Fixing Rehab Therapy Takes More than Magic: Recapping the 2025 APTA Private Practice Conference

Therapists joined with countless tourists to descend upon Orlando, Florida in mid-November, albeit for a different kind of fun. The APTA Private Practice Conference is an opportunity to reconnect with old friends, but more importantly, it can serve as a barometer for where physical therapy is at and where it’s headed in the future, based upon the conversations taking place.  

The old problems remain — turnover and staffing issues, payment challenges, payers doing payer things — but what was heartening was the tenor of the talks. Rather than lament what’s not likely to change anytime soon, the sessions focused on solutions, whether that’s new tools or a new approach to building a better, stronger, and stable future for the profession.  

Persistence pays off, literally.  

Sometimes success is about effort more than anything. That, in a nutshell, is the message from the presentation from Gwen Simons, Esq, PT, OCS, FAAOMPT, entitled “Beating the Payers at Their Own Games with Appeals.” Denial rates have continued to rise in recent years, in large part because payers know that most providers don’t have the time or resources to appeal. And that trend won’t be reversed until there’s a critical mass of providers pushing back against the flimsy pretexts insurance companies use to avoid paying for claims. Appealing claims isn’t just about getting paid for the work you’re doing; it’s part of a larger strategy to place the burden for demonstrating why you shouldn’t be paid back onto payers, and to make them rethink their approach to physical therapy claims altogether. The key, as Simons laid out, is to know the rules and requirements when it comes to appeals, and to use them to your advantage, whether that’s in pushing for an independent external review, asking for an expedited appeal, or appealing denials as the patient’s authorized representative rather than as their provider. 

Good processes make for good billing.  

We’ve all heard the term “garbage in, garbage out,” or perhaps put more politely, the idea that bad data up front leads to a flawed outcome. It’s something we’ve talked about at WebPT, specifically in regards to billing and revenue cycle management—so it was thrilling to see Kristin Wilson,  PT, DPT, GCS, preaching the good word of process in her presentation "Dollars and Sense: Billing Tips for Real Practice Owners.” Her talk honed in on practical steps leaders could implement as soon as they get back to their clinics, from getting the right information from patients right at the intake process to training your providers on coding and documenting to filing claims on time to get paid on time. 

Like Simons’ session, there was vital discussion of the importance of reworking and appealing denials, paired with focus on educating patients on their financial responsibilities and actually following up to collect, even if it’s awkward. The session closed out with Wilson walking attendees through her top RCM metrics, like daily sales outstanding, outstanding accounts receivable, adjustments due to factors like errors or bad debt, and collection percentage, and discussing the importance of the right team in place. 

AI is already a staple in rehab therapy.   

Annual events like the Private Practice Conference or CSM also serve as markers against which you can measure the rise of trends. You only have to cast your mind back three or four years to recall AI as something that sat in the very near distance, something that could change how providers work and treat. Now, we’re seeing AI as a part of the everyday conversation, as evidenced by Roshan Nanu, PhD. and Ben Carlson’s session “Revolutionizing Physical Therapy: Leveraging AI for Efficiency, Care, and Growth.”

The pair set the table by discussing where AI sits in the profession today, which is not dissimilar to what we saw in the 2025 State of Rehab Therapy report: the conversation about AI might be a little ahead of adoption, but not by as much as it used to be. A show of hands in the room revealed a fair number of providers who had already implemented AI in their practices, and a smaller majority who were still trying to acquaint themselves with the technology. It’s a helpful reminder to those of us on the technology side that changing how they work is a major change for providers, and a big decision and investment. 

To that end, the conversation served as an entry point for the unfamiliar, making the case for AI as the way to address administrative burden and the related burnout and drive growth by giving rehab therapists the tools and data they haven’t had at their disposal previously. Faster documentation paired with better analytics and generative tools for marketing can increase a practice’s capacity without increasing headcount, which is a big selling point at a time when staffing is a challenge in addition to finances. Ultimately, AI developed towards the needs of rehab therapists should enhance what providers are doing, rather than replace. 

Change isn’t good or bad, it just is.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss what our very own Dr. Heidi Jannenga, PT, DPT, had to say about transitions within PT practices. Change can be hard to deal with, and hard to plan for if you choose not to confront it, but failing to prepare for change can put your business in a bad situation that it might not recover from if handled incorrectly.  It’s not as simple as swapping out nameplates; there has to be a detailed plan in place for a smooth transition or else you risk losing much of what you’ve built — and some of the people you’ve put in place, too. 

Most leaders struggle to understand when the time might be right to hand over the reins to someone else; typically, significant milestones like significant growth or mergers/acquisitions, or a strategic shift in the company's direction can be obvious points to consider changes. The important thing is to understand when these points happen in your company’s timeline, and understanding what the next phase of your practice looks like and what sort of leadership is needed, whether that’s promoting from within to maintain continuity and culture or finding an outside voice to offer a needed new perspective.         

See you at CSM!

Overall, it was another stellar Private Practice Conference, and it won’t be long before we’re jetting off to the 2026 Combined Sections Meeting. Fittingly, we’ll all be back together in another city known for being home to the House of Mouse: Anaheim. We’ll see you there!