feels like she has a place to go in her life and fun? Yeah, fun. But really it’s just so rewarding to see someone figure out with your help which direction they want to go, how they really do want to end up.

Dr. Cooper

Charlie, any highlights come to mind?

Charlie

I have a shoulder patient who was going through a divorce and it was cool because she’s been with me now for five years and so we finished the shoulder therapy and I was just about to open my open my own practice and offer the wellness coaching. So I just asked her, hey, would you be, I hate to use the word Guinea pig, but would you be a client of mine and let me help you. And I think I just recently finished a certification. So we started together five years ago. She’s diabetic, but now she’s got that under control. She’s run and she actually has gone and she’s lost some weight, got through the divorce, she’s got a solid job. So she’s offering, she’s a mental health therapist and she thought, hey, it’d be something I can, another little nugget I can offer my clients.

Dr. Cooper

We get emails. I got one, probably two weeks ago. That was intriguing to me along the lines of what you guys are talking about because you’re talking about some deep stuff there. I mean that’s not just, Oh yeah, we worked with this and that. I mean that’s both of you shared stuff that they were going through that was leading to other things. And we get emails telling us that, you know what, I could probably benefit from counseling, but I’m just not ready for that yet, or I’m not ready to take that step. And a coach, you know, a coach, is not quite so intimidating. It’s not quite so overwhelming. So I feel like that’s a good place to start and they may end up going through counseling because we’re not counselors as coaches, we know that, but we can certainly help people in the initial stages with that. So it’s interesting that both of you kind of mentioned things along those lines. So let’s take a little slight turn here. As far as your practice, where do you see your opportunities? And Charlie, I’ll start with you on this. Where do you see future opportunities in your practice to expand what you’re doing or to build on what you’re doing with the tools or the marketing or any aspect of the wellness coaching piece that you see opening up some doors for you or being something you’re going to do in the future with your practice?

Charlie

So a chunk of my business is, I do some coaching in endurance exercise. So, you know, Mary comes to me and is training for, wants to train for a half marathon, and she’s kind of new to running, let’s say. And so what I’ve found is when I sit down with these folks, a lot of times, you know, they’ve kinda got their running, they’ve been doing some running and they feel like they got that under control. But it’s the sleep part of it. It’s the how do I eat when I’m training for a half marathon? How do I manage my time, you know? And so I find that there’s an opportunity for me to kind of, not just that beginner runner necessarily, but someone who is going to do an endurance event that they want to be, like David mentioned the holistic part of that. And so I think there’s an opportunity to continue to tap into that market. And a lot of it includes, you know, going to the public with some lectures. In fact, I’m giving one tonight and maybe even some social media outreach too on that this service is out there. If I’m going to be coached in an endurance events, I want someone that’s going to address all these areas.

David

Mine, you know, I envy you Charlie, working with athletes. Mine is simply life skills management. I work with, you couldn’t group my clients in a group. I mean, it’s such a wide range from a young girl who’s having some issues as she’s coming in with her mom and she’s having issues in high school and things there and teaching them or helping them realize how they can get through, and how they can manage. It’s the older people who have their finances squared away and their kids are grown and they look ahead at their life and wonder what’s next and helping people, really honestly helping people finish well is a big part of my clientele. Just nobody wants to go out on the downslide, everybody wants to go out up. And so it’s just sorting through life, you know, life is unpredictable and just helping people develop strategies to make their lives really what they want their lives to be. Since I’m one of those people, I’m 65 in my 40th year of PT practice and for me, I’m hoping I can continue to do this. I mean, when will we be too old or when will having a better life ever go out of style? I don’t see that going away or anything like that. I see that only becoming a bigger part.

Dr. Cooper

I don’t know what percent, but we have a lot of physical therapists go through our program. You both know that there were several in the room when you were going through the certification with catalyst, but the feedback we’re getting from people that call us prior to registration is they’re looking for something for the end of their career. They’re kind of looking for a new way to wrap it up or something where maybe they’ve been doing manual therapy or inpatient where it’s requiring a lot of physical load or their hands are starting to break down, those kinds of things. And they’re looking for something that they can still use, their skills, their background, their history, all of those aspects in a slightly different way. And so I’m intrigued by what you said there. That’s interesting.

Dr. Cooper

So let’s, let’s jump over, we’ll start with Charlie here, but what advice would you give the new clinician on the other end of the spectrum of what I just said is we’ve got people that are one to three years out of school that find out about us, see an article in PT magazine or whatever, and they contact us and say, you know, this sounds like it’s me. I’d kinda like to look into this. What advice would you have for that person? So both of you are very, very experienced physical therapists. Think back David, 37 years, Charlie, you know, 20 some years and think through. What advice would you give that person who is relatively fresh out of school? Is this something, what would be the benefit of pursuing it? Let me make it simple.

Charlie

Yeah. I think if you mentioned, if they have an interest that they feel like they enjoy that part of that patient relationship, that they’re going to dig a little bit deeper and they’re going to help them on a different level, past when their back pain is better, then I say go for it. I think it is a way to separate yourself a bit. I think of like, there’s patients out there, John, who’s being pulled in many directions from a ton of different healthcare providers. So if we’re all competing for that same patient, then what skills can I offer this person, that maybe someone else doesn’t? And so I know there’s a lot of new clinicians that look for like the specialties and PT, like the ortho specialty or the sports specialty. But yeah, I think the wellness coaching fits right into that. And it can be an avenue to separate yourself.

Dr. Cooper

How would you compare the benefits of getting your OCS compared to, with your benefits of pursuing your CWC?

Charlie

I think that’s a great question. I would say that it’s a bit of a different pathway. I mean the training was way different. I mean the training, which I appreciated, with the wellness coaching was very hands on. And when I went and did it, there was practice and there was a practical part to it. With the board specialties and APTA, you know, it’s just an exam. You study like crazy, you take the exam. I mean, they’re both very beneficial and they have been. But when I have that patient that says, oh, I didn’t know you could help me with this with, I didn’t know you really talked to me about stress, they kind of perk up a bit. Versus like, hey, I’m very knowledgeable on the orthopedic part of PT but I also canoffer this now. So I think it was just a different avenue completely, and the training was just a bit different, in more like the practical.

Dr. Cooper

ICHWC exam that’s put on by the national board of medical examiners is probably very similar to the OCS exam. So that preparation at that level, not for the basic CWC certification, but that level is probably pretty similar. David, coming back to you, what would you say for the new clinician, somebody who’s just out of school one to three years, is this something worth doing at that point or do they need to put their focus elsewhere?

David

Well, I mean, my advice is very simple. Do it now. I wish I had done it 20 or 30 years ago. The thing about it is that the skill sets of physical therapy and wellness coaching are so complimentary to each other. They dovetail just hand in glove. It’s just a beautiful partnership. We work so hard in physical therapy to narrow down our focus and treat specifically, and wellness coaching opens up people’s perspectives, opens up their lives. And, I would tell them to pursue the education to its greatest degree in wellness coaching because anybody can hang up a shingle that says wellness, but to set yourself apart to really have something that’s really truly valuable, I think that educational component is critical. Get the highest level you can get. The process is just so, so valuable.

Dr. Cooper

For the clinician who is on the back half of their career or maybe they are starting to wind down. I mentioned that we get that question a lot. We have a lot of folks attending with that goal in mind. But Charlie, what would you say to the person that says, you know what, I’m kind of winding things down. Is it worth the extra effort and time and frankly costs to pursue something like this? Or what would be your general thought for where, where you see that?

Charlie

Yeah, I think when I did it and I started to coach more, it felt like a second career almost. And so my advice would be that if, not that you don’t like the PT stuff, but let’s be honest, when you’ve been doing it 20, 30 plus years, you’ve seen most things in the clinic. I felt like after I started coaching that it was like this whole new set of patients and situations came up. And so it was, it was almost like I said it’s almost like a second career. I recently had a phone call, a couple phone calls with a gentleman who was a PT, I think on the, 30 plus years who was looking at doing it. And he was like, hey, is this something I really should do? And I just encouraged him, kind of ask him some questions and it sounds like he finally decided to do it and he’s going to help out his church, and offer some coaching through his church. And he went and got certified. And so just a cool story how someone who’s been doing PT a long time and has kinda been sharing that yeah, you know what? I think there’s something else out there I want to do.

David

For me it’s a matter of staying engaged and staying relevant. We get into this to have a positive impact on people’s lives. And as you say, my physical capacities are diminished at 65 years old and the clinic still holds challenges. But this is a way for me to maybe, you know, step to the side a little bit. Retirement for me does not look like a rocking chair. So I want to stay with physical therapy, but I want to stay relevant and engaged in the clinic where I work and with the people with whom I work and the clients with whom I work. And this is just a way, and the second career picture is a great picture.

Dr. Cooper

You’ve each touched on these slightly, but I want to develop this out a little bit more. For the clinician who’s looking for opportunities here. And I’ll start with David. Any suggestions or concepts or ideas of how the wellness coach certification could help somebody either in their marketing, trying to differentiate themselves from other PTs in the market referral sources. And then on the resume side also, how does that enhance or how do you see that enhancing their resume as they’re looking to move up through their career?

David

Well, I think the focus going forward with healthcare is going to be more on the health part and less on the care part. Insurers drive a lot of that certainly, but I think that we can drive, our part really very well. I think that as you become more proficient in what you do, more confident, more mature in what you do, you bring that added skillset to the table, it gives you opportunities to be in more places. And that’s one thing I would recommend right from day one is be visible. The market where I am, we had our demographic all wrong and we didn’t know where to go to market it. And for the first year or so it kinda just limped along. Then we hit a nerve with the 60 year olds and up and the nerve we hit was don’t you want to be able to play with your grandchildren for as long as you want to play with your grandchildren? And we put that out on a television commercial, a 15 second spot actually. And in the last year, our numbers are just in, we’ve tripled our caseload on the wellness coaching side, in one year. So marketing really mainly know your demographic, know your audience and then be visible to that audience. I love Charlie giving lectures. It certainly has opened up our lecture and our public speaking opportunities here. We’ve had to be out in the community.

Charlie

I’m going to add, yeah, it is the visibility. I think it’s really helped to give an occasional talk and the simple step too, of just when you have a client who feels like he has enjoyed your service and, benefited you ask them, hey, if you know of anybody else that needs this, word of mouth is very powerful. So I’ll get the client say, hey, you know what? My husband could use some of this stuff too. He’s trying to get exercise and I have had a lot of that because usually, let’s be honest, ladies are the ones that seek help, I think better than guys do. Right? So there’s been a lot of my spouse needs help too, so, but go easy on him, you know, go easy on him. So I think it is word of mouth. And then the occasional lecture. In the Phoenix Metro area, there’s a ton of stuff. There’s, you know, there’s chiropractic care, they’re offering wellness, there’s massage therapists, there’s PTs, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of people competing.

Dr. Cooper

When you think about the individual clinician trying to build their resume, one of the things I think about that a lot of folks probably don’t tune into is a lot of the skills you’ll learn as a wellness coach are incredibly applicable to management, so all these books and classes you take on management and how to work with people and support them and grow them. A lot of management is helping people become their best self within an employment type situation. As a wellness coach, you’re learning how to help people become their best self in life in whatever it is that they’re pursuing out there from athletics to parenting to potentially careers. I just want to throw that out as an example of something that as you’re building your resume, not just having three more letters after your name on your resume, but also if it’s a goal to get into a management role, wow, you’re probably going to be a natural fit for that because you’ve been practicing helping people become the best version of themselves already. Any other examples of things like that that you think might apply and I’ll just wide open to either one of you that want to jump in, in terms of building your resume, mid career, any anything that you see out there where the CWC wellness coach certification might be helpful.

Charlie

I went and spoke to a PT school that I think was helpful. I mean there’s, I think there’s five of them in the Phoenix Metro area. I think I’ve been to a couple of them. You know, you can put public speaking on, you can put the examples of where you spoke on your resume and if you find some opportunities like that, I think look for ways you can share. There’s lots of groups out there, they’re looking for someone to come in and share something, whether it’s a weight loss support group or a stress management group, or you can even create your own group. You know, the other day I was thinking about a realtor’s office. I’ve got a client who owns a real estate office and there’s probably 15 real estate agents in there. And what a great opportunity to go in there and do a weight loss challenge.

David

Well, I just think that you can leverage the wellness coaching skills pretty much in any realm you want to. I mean, we have found banks as very fertile ground for talking to their management teams in people management and taking care of themselves. So we’ve gone to several different nonprofits in a nonprofit management organization. A local foundation, talking to their executive boards just on how to make the most of your assets and how to, you know, how to leverage what you have to the benefit of the people you serve and to the benefit of your own organization.

Dr. Cooper

We’ve got a lot of folks out there who are other clinicians. We have physicians, nurses, counselors, athletic trainers, you name it, they’re there and they’re wanting to know, does this apply to me? You interact with a lot of those folks. So the part a of the question, what advice, and I’ll start with David, what advice would you have for the other clinicians that may not be PT specific the way we’ve been taking most of this conversation, but that you see a benefit for them in a clinical role or a related clinical role?

David

Well, the way I see it, there is not a downside to adding the wellness coaching skillset to your repertoire. Nobody builds a house with just a hammer. Nobody does any job with just one tool. You expand your toolbox by having the wellness coaching aptitudes in your toolbox and it just makes you a more complete person, more complete clinician, no matter what your role is. I mean, even if you were just on the technical level, having wellness skills in your toolbox and makes you a better member of your organization. Everybody benefits.

Charlie

Yeah. Yeah. I just think if you’re a practitioner that has someone coming in and sitting in front of you and you’re engaging with them, it’s a slam dunk. I mean, I think it’s something you should do because like David said, it’s just another skill.

Dr. Cooper

Any advice for those, and I’ll start with Charlie. Any advice for those folks who don’t come from a clinical background, have no plans to pursue that route. But this kinda sounds interesting because you’re doing this both within a clinical setting and it sounds like both of you are doing it slightly outside that and you’re interacting with other coaches too. So just any parting thoughts for that group, Charlie?

Charlie

Yeah, well I’ve had clients who after we’ve been coaching and working together for a bit, have said, hey, you know, this is something I think I may want to do myself. And usually my response to that is, that’s awesome. Think about where your niche would be or think about, like focus in a bit and think about how would you use that and who would you go after, you know, whether it is the busy mom or the CEO or you know, somewhere. Try to define what you’re going to do with it.

David

It’s the wellness message. I mean take a little time and reflect on who you really want to be. You know, what’s your ideal vision of who you want to be, the life you want to lead and see if you’re inclined to be an engagement kind of person. Not everybody is, but engaging people in their lives and having a positive impact on those lives can be extraordinarily rewarding. I mean, wellness coaching has changed me and the way I approach people and made me a much more complete therapist, coach and person as well. So I would say take a little bit of time, do some self reflection.

Dr. Cooper

Any final words of wisdom to the person that’s considering this or they’re coaching and they want that extra boost on how to go next level. So Charlie, just any final thoughts that I didn’t ask the right question to give you the opportunity to mention?

Charlie

When I started, I thought to myself, what am I going to do. And I think this was a tip you’d given me is asking people, you know, ask some of your patients, ask some of your friends. Hey, if I was going to start doing some of this coaching and here’s how, here’s what it would look like, would you be interested in this? Almost like a miniature focus group I guess. And I asked a few people and the response was good. Hey, yeah I know I’d pay a fee to have you coach me in these areas. And so I just was like kind of a good evidence to keep pushing me that direction when I got some response back on that as a person, would you pay for this fee or pay for this to be coached?

Dr. Cooper

Love it. Love it. Well this will probably be among our most popular podcasts we’ve done to date, so thanks for taking the time, really appreciate it and keep up the great work.

Dr. Cooper

Thanks for joining us for this special throwback episode. If you are a physical therapist and you’re listening to this during the PPS conference, please stop by and say hello. And while we always appreciate the way all of you share these episodes with friends, we especially appreciate you sharing this one with friends who happen to be in the healthcare arena. One quick note about the 2020 coaching retreat. We just finished the one in Colorado in September and the next one is scheduled for next year on September 18th to the 20th in Estes Park. And most of you’re thinking, dude, seriously like that’s so far out and I get it. But what we’re doing is we’re offering a really deep discount for those people who know they’re going to be there. We’ve heard from several of you, and it’s an easy way to save money. So if you know you’re coming, we know it’s super early, feel free to wait. But if you know you want to get some CEUs, get refreshed, get together with coaches from all over the country and frankly, world. Easy way to save some money. Details at catalystcoachinginstitute.com just click the retreat tab and you’ll see it. Now let’s go get better. The great thing about better, it’s just one step away. And what better day than today to take that step. Make it a great rest of your day, and I’ll speak with you soon. On the next episode of the catalyst health and wellness coaching podcast.