Dana Strauss (00:00) Hi everybody, welcome to episode eight of the Future Proof PT podcast. Today, Alex and I are joined by our very first guest. We are so excited to have Ben Gallin, another physical therapist who's done some pretty awesome things in his career. We wanted to bring him on to tell us a little bit about some of his experiences as we put him through the topics that we decided to cover today. And so I'm gonna start with just kicking it over to Ben

Ben Galin (00:28) Okay, well thanks for having me. think being April Fool's and having me as your first guest is probably a purposeful merger here. Background wise, been a PT for almost 25 years, kind of worn three distinct hats in my career. One as a clinician, worked in just about every setting. Hospital, wound care, outpatient, outpatient sports, really everything except pediatrics.

And then also worn a hat as an entrepreneur and started several businesses in the healthcare space from diagnostic testing to staffing agencies. currently own a in-home therapy outpatient provider that's value-based in nature and run that on a day-to-day basis. But also I've been very involved in the tech sector, worked with creating my own home care software, selling that off and then worked in the

virtual remote care opportunities, both in primary care, chronic care management, disease management. Most recently, about five years as the VP of Strategy for Genie Health, which was a digital MSK provider, and currently working on a couple other platforms, one being a...

mental health for oncology practice that's working value-based space. I'm a big, big, big believer in alternative payment models, value-based, finding value. To me, I think the number one word I use probably on daily basis is value. Value to a patient, value to a payer, value to the therapist, value to the ecosystem. And so I'm excited to join you today.

Alex Bendersky (01:50) Awesome. Welcome, Ben. It is a terrific episode when we have Ben Galen as a part of our guest panel. It is by far in the years of knowing Ben, I have never had a dull conversation, nor did I have a conversation that did not leave going

Dana Strauss (01:52) Yeah, thrilled to have you.

Ben Galin (02:02) All set.

Alex Bendersky (02:12) the level of knowledge and the angles of knowledge, think Ben has always been significant and extraordinary. So I'm confident that today's conversation will be, if nothing else, entertaining.

so I think I will start off with just the overarching theme of today's episode. And today, I really want us to discuss two main topics. The topic is going deeper into labeling of what this physical therapy thing that we're discussing is and how it relates to a concept called a treatment effect. So using physical therapy as a global discipline.

and seeing what is the impact and what is the effect on a consumer who consumes physical therapy as a process or a product.

Dana Strauss (02:56) Awesome.

Alex Bendersky (02:57) Yeah,

I'll just open up with a definition of a treatment effect And the treatment effect is defined as an average effect of treatment across the entire eligible population. And it can be divided into a local treatment effect, which is the individual response, and a global treatment effect, which is a variation of treatment across the cohort of population.

So physical therapy, can be divided into two things, physical therapy as a discipline and physical therapist as a provider. So this, looks more into physical therapy as a discipline. How impactful are we as a clinical modality towards a care provision? And let's just use it on a global scale for a consumer, right?

can receive physical therapy.

Ben Galin (03:38) So specifically to consumer, we're not going to talk our global value to a payer.

Alex Bendersky (03:42) Yeah.

Dana Strauss (03:43) Well, we could talk about both, but start with the consumer if you want to opine on this a little bit then.

Ben Galin (03:49) Yeah, I mean, my mind immediately goes in both directions, a pay or an excuse. I think it is an extremely valid question. I actually think that this is like a, the more I understand what you're asking, I think it's probably a 10 hour, you know, put some whiskey in a glass later in the afternoon discussion. Because now that I have a better grasp of what you're asking, I think it is like the million dollar question, which is,