Ben Lynch: Hello. Welcome.

Hannah Dunn: Good to see you. I looked at Jack then and was like, oh, my camera's not on. No, that's Jack. Jack's with us?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, Jack's with us.

Hannah Dunn: Just not visually.

Jack O'Brien: Well, I've been waiting for so long, so far behind schedule. It's like the voice of God. A bit rich to be criticising me for the last few episodes. And here we are behind schedule, been waiting. My screensaver came on. We were that far behind schedule.

Ben Lynch: I got kicked out of my Google account. I'm like, it says verify that it's you. I'm like, I haven't left my post all morning. What do you mean verify it's me? It was always me. G'day good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic Podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode. The headline reads, families on the NDIS just want certainty about what thriving kids means for their futures.

Hannah Dunn: We don't want to find ourselves in a position where we're recommending a therapy based on funding.

Jack O'Brien: I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, you have three years of turbulence in the NDIS.

Hannah Dunn: A lot of those kids, you know, get told that they don't qualify. Who are they really targeting and where are we going?

Jack O'Brien: I just want to acknowledge those clinic owners and also the families and those parents, those children who are on the precipice of inclusion or exclusion. That's really hard.

Hannah Dunn: There are some really simple things to do if you're feeling totally out of control.

Ben Lynch: This episode will be right up your alley if you're a clinic servicing the NDIS. We're diving into the news about the Thriving Kids program. You'll want to hear Hannah's take on what to do to take control of your finances, team and marketing. Plus, Jack drops a gem on how to double down on your patient's experience and outcomes. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email hallowettclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 314. The band is back. Hannah, great to see you. You too. How you been doing? Like there's a couple episodes we missed. Yeah. Bit of leave, bit of this. Yeah. Are we still on good terms?

Hannah Dunn: We are. We are. I'm glad to be back. I was worried about what you two might have been up to while I was gone.

Jack O'Brien: I can confirm shenanigans is what we've been up to.

Ben Lynch: Shenanigans. Yes, it is. And Jacobren, good to be back in the seat. How's your riding been? Were you any quicker over the weekend with that new helmet?

Jack O'Brien: Yes, markedly quicker.

Ben Lynch: So there you go. Helmets work. Jack got this very swish-o, swish-o helmet. You know, only the cyclists would know what he's talking about. I thought it was a snowboarding helmet. That's how familiar I am with all of this stuff. And Jack reckons he's going to go quicker. So good on him.

Jack O'Brien: All about those aero gains?

Ben Lynch: All those seconds, those milliseconds.

Jack O'Brien: The beard won't be helping you? No, the beard's not aero, but the helmet offsets the beard. I might have to like shave my arms. That's like next level commitment.

Ben Lynch: Hannah, forget the beard. I just said the size of your head. That'll definitely slow you down. I mean, look at it. Yeah. That's a rugby player's head.

Hannah Dunn: Anyway.

Ben Lynch: Well, today, let's kick off with a couple of welcomes. A few warm welcomes, Jacobren. I've got a few from Allie. Thank you, as always, for those that are trusting Allie to support their team in training and performance management. Wetpain, Wayne. Oh my God, I'm so tongue-tied. Wayne, Pep, Celine, Lisa, Kate, and Will, thank you so much for testing out Allie in your clinic. Clearly, I haven't had my full dosage of coffee. So I'm going to sip this. And Jacoba, what have you got on your desk?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, every single day we have clinic owners reaching out to us asking for help to grow your clinic. That is what we do. That's our bread and butter, supporting clinic owners. And so recently we've had Sarah and Erica join us respectively in the Business Academy and in Elevate, different programs for different stages and sizes of clinic. But Sarah, Erica, welcome to the community. And if anyone else wants to see if we're able to help them, Ben, what's the best email for them to get in touch with?

Ben Lynch: I think you offered yours. Jack at ClinicMastery.com. That's J-A-C-K at ClinicMastery.com. Send him an email. He loves reading his emails. There you go, Jay.

Jack O'Brien: Better they send it to my inbox. Yours is gathering dust and dormant, right? It is. I previously admitted that I despise email.

Hannah Dunn: I've had a chat to a couple of people who were inquiring about what Clinic Mastery is like to be part of Clinic Mastery. And I personally joined Clinic Mastery just before COVID or a little bit just before COVID. And it was the best thing I did having Clinic Mastery here during uncertain times. And I think in these times where we've got so much change with funding, like you just need someone in your corner who is there to support you through that. And if you are on the fence, it is now to get that support.

Ben Lynch: Such a good dovetail, Hannah, dovetail. Beautiful dovetailing, because here's what happened last week. We had our leadership retreat, but during the week for our Australian clinics are on the NDIS. Now, don't judge my tabs at the top. Even I am hating that. But here we are today. We're going to use a few reference points. We're looking at the ABC News. The headline reads families on the NDIS just want certainty about what thriving kids means for their future. So, Hannah, last week, this guy here, the Health and Disability Minister, Mark Butler, I believe he's a bit of a local to me. I think I saw him with his grandkids, if he's got some. Anyway, that's a sidetrack. He announced The other day, the 20th of August, that essentially more cuts are coming to the NDIS, specifically for kids with autism in the sort of mild to moderate rating. And they're going to be doing a lot of cuts. I'm going to use a few reference points here, unpack it, get your reaction to it. But just as a headline, the government has announced its commitment to contribute $2 billion towards thriving kids. My suspicion is the other side of that coin is they're cutting about two billion or thereabouts, and they just want to focus on the positive. Well played in PR land. And they're specifically targeting children aged eight and under with mild to moderate developmental delay and autism and their families. This is reasonable news for a number of clinics, and we want to unpack this a little bit more. You can go along to here's a scroll, just bear with me, over on the health.gov website and see the whole transcript, all the details. We're going to unpack some of this today. Hannah, when this rolled out last week, what was the reaction in your neck of the woods, in your clinic, in your team? And then by extension, what have you seen in the marketplace of the clinic owners that we support?

Hannah Dunn: I think people just feel like the first heading said that families just want certainty. I think therapists and clinicians and business owners just want certainty as well. I think there was quite a bit of surprise. A lot of people didn't even know that there was a Thriving Kids program that was being trialed in Western Australia. And so that was surprising that that had already been occurring. And I think just that uncertainty of not knowing what this means, particularly when there is a lot of kids that it will affect. I guess the flip side for us is that we're thinking, okay, mild to moderate, a lot of those kids don't get NDIS funding anyway, that a lot of those kids, you know, get told that they don't qualify. And so who are they really targeting and where are we going and what is the caseload? Is there secondary diagnosis, but there's other diagnosis that will come into play that will be able to keep kids on NDIS. And I think the other thing just being that the timeline is so tight that next year is when they want to implement this by the 1st of July with a 12-month rollout period. And we know how the NDIS went when it first came out. There were lots of bumps in the road. And so I think just watching this space be alert but not alarmed sort of situation. But it's definitely going to mean big changes and that we need to make sure that we're getting ahead of the game and understanding what it means for all of our clinics doing our numbers.

Ben Lynch: To that point, J.O.B., last session we, or a few sessions before, we unpacked looking at your profit and loss through the lens of a clinic owner. And we'll touch on that today as to where are some of the opportunities for clinics to get fit. financially to make sure that they have the reserves, they have a good position to navigate some of these uncertainties, or the many uncertainties that happen as part of being in business. This just naturally occurs, whether you're in the NDIS or not, there's always uncertainties. A therapist leaves, key referral source dries up, a funding source gets changed, like in the NDIS context. There are some fundamentals that remain true no matter the season. When this news came out, what was your reaction?

Jack O'Brien: Look, it's funny, honey, you mentioned at the top, you joined Clint Mastery during COVID and the uncertainty that that brought. This announcement, Ben, to your point or to your question, reminded me a little bit of some of the COVID announcements. The cynic in me, not Simon cynic, but the cynical nature in me wonders what sort of political stunt this first announcement is and how much of it will actually come to pass in reality or what the final version of reality will look like. what we know typically from these types of things is the first version that gets put out there to break the ice is rarely what happens in actuality down the line. So I'm really curious to see it play out. So my first thought was political cynicism to answer your question. And then my second thought was, funny you mentioned it Hannah, back to COVID and We don't want to live and die. We don't want to run our clinics based on a news cycle. There's so much fear and uncertainty and hype. And so I take a lot of inspiration from JFK, John F. Kennedy, the president at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I've shared this analogy a couple of times over the last few years, is oftentimes when there's chaos, uncertainty or a news flash, Sometimes one of the best things to do is to do nothing and just let the dust settle to zoom out and take stock and run through some scenarios, rationalize your thinking with your coach or with your clinic owner community, or even with some of the AIs to test some thinking and speak through some hypotheses. But just chill out for a moment, go and grab a coffee and let your thinking processes, let your synapses do the work.

Ben Lynch: So do you point, Hannah, around where are these cuts going to happen? What is your read on that? They're obviously targeting this cohort of people who they've called out. To share my screen again, here are some elements of the transcript from Mark Butler, the MP, it is that the NDIS has grown incredibly fast and well beyond their projections. They have grown, they've added too much bloat. The original purpose, the North Star, as I said, was people with significant and permanent care and support needs. The sense is that, hey, the folks where there's been a lot of new people added to the scheme don't fit this criteria, this definition. And the whole scheme was growing around 22%. They've brought it back to about 12%. They're targeting 8%, but actually they're already foreshadowing about 5%. So they're already talking about cuts well into the future, back down to a normalised rate of around 5%. Here it is. 8% is simply unsustainable in the medium to long term. So there are their new projection of eight, they're already saying we need to cut that meaningfully as well. So what do you think this means for private practice clinic owners serving this cohort of people? My sense is that there's a lot of people do need to act J-O-B to your point. Yes, don't react right now. There is time. But Hannah, What should clinic owners be thinking about here?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I mean, we just don't know what this looks like in regards to who will get the funding and how that will look. It could be that it's like they've mentioned that they want it going through community based services and that it would be potentially it could go to schools. We don't know. There's always been this discussion of what is health responsibility versus what's education responsibility and whether some of this does end up falling towards what they're saying are those natural settings in which children are already at school. Can we utilise those services within schools? Is there GP clinics or community centres that can be providing screeners is part of the talk as well. And so we're really unclear on whether even if these kids get moved into this whether private practices will be able to access that money. And it sort of reminds me about when I was working at Specialist Children's Services, which is sat under the Department of Education. So it feels like we're just going back into this full circle where they determined that early intervention wasn't the best way to go. NDIS came into play. NDIS closed down those early intervention services where we were working in the key worker model and we were no longer needed. And so we went to private, and now it sounds like we're saying, well, private's not working with NDIS. We need to go back into this community-based model. And I guess when I was at Specialist Children's Services, there was a lot of talk about us closing down as a business, that funding was going to change and all of that. And what people said to me during that time is, yes, funding may change, but there will always be the need for OT, or there'll always be the need for speech or psych. And so it's just about how we're supporting these kids and where that funding is coming from and how we can better support those children. So it's tough to know what to do at this point. If it is going to be in schools, is it that they're going to contract OT services? Is it that they're going to have to employ their own OTs? What are the opportunities there? It's so unclear as to what this specifically means at the moment from the conversations that I've had. But essentially, we've had these changes. We had early intervention and no external funding. We had Faxia funding. We had Better Start funding. We then went to NDIS funding that looked very different to what it looks like now when it first came out. There was way different kids who could access it. So I just feel it's potentially a way of looking at it is just another iteration of what we've seen over the last 20 years of all those funding systems changing.

Jack O'Brien: It's a good point, Hannah, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible, that your experience or age in the space means that you've seen this go around the mountain a couple of times. So a word of consolation, perhaps for younger or newer clinic owners, it's going to be okay. This is disruptive and it's disconcerting. But these types of things have happened before. Maybe not to this magnitude or in this specific instance, but it's happened before. It will happen again. And our job as clinic owners is to make sure that we navigate the storm as effectively and sensibly as possible.

Hannah Dunn: for those people who weren't around with FACSIA funding and Better Start funding, the way that program started was that kids got allocated $12,000 no matter their disability or their diagnosis. So if you had autism, if you had hearing loss, if you had Down syndrome, there was a range of conditions that just automatically got this 12,000. And there was a lot of talk of FEXIA funding shutting down. And we're all like, yeah, if it shuts down, that like funds our business, like that's where these kids access money. And we had a much bigger range of privately paying families and funded families, but there was a lot of fear during that time, which is very similar to what we're experiencing now with the NDIS. And the reason the NDIS came in and said, Faxio doesn't work because we can't paint every child with the same brush. It needs to be means tested. It needs to be tested on this, not means tested in regards to finance, but in regards to skill. And so it needs to be individualised, which is why NDIS took over from Faxia. And now we're saying NDIS is too broad. It's not working. We need to get more specific with this group of clients because we can't have kids with severe CP and kids with mild autism accessing the same funding. There's too much difference between their needs.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. And I really want to just make it known for those clinic owners who are feeling really disconcerted by these changes. Yes, we can make some sweeping statements and give our opinions, but I just want to make it explicitly clear. Like we see you, we feel for you. It's an incredibly unstable time. And I can imagine that those emotions and feelings and the weight of your team and the weight of your community would be really significant. So I just want to acknowledge those clinic owners and also those families and those parents, those children who are on the precipice of inclusion or exclusion, that's really hard. And I can imagine the stress, the anxiety, the emotions that those families, those carers, those providers are going through is a really challenging time.

Hannah Dunn: Those kids are remaining on the NDIS who already have the NDIS until the full implementation is what the communication is so far. And so it is really stressful for families who are just about to apply or are thinking about applying. And yeah, we absolutely all feel that, for lack of a better term, burnout and frustration and anger, for sure.

Jack O'Brien: It's an interesting point. Sorry, Ben, I know we're about to jump in, but so many of these external third party funding mechanisms have a degree of discrimination and not necessarily in the negative sense, but there has to be lines drawn somewhere. And I can imagine there's clinic owners in the NDIS space here listening, but also maybe in the DVA space. I know we saw this every week of some participants, veterans being included or excluded. And that's really hard or my aged care and some geriatric clients or even private health clients and Medicare and CDMs. And so the discriminatory nature of health care is something that we need to navigate. That's the space that we're in. And I think, Ben, we don't have to go down this rabbit hole, but it's a it's a client experience note that how we care for our clients and create experiences for our communities that is contextual to their funding mechanism or body is a key distinctive of clinics that stand out, of clinics for good, that we create experiences for our clients dependable on their funding mechanism.

Ben Lynch: And to that point of outcomes, I think that's also what they called out in the press release or at least the conversation at the press club from the minister, which was, hey, we got some of these folks that are getting they use 70 as their number, 70 sessions in a year, and it's just like, to what degree is that warranted? Now, I don't know where he's pulling this stat from, but this was the stat he chose to use, and saying, hey, I'm not sure that this is where we want to go. So to your point, like, Hannah, they called out… The way I look at some of these releases is, what are they really saying behind this? And we can sort of try and guess and pick it apart here. But I think perhaps there's elements for us to get a sense of what they're thinking, and that can guide at least some of our decisions. They're clearly calling out in this part of the press release, He says, I'll repeat, 15 out of 16 providers are unregistered, leaving far too much. Whose fault is that, Hannah?

Hannah Dunn: Correct. That's what I want to yell. Because it's so limiting. You actually made it, you incentivise people not to register because there's no funding restrictions.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, so if you're registered or unregistered, it doesn't really matter. Actually, it's a lot harder and costlier for you to be registered. So perhaps this is the direction they're going in, is they're going to make it mandatory in a future state to access the funding that you need to be registered, or at least really scope it down if you're not. You are registered, right, Hannah?

Hannah Dunn: Correct. I am holding on in the belief that that has to be the outcome that eventually comes to fruition, that surely there is going to be a moment that they say, we just need you to be registered. Like, the benefit of registration has been incredible for us in regards to having policy procedures, all of those things read over and checked. Making sure like even things down to making sure that we've got our fire plans up into the clinic. Like it's like a health check for our clinic even if it wasn't NDIS related. But the downside has been a lot too. Not being able to charge kids in groups, not being able to charge more than $193.99 when everyone listening knows that it costs us more to run a business. Um, so yeah, there's been, and I think the fatigue comes from the continual changes. We know this in our own clinics that we don't want to roll out too many changes one after the other. And yet we just feel like they took away, they reduced the physio and podiatry fees. They took away that travel and just, it just feels like one hit after another.

Jack O'Brien: That's such a good point, Hannah. Fatigue is a clinic owner. We've all kind of emerged from COVID and I think hopefully we've recovered from the COVID fatigue. For those in the NDIS space, you're starting to feel the early stages of that fatigue. There's been two or three or four substantial shifts in the last 12 months. I just want us all to be aware that this is slated for 2026, rolled out through 2027. My bet also is that there's a federal election in the first half of 2028. And you can bet your bottom dollar now that the NDIS will be a key talking point in the next federal election because it takes up such a big chunk of the federal budget. And so if you're feeling fatigued now, you need to get the supports around you because I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You have three years of turbulence in the NDIS. They're saying it's 12 months. You've got three years of turbulence. And so as clinic owners, we can moan about it or we can go, right, I'm going to get fit mentally, emotionally. I'm going to make sure my leadership with my team is sustainable over the long term. I'm not addicted to news cycles, but I'm leaning into the right communities, the right advice, We need sustainability, robustness as clinic owners coming through this next season.

Hannah Dunn: Your point before, Jack, around like not to race into doing anything, that just having that backup plan ready to go can create enough feeling of control to be ready to go instead of making those changes right now.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. There are a number of things that you can do right now that are relevant, but not explicitly related to this new cycle, right? No matter whether you're in the NDIS or not. And I think it'd be great to go through a couple of these. My question to you is, what controllables would you be looking at advising clinic owners to take control over, to be rigorous about, to be consistent on from all things team marketing, finance, and systems. A couple come to mind. If you're not already getting things like your accounts receivable under control, having bank allocations so that every dollar has a purpose. Jack, you've spoken about this beautifully on previous episodes, that you've got the funds set aside for leave in your team, the leave liabilities are set aside, your BAS and your tax are set aside, that you're separating those funds. So you know what you've got to play with. So much of the stress is around finances, maybe cash flow. Are clients going to have the same funding? Is the clinic going to have the same income? Well, how you manage your money is such an important, easy, controllable thing for you to be doing. The other is marketing. We've spoken as well, like, NDIS clinics broadly have had the luxury of never having to market or do very minimal to build a waitlist. If we compare it to our dentist friends, our physiotherapists, our pods, whether that's here in Aus or in the US or UK, the folks that we're helping, Marketing has been like a central key activity that they do every week and every month. So these things we have to come back to like 101 important fundamentals in business. So I'd be looking at clinics and going. how are we gonna start to market and start to diversify some of the funding sources, if possible, if that means going to private paying clients. And going through your P&L, check out the most recent episode of the podcast where we went through how to look at your P&L and start to actually find some cost savings. Hannah, you spoke previously to doing less mentoring hours in the clinic, not less, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but like, you had many individuals providing mentoring or supervision to your team. You actually consolidated it back to just two team members who were the best at it and maybe just sharpened up how many hours are allocated to that versus billables. It's just decisions like this that start to literally improve the margins for you as you move forward. How else Would you advise clinic owners now who are in this NDIS space to use that term, get fit, certainly financially and on the fundamentals?

Hannah Dunn: And I think you just mentioning, like, where's every dollar going? There's been more talk in the allied health space about people engaging marketing companies, people potentially considering whether one of their internal roles is a marketing person instead of, you know, another admin person or whatever that role or where that finance might have come from. And so we are recognising that marketing is definitely something that needs to happen. I think, yeah, really looking at your calendars and what's happening in your calendars, where, what are your KPIs at? How much are you paying your team? And where does that sit in regards to the market? We don't have the luxury to be offering big salaries to get that person through the door at the moment, which previously maybe companies felt like they did have.

Ben Lynch: Yes. So Hannah, in the context of these NDIS changes, do you, for your clinic or even some of the clinics that you work with, are you suggesting or recommending that they look at diversifying out to other funding streams like private paying? Or if you're just wholly and solely on the NDIS, are you fairly restricted and actually you're just going to have to find a way to make this funding work?

Hannah Dunn: I think we want to be really, yeah, diversifying. We want to be educating families about you may have X amount of funding, but this is what we recommend. We don't want to be, find ourselves in a position where we're recommending a therapy based on funding that like, you've got $12,000. This is how much therapy that'll get you. That's what we'll work within. We want to say, no, this is what I recommend in my professional capacity. Like funding will cover half of that, but that is not going to achieve the outcomes that we want to do. we need to look at it that way because we find ourselves in these positions where families think, oh, I've got the funding. And, you know, families have got a lot on their minds. They need us to explain things to them. And just like we need the dentist to explain things when we go or whatever the other discipline is. And so being clear about what it is that you would expect and therefore parents can make a choice as to whether they come to you privately or they use the NDIS funding. And that will build some of your private caseload, potentially, because you're not just being worked in the way the NDIS want you to be working.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point, Jack. We'll come to how you prescribe the best care for your clients. I always find it best when the dentist doesn't have their hand in your mouth and they're having a conversation with you. Why do they do that? How are you going? It's like, Yeah, I know. Pick your times better, I reckon, dentist. So, J-O-B, we've talked about this a lot, saying a physio or a pod context. I remember having a good conversation with you and Mick Risk about the prescription of the best care plans, regardless of the funding, like use the diagnosis, the clinical skills. Can you just tee that up for clinic owners who perhaps haven't done that journey, client journey exercise, how to go about doing it and perhaps rethink the way that they deliver the experiences that you touched on just before.

Jack O'Brien: You know, the fundamentals of being a healthcare professional don't change, but so often we mold our approach and mold the way we show up based on the context. And part of that's okay, but other parts of it, we have to come back to the fundamentals that don't change. assess the client, the patient, the person, participant in front of you, make your best recommendations of care, regardless of whether they're paying for it or the government's paying for it or a sports club's paying for it. What is in the best interests of that client? You know, we talk a lot about patient-centered care. Well, here it is. And so how can we present what's in the patient's best interests? And then everything else is secondary to that. And a key benefit of this that isn't often considered is that the client will trust you. Part of this is a trust building exercise. And yeah, there's sometimes funding constraints or there's logistic challenges or whatever the case is, but ultimately we deal in a human to human space. And this is only going to become more relevant as AI infiltrates healthcare more and more that patients trust humans. humans that show that they care, that they sympathise and empathise, that are experts in their field, that understand the nuances of each individual family or participant. And so when we build that trust, then we can figure out some of those logistics that come later.

Ben Lynch: They called it out here. Hannah, you've done a lot of work on this front in terms of clinical protocols. I know people call it different things, clinical pathways. Here in this screen share, again, from the minister is, There should also be a more rigorous evidence base for the supports being funded by taxpayers.

Hannah Dunn: That's exactly what I was just going to say to Jack. Get those journal articles out. Make sure you've got the evidence. Make sure your clinical reasoning is there. It's not, I think this because I've seen five kids like that. If you've seen five kids like that, there's probably a research article that will support your information that you're providing.

Ben Lynch: How do you go about doing that, Hannah, actually, in your clinic? And perhaps have you seen other great clinic owners navigate collating the best practices for different diagnoses?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, for us we do what we call our paediatric development program once a fortnight, and that's a rotating roster of someone presenting a case, us presenting a topic, and then the other one is a journal article. And so that is how we invest some time into doing journal articles, and then they bring it to the team. We have a discussion about that, so it might be about the evidence of interventions on different client groups. I think also using team leaders to actually allocate some of their time into finding that evidence. And when we, and we've just put this back on our website, around telehealth, we had evidence up about how telehealth has had positive impacts on clients. And so we just said to families that were hesitant, like here's a link to our website, you can read the evidence there. And so I think just even this conversation has made me think, yeah, we might get some more pages up with links to different journal articles that are out there. And you can access journal articles potentially through your universities that you went to as alumni, through your libraries, through deep diving, getting subscriptions, like there's a whole lot of different ways you can access them.

Jack O'Brien: I know that Michael Risk, one of the coaches on our Clinic Mastery team, recently has been sharing how in their clinic, as part of their management plan delivery at iMove Physio, they are providing these journal article links to their patients. And so again, great point of difference. Many of our Elevate clinic owners are leading into this. So provide those papers for your patients. Why? It builds trust. And so lean into this evidence base, believe in what you do, show your work, show that it works. And I think the second point here, Ben, is potentially, if we're reading the tea leaves, we look at models like the US and so many of their insurer pays and non-cash pay clients, when the insurance is covering it, they require a protocol that is evidence-based and that there's pre-test, post-test, there's a lot of objective measures. I know when we spoke with the team at PhysiTrack and VOLD and even the MAT assessment crew over time, there's so many of these providers now in terms of objective measures. And these will become more and more critical as we deliver care with third party providers.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, we're actually getting our whole team doing MAT evaluation training at our next PD. Like I think training your whole team, not just specific members of your team, because you're going to be getting a whole lot more assessments. We went through a period where we reduced the number of assessment we were doing because we felt like we were over assessing. But unfortunately with NDIS and, you know, I think it is good evidence base to show what it was to start with and where you are six to 12 months later or two years, depending on the reassessment periods of time.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. One of the posts that I caught over the weekend from Chris McDonald here at Eat Speak Lunch, shout out to Chris and Lauren. He was just reflecting on this announcement and what they're already doing. and specifically highlighted the focus on impact and outcomes, not just billable hours, as a key anchor point. I think that's what I'm reading from the PR that the minister did around the over-servicing comment, and they picked this stat of 70 as the average visits for this specific cohort. I think what they're really trying to say is we want to see outcomes. We want to see participants going through this funding and getting outcomes, however they're defined. So the ability first to capture them on the front end at initial assessments, and then reassess according to those outcomes that we've been working towards, rather than just, we keep rebooking people in perpetuity and they're making progress, but how well is that documented to and anchored back to?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it'll be a great distinctive for clinics to stand out. And I say this with the greatest respect for NDIS majority clinics. We have become purveyors of service provision, really. And because of the nature of waitlists and the funding availability, some services became quite vanilla and just provide a service. Now it's time to stand out and be more distinctive. And so your ability to provide outcome measures or specific testing or objective data. Maybe there is a force deck or a dynamometer or a specific assessment tool that will make your clinic stand out in the milieu of clinics that are available. Now, now is the time to stay ahead of the curve. We spoke to this last podcast, Ben, where we love working with open-minded, abundant, progressive clinic owners who are staying ahead of the curve, not waiting to ride the wave.

Ben Lynch: your head had a curve with that very fancy helmet, that's for sure. How do you see this changing some of the landscape on the recruitment front? We kind of had these ebbs and flows, especially in NDIS clinics, where at one point it felt like new graduates were holding clinic owners hostage, being like, you know, it's $120,000 to get me to sign the deal. And then it feels like it had shifted back somewhat more recently, where it became a bit more of an employer's market. What are you seeing at the moment on the recruitment side of things in this NDIS space for clinics?

Hannah Dunn: I mean, personally, we've seen less applicants, but I don't know if that's what people are seeing across the board. I have heard mixed reports that we had quite an influx, sort of, it seemed like the tables were turning sort of more at the start of the year and that things are slowing down. at the moment. I think it's going to create less opportunities because people, there's no way that there would be clinics out there hiring a whole stack of people with this uncertainty, or maybe there is and I'm just naive, but I think people will be more cautious in hiring. So we may see less jobs, which will lead to more opportunities for businesses. It was just shared with me this morning that there's another speech clinic closing down and citing NDIS as the reason. And so I think that there is going to be people that are feeling the pressure and sort of had something else they might have wanted to have done. And that it makes me really angry because we see really good professionals leaving their fields and it's really disheartening. And we know of so many OTs who have left the industry altogether. And so that creates, so while we've got more applicants, we're also seeing, I think, a higher number of people leaving their disciplines.

Ben Lynch: I can totally understand. We've all gone through the COVID hardships and uncertainty. As you mentioned, Jack, you throw into the mix if your business is heavily anchored to a funding model like the NDIS and just this uncertainty that's coming with it and the margins just being squeezed. I can totally imagine people just throwing their hands up and saying, I'm not up for this. I'm going to move on. Because then you have to say, are there real buyers of your business at the moment? You might even be hard-pressed because as a buyer of a clinic, I'm looking at the future cash flow that I can generate from the business. Is this a good investment for me? So perhaps one of the other things is we see a lot of acquisitions dry up or people sell for, you know, pennies on the dollar, which would be a sad thing because there was a roaring period, you know, five, seven to 10 years ago, yet that would have still been in the early window. But I really feel for those folks that are at that stage of their career that feel like they're not up for this turbulent time ahead.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, look, it will be turbulent. It will be quite a dynamic environment, both to the labor market that you were just describing there, as services constrict, the available jobs will constrict, and therefore supply of jobs will shrink in relativity to the demand of employment, which means it will be an employer's market in some regards. I think it will be interesting to watch it play out. Therefore, our advice to clinic owners would be pay attention. Don't ride the waves of emotion, but keep your finger on the pulse. I was reading over the weekends, the Queensland-based, I'll share my screen here, the centre care provider is shutting down. They've decided that they service Over 700 clients, 600 staff will be wound down as a result of these NDIS changes. They've determined that their service is no longer sustainable. This may not be specifically close to what some of the care that our clinics provide, particularly around onsite accommodation stuff. But certainly when we start looking at the macro environment of large providers winding up, maybe that's some writing on the wall, or maybe that's an opportunity for us to capitalise on. And so it's too early to make that determination, but what we do know is that we must pay close attention because head in the sand just ain't gonna cut it for the next couple of years.

Ben Lynch: So if you're really looking at the P&L of a clinic and you're looking for some opportunities, we'd probably go head to toe, literally from top to bottom. But J.I.B., where are you maybe going to first for some quicker wins, some cash in the bank?

Jack O'Brien: I would be looking at how can we diversify our ideal clients? and broaden what the definition of some of those avatars are, and then market to those ones who meet the Venn diagram of patients that we can help, patients that we want to help, and patients that are financially sustainable for our clinic, and then pursue some quick wins in the short term, some sugar hits from a marketing perspective, and a longer term strategic play when it comes to attracting those clients, participants, family.

Ben Lynch: No, so you're looking at the income line items, how much of that is NDIS, and for example, going, how much could I make the private paying?

Jack O'Brien: Let's say it's… Well, potentially, Ben, I'll push back a little bit, though. It doesn't necessarily have to be that. It might be that, let's say, young children with autism or development delay have been your primary avatar. you could just shift that to perhaps more teenagers or different disability presentations, different therapeutic requirements. So, it doesn't have to be diversified out of the NDIS necessarily.

Ben Lynch: Yes. I would also be looking at a couple of other things. Admin. I think we typically see in a lot of clinics opportunities for them to Get fit when it comes to maybe just some sloppiness around rostering admin depending on the makeup that you've got there if you can find some tools and tech that actually Replace some of the admin functions that doesn't mean replace a human entirely but I'd definitely be looking at a few percentage points that we could gain from admin the admin side and Potentially that is just reallocated to marketing to boost up and fund some of the new client acquisition that you've got And then on the utilisation front, I'd be looking at how can we support our therapists to do more in their day with ease, without feeling burnt out, you know, finding some joy and rhythm in their day. I just think there's so much. ineffective use of time in a lot of clinics with their therapists and how they run their sessions, that they could find some efficiencies without making it feel overly burdensome. So I'd be looking at what are the best do in running great face-to-face and indirect billing services. Hannah, what else are you looking at to find that sort of financial fitness for clinics navigating an uncertain future?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think all of the things that you've spoken about. I do just want to say like there are some really simple things to do if you're feeling totally out of control. Two things that we talk about is just doing a simple list. It says what is fact versus what is feeling to really help you get out of that anxiety and stress. And just writing those things down, which then gives you a clearer head to be able to sit down and look at your numbers, and just looking at feeling and fact, and then also what's in our control and what's out of our control. What's in our control is that we can review the cost of our electricity. What's out of our control is that we can't change our NDIS fees. They're stuck if you're a registered provider. That's something we need to work within. Just having a really clear mindset on what is fact and what is feeling, yes, you can feel angry, but That's not going to change what's happening right now, but putting it down on paper can just give you that clarity sometimes. And to your point, Ben, about those inefficiencies in your therapist team, I often will say to them right now, you feel like you can't do any more work. There are others in the clinic that are doing significantly more and they feel less like they're feeling they've got more time than you. That's because of X, Y and Z. So when we get this right, you won't feel like you can't do more. You will actually feel like you're doing more with less. So really having that language around how to support your team to say there is light at the other side of this.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, it's a really great point, Hannah. I think that's experience, right? Is being able to learn from all of those mistakes or inefficiencies over time and be more effective with what you have. It's being resourceful. So really great point. Well, we've covered a lot here today, obviously heavily on the NDIS front. Whether you're accessing this funding source or not, many of these fundamentals that we're covering are applicable at any stage of business. I think that is really the call to action, is come back to some of the fundamentals of running a good business. That's ultimately what you have. We're in the health space, and so there's all that context. But run a good business. that's here for the long run. And if you need support, please do reach out. We do this every day and have done for a decade and perhaps we can help you in this season. The other ones that I'd add as well is if you don't have a regular connection with your accountant, absolutely do that. If numbers aren't your thing, that was me for many years. It's always great to have an accountant who can educate you, who can have the conversation, help you understand some of those things. But as a closing remark here, J.O.B. and then to you, Hannah, what is that remark for clinic owners who've tuned into this episode?

Jack O'Brien: I'd say do what the best do. And I'll say the majority of clinic owners, particularly NDIS, are not best practice. So find clinic owners like Hannah Dunn, like Melinda Weber, like so many of our clinic mastery community and do what the best are doing. And then finally, if you're looking for an outlet for those emotions or your frustrations to that which is in your control, work with it. And then we often talk about control and influence. Have a say. Don't just rant on Facebook or in the lunchroom. Contact your local federal MP and have a conversation. Invite them into your clinic. The podcast is open, Ben. I'm sure if the member for health and disability is listening, we'd love to have him here for a conversation because so often people don't understand. Politicians aren't in our shoes. Invite them in, share perspectives and make a contribution to society.

Ben Lynch: Hmm. So true. Well said, Hannah.

Hannah Dunn: Absolutely. I think you very briefly mentioned like that client journey. We really want to look at our client journey and our client avatars and just see whether we can diversify them a little bit as well. Like who are we? targeting, and where are they? And so therefore, where does that marketing budget go to?

Ben Lynch: Yes, great point. I think marketing is such a key one for me, and the support and mentoring of our therapists. They're ultimately delivering the service, so help them be effective and efficient with their time so they don't feel burnt out. I think they're going to be super important. We believe every clinic owner should have a business mentor. Don't run this journey alone. We hope it could be us. If not, find someone in your corner, as you said, Hannah, who can support you through the journey. Well, you can head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for the show notes and for recent episodes that we've touched on today, like marketing, knowing your numbers and your finances, your P&L like a clinic owner, head over there and check it out. And we'll catch you on another episode. very soon. Bye bye.