2027GROWTH CODE CONFERENCE 2027
Several power-packed days designed to help private practice owners build a championship roster, a championship game plan, and a championship culture. Below is a general outline of what we have planned. The schedule is subject to change.
This year, we raised our game. We have packed nearly 40% more content into the 2027 agenda — more breakout sessions to choose from, more hands-on workshops, more collaboration opportunities, and more chances to connect with the leaders, sponsors, and peers who can take your practice to the next level. Every block is built to deliver a clear, actionable win you can bring home to your team.
Tip-Off · St. Patrick's Day
CASINO NIGHT — St. Patrick's Day — Luck Of The Therapist!
Center Court Opens
YOGA
Kim Hazelton, OTR/LCoffee Talk
Brandon SeigelBREAKFAST
Champions never skip the pre-game meal. Hit our world-class breakfast buffet and fuel up.
Welcome Announcements
Brandon SeigelThe Championship Mindset: Why the Best Practice Leaders Compete Against Their Past Selves
Will HumphreysRockstarThe scoreboard is lying to you. You've been measuring your practice against the clinic across town, the colleague who just opened a second location, or the version of success you imagined when you signed your first lease — and it is quietly destroying you. In this emotionally honest, motivational keynote, Will Humphreys opens with a raw and personal story from his own years as a practice owner: the moment the weight of running a business stopped feeling like a calling and started feeling like a trap. He doesn't shy away from the darkness of that season — because the research says most people in this room know exactly what he's talking about.
According to the Entrepreneur Mental Health Report 2023, 74% of small business owners say their mental health is suffering because of their clients. Nearly 50% of physical therapists report experiencing burnout. But the statistics are only part of the story. The deeper problem is the invisible measuring stick — the gap between where we are and the ideal we've placed just out of reach. The more we chase it, the further it moves. That is not a motivation problem. That is a mindset problem.
Drawing on Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy's powerful framework from The Gap and the Gain, Will introduces the concept of measuring backward instead of forward — competing against your past self rather than someone else's highlight reel. He walks the audience through a simple, daily practice that rewires how leaders see progress: writing down three specific wins before you go to bed each night. Not goals. Not plans. Wins. Things that happened today that didn't exist yesterday.
This session is not a pep talk. It is a framework for sustainable high performance — the kind that doesn't burn you out, doesn't require you to be someone else, and doesn't measure your worth by what you haven't built yet. Attendees will leave with a renewed sense of identity as leaders, a practical daily habit they can start that night, and the conviction that the championship they're chasing has always been an inside game.
The Loving Push
Temple GrandinThis keynote is based on Dr. Temple Grandin's best-selling book The Loving Push, co-authored with psychologist and autism specialist Dr. Debra Moore. Parents, teachers, therapists, and anyone who cares about a child or teen on the autism spectrum need this essential roadmap to prepare our youth for being successful adults in today's world.
Drawing on the book's framework and real-life stories from people on the autism spectrum, Temple spells out the concrete steps you can take to restore a child's hope and motivation — and the pitfalls you must avoid. She shares how to get kids off their computers, how to build on their strengths so they get back to caring about their lives, and how to help them find a path to a successful, meaningful life.
Three Keys to Helping Autistic Kids Succeed
1. Learning life skills, such as shopping independently and learning how to save money.
2. Fully verbal teenagers should have two real summer jobs before they graduate from high school.
3. There should be a gradual transition from the world of school to the world of work before they graduate from college.
Book Signing & Meet & Greet With Temple Grandin
Temple GrandinLUNCH
Halftime is where teams come back stronger. A fresh buffet theme daily — and the conversations are the real MVP.
Contract Negotiations and Renegotiations: What Sets You Apart?
Rick Gawenda, PTFrom 2011–2025, outpatient therapy reimbursement declined over 43.0% due to inflation. Outpatient therapy has become a low-margin industry. Organizations who achieve and maintain solid profit margins will understand the Key Performance Indicators that drive their business. They will also understand how insurance contracting and rate increase negotiations impact their profit margins. Key Performance Indicators and insurance contracting are interrelated and profoundly impact your profitability.
In this session, you will learn what Key Performance Indicators impact your profitability, along with industry benchmarks, and ways to maximize those indicators. You will learn how to leverage those well-managed Key Performance Indicators in your insurance contract negotiations to gain fee schedule increases.
Attendees will also learn what language in a contract is favorable to the provider and language they need to avoid in a contract that is favorable to the payer. Often, practice owners struggle to grasp this reality. These different mindsets can make the difference between signing a contract that is provider-friendly versus signing a contract that is payer-friendly.
In this session, attendees will also learn how to present fee schedule increase requests in a way that resonates with insurance companies. Finally, attendees will learn the practical tips that the presenter has used to negotiate fee schedule increases for his clients.
The Growth Playbook: The Systems, Strategy, and Technology Behind High-Performing Pediatric Practices
Bob HerrmannRaintreeWhat separates pediatric therapy practices that successfully scale from those that struggle to keep up? In this session we will unpack the operational strategies, leadership decisions, and technology investments that drive sustainable growth in today's therapy landscape.
Through real-world examples, attendees will explore how leading organizations are building scalable systems for staffing, credentialing, scheduling, operational visibility, and multi-location growth—while maintaining strong culture and patient experience along the way.
This session will feature practical insights, including lessons learned from scaling organizations, navigating operational bottlenecks, improving efficiency through technology, and creating infrastructure that supports long-term expansion.
Perfect for owners, executive leaders, and operations teams looking to shift their practice into the next gear.
Your Next Patient Just Asked ChatGPT. Will They Find You First?
Keegan WarringtonRxMediaThe way patients find therapy practices is changing fast. Families who used to Google "speech therapist near me" are now asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI for recommendations — and the practices being recommended aren't always the ones ranking #1 in traditional search.
In this 90-minute breakout, Keegan Warrington, CEO of RxMedia, breaks down what's actually happening across dozens of healthcare practices, what's still working, and what's coming next as AI agents begin to research, compare, and even book appointments on behalf of patients.
You'll leave with a practical playbook for making your website, local presence, and online presence ready for both today's search engines and tomorrow's AI — so you're the practice that gets recommended first.
Succession Planning Options & Optimizing Sale Price
Steve Stalzer, MBA8150 AdvisorsWhether an owner is preparing for retirement or building value for the long haul, this presentation will help owners build practice value and expand exit strategies for the future. Owners will learn to leverage operational strengths and mitigate weaknesses to enhance practice value.
We will also provide an overview of initiatives to optimize practice value in a sale, regardless of succession plans or timeline. Understanding the drivers of practice value and key steps in marketing and selling a practice will help owners be successful when the time for an exit is right. Participants will gain insight into the sales process, the importance of terms outlined in a letter of intent, and how to prepare for the diligence process.
Reading The Dashboard: A Collaboration on Interpreting Your Metrics
Kim Hazelton, OTR/LMost of us didn't open our practices because we loved spreadsheets—we opened them with heart and hope. But heart and hope don't tell you how much runway you have, who you need in which seat, or whether you're actually on course. In this small-group collaboration, thought leader Kim Hazelton guides a working conversation about the handful of numbers that make up your practice's instrument panel—and, more importantly, how to read them.
Think of running your practice like flying a plane: you have to know where you're headed, how much fuel is in the tank, how many crew members you need in which positions, and how many passengers are counting on you to land safely. Together, the group will compare how each owner currently reads (or avoids) their own dashboard, surface the blind spots we tend to share, and trade real approaches for turning a number on a screen into a confident business decision.
You'll leave with a clearer sense of which instruments deserve your attention, how to interpret what they're telling you, and a peer group that's now flying with the same set of gauges.
AFTERNOON BREAK
Every winning team knows when to call a timeout. Grab a snack, a cold drink, and hit the espresso cart.
Developing a Job Architecture for Team Growth
Candice Mullendore, MS, OTR/L
Scott Booher, MBADraft the Roster. Build the Bench. Win the Season.
Every championship team is built on the same thing: the right players in the right positions, each one knowing exactly how they win — and exactly how they advance. Your practice is no different. When roles are fuzzy, talented clinicians stall, top performers walk, and growth gets stuck in overtime.
In this high-impact session, Scott Booher and Candice Mullendore hand you the playbook for building a job architecture that turns a collection of clinicians into a championship roster. You'll walk away with a practical, ready-to-run framework for defining, organizing, and aligning roles and responsibilities — while building the kind of meaningful career paths that keep your best people on your bench season after season.
Whether you're a multi-disciplinary practice scaling fast or a growing team that's outpaced its org chart, you'll leave with a clear structure that connects every role to the win.
What You'll Take Home
Together, we'll explore how to:
1. Align role structures with your practice's overall goals.
2. Develop clear job levels and progression pathways.
3. Define core clinical competencies at each level.
4. Create detailed, useful job descriptions that actually get used.
5. Communicate career growth opportunities effectively to your staff.
The Nonprofit Model: The Business of Mission-Driven Care
Beth Yohe
Hannah ZaxNonprofit clinics operate differently—and intentionally so. This presentation highlights the systems, structures, and values that define a nonprofit organization, including board governance, bylaws, fundraising, grant writing, and mission-based financial decision-making. Discover the elements needed for a nonprofit and how the model creates opportunities for wraparound care, increased accessibility, and long-term investment in underserved populations and community needs.
From Clinician to CEO: The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
Kerri Bailey, OTR/LGreat clinicians don't automatically become effective business owners—and many struggle with the critical identity shift required to truly move their practice forward. This session helps participants recognize when they are operating in "clinician mode" versus "owner mode," and provides practical guidance for making that transition. Without this shift, owners often find themselves stuck—limited in growth, overwhelmed in operations, and unable to scale beyond their own capacity.
Key Takeaways
1. Recognize the key differences between a clinician mindset and an ownership mindset.
2. Understand how identity, decision-making, and risk tolerance must evolve as a leader.
3. Apply simple frameworks to begin thinking and acting like a CEO in daily operations.
Thriving on Purpose: A Practice Success Workshop for Rehab Therapy Leaders
Kevin Smith
Andrew EllisFusion By EnsoraThe best rehab therapy clinicians aren't always running the best practices — and that gap is costing the profession. Reimbursement pressure is reshaping care delivery, burnout is accelerating, and the practices pulling ahead are doing something different. But what, exactly?
This interactive 90-minute workshop introduces the Practice Success Index — our framework built on real practice data that defines what thriving looks like across five dimensions: clinical outcomes, therapist well-being, financial health, practice operations, and client experience. Working through the framework directly, participants will score their own practice, surface their biggest gaps, and leave with a concrete action plan tailored to where they are today. Drawing on findings from Ensora Health's Future of Rehab Therapy national research, this session connects the industry's most pressing headwinds directly to what practices can control and change. Come ready to work.
Mastering The Fundamentals: A Medical Biller's Collaboration on Insurance and Workflow Optimization
Brandon SeigelWho should join: Billers, billing managers, and revenue-minded owners.
Most billing problems aren't knowledge gaps — they're workflow gaps. In this working collaboration, billers and revenue-minded owners compare how they actually run the cycle, from the insurance fundamentals that still trip up even seasoned practices to the small workflow changes that quietly cut denials and accelerate cash flow. Guided by Brandon Seigel, whose firm manages the revenue cycle for therapy practices across 30+ states, this session turns a room of peers into a brain trust. You'll leave with concrete tactics other practices are already using to get clean claims out the door — and money in faster.
Sweet Connections: March Madness Watch Party
Deep Game
YOGA
Kim Hazelton, OTR/LCoffee Talk
Brandon SeigelBREAKFAST
Champions never skip the pre-game meal. Hit our world-class breakfast buffet and fuel up.
Welcome Announcements
Brandon SeigelFrom Overwhelmed to Organized: Improving Pediatric Therapy Operations
Ben SachsRaintreePediatric therapy organizations face constant operational pressure—from staffing shortages and scheduling challenges to communication gaps, documentation demands, and balancing family expectations. Over time, these daily inefficiencies can create frustration for both staff and patients.
In this session, we will explore practical ways pediatric therapy organizations can simplify workflows, improve team coordination, reduce administrative friction, and create a smoother experience across the organization.
Attendees will gain actionable ideas for improving visibility, strengthening communication between teams, optimizing daily operations, and helping staff spend more time focused on patient care instead of operational roadblocks.
Designed for practice owners, operational leaders, and clinic managers, this session focuses on practical improvements that can make an immediate impact on both team experience and organizational performance.
Contract Renegotiation Has Failed: How to Transition to Out-of-Network
Rick Gawenda, PTYou have tried multiple times to renegotiate a low-reimbursing insurer contract without success. Now, you are considering making the difficult decision of dropping this contract and going out-of-network.
This session will teach participants what information and data they must analyze when considering going out-of-network with an insurer. The session will provide ideas on how to explain this difficult decision to your staff and your patients. Finally, the session will teach participants the best way to bill for out-of-network services to an insurer.
Money Myths: The 10 Lies Your Business Can't Afford Anymore
Sean HealyAccounted4Every business owner has a story they tell themselves about money. Some of those stories feel like wisdom. Some feel like common sense. And some have been quietly costing you for years.
The truth is, most financial advice given to entrepreneurs is either oversimplified, borrowed from corporate playbooks, or repeated so often it stopped being questioned. The result: owners who work hard, generate revenue, and still feel broke. Not because they're doing something wrong, but because they're following the wrong rules.
In this engaging 90-minute session, we unpack the 10 most common financial myths that business owners accept as truth — from how you price your products, to how you measure success, to what you think "good money management" actually looks like. These aren't rookie mistakes. They're the sophisticated-sounding lies that smart, hardworking entrepreneurs believe the longest and pay for the most. Each myth is replaced with a real rule backed by research, behavioral economics, and the financial realities of running a business.
This session is for you if:
You're working hard but the numbers never seem to reflect it
You've followed the "right" financial advice and still feel stuck
You know something is off but can't pinpoint exactly what
This isn't a lecture. It's a permission slip to think differently about your numbers — and the knowledge to act on it immediately.
When What You Say Isn't What They Hear: Communicating Effectively With An Intergenerational Workforce
Kerri Bailey, OTR/LMany pediatric therapy practice owners feel frustrated that their team "isn't getting it"—expectations aren't sticking, feedback isn't landing, and accountability feels inconsistent. Often, the issue isn't the message—it's how it's being delivered and received across generational lines. This session focuses on helping owners recognize how their communication style may be missing the mark with team members from various age groups and offers practical ways to adjust without compromising standards or authority.
Key Takeaways
1. Identify how generational differences impact how messages from owners are interpreted by team members.
2. Recognize common communication patterns that unintentionally create confusion, resistance, or disengagement.
3. Apply practical adjustments to improve clarity, feedback, and expectations so communication actually drives performance.
Practical AI Automation for your Administrative Team
Michael HsuCurogramAdministrative complexity has become one of the biggest barriers to growth for therapy practices. Manual processes, disconnected workflows, and communication inefficiencies create unnecessary costs and friction for both patients and staff.
In this presentation, Michael Hsu will share how AI automation is enabling therapy organizations to modernize operations through intelligent scheduling, automated patient engagement, digital intake, workflow routing, and data-driven operational management. Attendees will gain insight into how automation can help practices improve financial performance while creating a more seamless patient and staff experience.
The session will provide a practical, executive-level perspective on where AI is delivering measurable value today — and how therapy organizations can prepare for the next wave of operational transformation.
The Messy Middle: Moving From Owner-Dependent to Owner-Optional
Erin Clemens, OTR/LMany pediatric therapy practice owners want more freedom and choice, but their practice still depends on them for too many decisions, approvals, systems, and daily problem-solving.
In this collaborative session, we will explore practical steps owners can take to reduce owner dependence, from delegation and documenting key processes to creating accountability structures. Attendees will have access to a digital readiness tool that helps them assess where their practice is most owner-dependent and identify specific next steps.
Owners will leave with practical actions they can use to step out of daily operations and build a stronger practice that creates more room for growth, transition, personal goals, new ventures, or whatever comes next.
LUNCH
Halftime is where teams come back stronger. A fresh buffet theme daily — and the conversations are the real MVP.
The Cost of Tolerance: Turning Avoidance into Clear, Confident People Decisions
Amy Lafko, MSPT, MBAEvery practice leader has faced it: a team member whose performance, behavior, or attitude needs attention, yet the decision about what to do next remains unresolved. While avoiding difficult people decisions may feel easier in the short term, the long-term costs can impact team morale, accountability, culture, and results.
In this interactive workshop, participants will use a Performance–Culture Matrix to evaluate real-world team situations, uncover their own tolerance patterns, and apply a practical framework for making clear, confident people decisions. Through guided exercises and peer discussion, attendees will develop documentation triggers, decision thresholds, and next-step actions they can immediately apply within their practices.
Beyond the Box Score: Scouting Your Next Star Before the Season Starts
Brandon SeigelEvery championship team has the same secret: they weren’t scrambling to fill a roster spot the week before the season started. They’d been scouting — watching, building relationships, and identifying talent long before they ever needed it.
Most pediatric therapy practices don’t scout. They post a job on Indeed and hope.
In this session, Brandon Seigel breaks down what it actually means to recruit like a scout instead of reacting like a hiring manager. You’ll start with the part most practices skip entirely: defining exactly who your ideal candidate is — beyond a licensure and a pulse — so you know who you’re looking for before you go looking. From there, Brandon dives into where the real talent actually is: the clinicians who aren’t on Indeed because they’re not “actively searching,” and why they’re exactly who you should be recruiting. You’ll learn how social recruiting and smart, low-lift event strategy put your practice in front of candidates months before a position ever opens, and how AI can do the scouting legwork so it’s not one more thing on your plate at 9pm.
Then comes the part that separates the teams that win from the teams that just fill seats: evaluation. Brandon makes the case for scouting candidates the way a great coach scouts talent — with a qualitative eye for fit, chemistry, and character — instead of a purely quantitative checklist of credentials. Because the box score never tells you who’s actually going to show up for the team.
This session isn’t about posting a job. It’s about learning to scout — so you’re never scrambling again.
By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
The Executive Dashboard: Using Data To Scale Your Practice
Alan BlissGrowth doesn't happen by accident; it happens when leaders consistently measure the right things. In this session, Alan Bliss will share a practical framework for identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter in pediatric therapy organizations, building simple dashboards, and creating accountability systems that turn data into action. Attendees will leave with KPI frameworks and dashboard examples that they can implement to drive operational excellence and sustainable growth.
The Front Desk Is Broken. Now What?
Max ZietzWelcomeWareAdministrative burden continues to be one of the biggest operational challenges for therapy practices, affecting staffing costs, employee burnout, patient experience, and revenue capture. This session will explore how practices are rethinking the traditional front desk model through a combination of process redesign, technology, remote staffing, and automation.
Attendees will hear practical examples of how clinics are reducing front desk pressure, improving check-in and intake workflows, maintaining patient-facing service, and creating more flexible staffing models. The session will focus on real-world implementation lessons, what works, what does not, and how leaders can evaluate opportunities to modernize administrative operations without losing the human touch.
Great With Kids, Uncomfortable With Parents: A Collaboration on Coaching Therapists
Stephanie Wagers, OTD, OTR/LYour therapists are great with kids. Put them in a room with an anxious, skeptical, or grieving parent, and many of them freeze—because nobody ever taught them how to engage the most important person in the room. In this small-group collaboration, thought leader Stephanie Wagers opens up one of the most common and quietly costly problems in pediatric clinics: the gap between what clinical leaders know about family-centered care and what their therapists are actually doing in the session.
From avoiding hard conversations to struggling to communicate the value of the work, therapists are often underprepared for the relational side of care—and that gap slowly erodes outcomes, retention, and revenue. Together, the group will dig into what it actually takes to close it: how to set the expectation, build the structure that supports it, and inspect for it so it doesn't quietly slip. Stephanie will pose the questions and share what she's seen work, but the real value comes from the room—clinical leaders trading honest stories, peer problem-solving, and the strategies they've used to coach their teams through the conversations that matter most.
You'll leave with a clearer picture of where your own team is underprepared, practical moves you can bring back to your clinic on Monday, and a peer group of fellow clinical leaders wrestling with the very same challenge.
AFTERNOON BREAK
Every winning team knows when to call a timeout. Grab a snack, a cold drink, and hit the espresso cart.
Think Big, Scale Bigger: Unlocking Your Business's Full Potential
Kennedy Hawkins, MBA, JD, LLMMany physical therapy practice owners and leaders understand the benefit of growing their business. Some of the benefits are increased revenue, bigger geographic footprint, the ability to attract top talent, increased efficiencies and economies of scale, and greater enterprise value as part of an exit strategy. Yet only 1.9% of businesses scale to 100+ employees. One of the main reasons is they lack the tools and plan to do so. In this session, participants will learn the strategies and tactics to scale their physical therapy practice. The strategies and tactics will cover such topics as the overall growth plan, recruiting talent, expansion cash flow, operational infrastructure, and developing beneficial relationships. The session will be interactive, with opportunities to engage the material presented. You will learn from a speaker who took a few "mom & pop" locations and grew them to 32 service locations, including outpatient clinics, hospitals, minor league sports teams, high schools, assisted living facilities, and universities. The group became one of the largest independent outpatient physical rehabilitation companies in their state. The company received acclaim at the local, state, and national level. As part of the speaker's exit strategy, a large national physical therapy company bought into the group and helped continue the company's growth. Participants will tap into the speaker's 30+ years of healthcare experience working with organizations small and large across the country. Participants will leave the session with tangible steps that will put them on the path to scaling their business and unlocking its full potential.
From Niche to Nearly $2M: Building a High-Revenue Infant Specialty ProgramTurning Infant-Focused Services into a Practice Growth Engine
Jennifer Barnard, OT
Jenn Furtado, PT, DPTBaby Begin MethodSubtitle: Turning Infant-Focused Services into a Practice Growth Engine
This session explores how pediatric practices can leverage infant-focused specialty services to drive referrals, increase patient retention, and create long-term revenue growth in an increasingly competitive market. Drawing from the development of a nearly $2M infant specialty practice, attendees will learn how strategic niche positioning, parent/provider education, and specialized service offerings can transform both clinical impact and business performance. Participants will complete interactive ROI and practice-readiness exercises designed to help identify untapped opportunities within their own organizations and evaluate what is needed to successfully launch or expand an infant specialty program.
Click. Build. Launch. Your First Private Practice App Starts Now
Greg ToddThe app economy is no longer reserved for tech companies and venture-backed startups — it is now within reach of every private practice owner. In this hands-on session, Greg Todd demystifies the process of building a custom app for your practice and shows you how to go from blank screen to launched product faster than you ever thought possible. Using today's no-code and AI-assisted building tools, you'll see exactly how a clinician can design an app that deepens patient engagement, automates the busywork that drains your team, and creates a new branded touchpoint that sets your practice apart from the competition. This is not a theoretical overview — attendees will walk through the real click-by-click workflow of conceiving, building, and preparing an app for launch, leaving with the confidence and the roadmap to ship their own.
By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
The Expansion Playbook: How to Fund Your Next Location, Building, or Buyout
Shep HarrisLive Oak BankYou've pictured it — a second location, finally buying the building you're renting, buying out a retiring partner, or acquiring the practice across town. The vision was never the hard part. The capital is. Most owners assume that kind of growth has to wait years, or get self-funded one slow quarter at a time. It doesn't.
In this 90-minute session, Shep Harris of Live Oak Bank — the #1 SBA 7(a) lender in the country by volume — pulls back the curtain on exactly how OT, PT, and SLP practices use SBA 7(a) and 504 programs to grow faster than they thought possible. No theory, no jargon dump. Real deal structures, real timelines, and real numbers from practices that look just like yours.
You'll walk out knowing which loan fits your growth stage, what lenders actually look for before they say yes, and a 6–12 month roadmap to fund your specific next move.
Building Clinicians Who Stay: Creating a Learning Environment Where Early-Career Professionals Thrive
Lori Shaffer, M.A., CCC-SLP/LCreating a Learning Environment Where Early-Career Professionals Thrive
This is a Collaborations That Matter session — an intimate, peer-to-peer conversation rather than a lecture. Drawing on her experience as a thought leader with a strong track record of developing and retaining clinical talent, Lori Shaffer will facilitate an open exchange among practice owners on one of the most pressing challenges in pediatric therapy today: how to develop early-career clinicians who grow into confident, committed, long-term members of the team.
New graduates often enter the profession eager to make a difference, yet feel overwhelmed by the pace, complexity, and expectations of a busy clinical environment. At the same time, practice owners must balance productivity, patient access, clinical quality, and retention. The question at the heart of this collaboration: how do we build an environment where new clinicians thrive without compromising the operational demands of a growing practice?
Rather than prescribing a single model, this session puts the room to work. Lori will guide participating owners through a candid peer review of how each practice is — or isn't — prioritizing clinician development and retention. Participants will share what is working, what is not, and what they are still figuring out in their own approaches to onboarding, mentorship, and professional growth, leaving with practical strategies they can apply immediately.
Key Questions We'll Explore Together
How do we successfully onboard new graduates and set them up to succeed?
What actually improves retention among early-career clinicians?
How much training is enough — and how do we know?
How do we balance productivity with meaningful professional development?
How do we build clinical confidence without overwhelming new clinicians?
What role does interdisciplinary training play in clinician success?
How do scheduling and workload expectations impact retention?
How do we create a culture of continuous learning that makes people want to stay?
Championship Carve: Sizzle It Up at Fogo de Chão
Closing Day
Coffee Talk
Brandon SeigelBREAKFAST
Champions never skip the pre-game meal. Hit our world-class breakfast buffet and fuel up.
Welcome Announcements
Brandon SeigelThe Breaking Point and the Breakthrough: New Research on Burnout, AI, and the Future of Rehab Therapy
Kevin SmithFusion by EnsoraRehab therapy clinicians are extraordinarily good at what they do — and increasingly exhausted doing it. Documentation burden is climbing, reimbursement pressure is squeezing margins, and burnout is no longer a risk on the horizon. It's here.
This session draws on original national research across PT, OT, and SLP practice owners and clinicians to tell the story of where the profession stands right now — and where it's headed. We'll look honestly at what's driving burnout, why AI adoption has stalled despite widespread belief in its potential, and what the practices that are holding it together are doing differently.
Intentional Leadership: Aligning Your Energy, Values, and Actions
Erin Clemens, OTR/LTherapy practice owners carry clinical standards, team culture, family responsibilities, financial pressure, and an endless stream of decisions — often while trying to lead from whatever energy is left over. But a sustainable practice cannot be built on owner depletion. It also cannot grow strong leaders if the owner is constantly modeling reactivity, weak boundaries, survival-mode decision-making, and is the default problem-solver. The way owners manage their energy, communicate expectations, handle stress, make decisions, and follow through sets the leadership standard for the entire clinic.
This session helps therapy practice owners step out of reactive leadership and build a more intentional, values-aligned way to lead. Participants will explore how physical health, mental health, boundaries, finances, relationships, emotional intelligence, and integrity directly shape leadership capacity, team culture, leadership development, and long-term business sustainability.
Through practical strategies in time management, delegation, and AI-supported workflows, owners will learn how to protect their energy, reduce decision fatigue, strengthen follow-through, and create more space for the work only they can do. This session is designed for owners who are ready to stop running on fumes and start leading with clarity, purpose, and sustainable momentum while modeling the leadership habits their future clinic leaders will learn, practice, and carry forward.
Every Role, Every Time: The Blueprint for Consistent Team Execution
Tom HealyTrainualMost teams don't struggle because of a talent problem. They struggle because of a clarity problem. In this high-energy, actionable workshop, you'll learn the exact framework for building a team that knows what to do, how to do it, and does it consistently, without constant oversight or repeated reminders. Whether you're scaling a team, onboarding new hires, or trying to close the gap between expectation and execution, this session gives you a proven blueprint to make consistent performance the standard, not the exception.
Is the Honeymoon Over? What Really Happens After You Sell Your Practice.
Kennedy Hawkins, MBA, JD, LLMThe mergers and acquisitions trend in outpatient therapy continues. Practice owners are excited to sell their practice, receive a nice check, yet give little thought to what really happens after you sell a significant portion of your life's work. A former practice owner may be contractually and financially tied to the acquiring company for the next 3 to 7 years. What will those years look like? Have you discussed issues like loss of autonomy, compensation shifts, cultural integration, staff departures, integration fatigue, performance pressure, strategic alignment, direct reports, and new personal identity? If structured properly, a successful practice sale will have a plan for each of these issues. If successfully implemented, this plan can help the former practice owner thrive in the acquiring company. This session will help you do just that. In addition, participants will learn how to take advantage of the benefits the acquiring company has to offer.
I Want Higher Profitability. How do I get it? Tech-Powered Profitability Strategies for Pediatric Rehab in 2027
Sharif ZeidEmpower EMRWe all wish we could waive a magic wand and improve reimbursements or lower costs. The real truth is those two things probably aren't on the docket for 2027. Even in a tough environment, some practices are crushing it with their profit margin while others struggle to stay in the black. So, what gives?
In this session, you'll hear from Empower EMR founder Sharif Zeid. Drawing on real-world experiences from working with countless practices, he'll share what's working and what isn't. Spoiler just dumping AI into your practice isn't going to magically improve your profitability. More than ever, a thoughtful, refined, and disciplined approach is what is needed. The session will cover identifying gaps and opportunities, high-level strategies, and real-world tactical strategies that you can take back and start working on immediately.
Leading With Private Pay
Kim Hazelton, OTR/LFor most pediatric therapy practices, insurance has always been the default driver—but a growing number of owners are flipping that model and building practices where private pay leads the way. In this small-group collaboration, thought leader Kim Hazelton facilitates a candid conversation about what it really takes to make private pay a primary payer source rather than an occasional add-on.
This isn't about bolting one more revenue stream onto the side—it's about the mindset, the math, and the courage to put cash-based care at the center of your practice. Together, the group will work through the questions that keep owners up at night: How do you price for value? How do you talk to families about paying out of pocket? When does it make sense to step back from a payer—or drop one entirely? Kim will pose the prompts, but the real value comes from the room: peers sharing how they made the shift, what they'd do differently, and how they protected their margins and their sanity along the way.
When private pay anchors your practice, the benefits ripple outward. Your financial health steadies, your schedule comes back under your control, and the physical and mental toll of chasing reimbursement starts to lift. You'll leave with a clearer picture of whether a private-pay-forward model fits your practice, the first moves to test it, and a peer group walking the same path.
LUNCH
Halftime is where teams come back stronger. A fresh buffet theme daily — and the conversations are the real MVP.
Why Won't They Just Do It? A Practical Framework for Driving Accountability Without Micromanaging
Amy Lafko, MSPT, MBAYou hired talented people. You provided training. You communicated expectations. Yet important tasks still fall through the cracks, follow-through is inconsistent, and you're left wondering why things aren't getting done.
Many leaders respond by checking more, reminding more, and managing more — only to find themselves trapped in a cycle of frustration and micromanagement.
In this interactive session, pediatric therapy practice owners will learn a practical framework for diagnosing accountability challenges and identifying the real barriers behind missed expectations. Participants will explore how clarity, capability, motivation, and ownership influence performance and discover leadership strategies that drive results while preserving trust and autonomy.
Through real-world scenarios, discussion, and hands-on application, attendees will leave with a repeatable process for addressing accountability issues, coaching team members effectively, and creating a culture where people follow through without constant oversight.
The 167-Hour Problem: What Happens to Your Patients Between Sessions — and What You Can Do About It
Animesh KumarOcean FriendsEvery child in therapy gets 1 hour of care — then waits 167 hours for the next session. That gap is where progress stalls, families feel helpless, and the gains from therapy quietly erode. This session explores how closing that gap through structured family engagement, home exercise programs, and two-way communication between clinicians and parents is transforming outcomes for children with autism and developmental differences — and what it means for the future of pediatric therapy.
Content Creation Bootcamp: Creating Your Next 30-Days Of Marketing Content
Greg ToddConsistent, compelling content is the engine that fills a practice — yet for most owners, "posting regularly" is the goal that quietly falls apart by week two. In this fast-paced, roll-up-your-sleeves bootcamp, Greg Todd hands you a repeatable system for generating an entire month of marketing content in a single working session. You'll learn how to mine your everyday clinical work for an endless supply of authentic story and education ideas, how to batch and repurpose a single idea across multiple platforms, and how to write content that actually moves patients to book. By the time you leave the room, you won't just have a strategy — you'll have a tangible content calendar with your next 30 days of posts mapped out and ready to publish, plus the framework to do it again every month without the overwhelm.
By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
The Roster Audit: How to Identify, Develop, and Gracefully Remove the People Defining Your Practice's Future
Will HumphreysRockstarYou can have the best systems, the strongest brand, and a full schedule — and still be losing. If the wrong people are on your team, everything you build is at risk. In this high-energy, hands-on workshop, Will Humphreys guides practice owners and their leaders through the exact team assessment framework he used to scale and ultimately sell a 26-location rehab company. This is not theory. This is the work.
The session is built around a deceptively simple 2x2 matrix that maps every employee on two axes: Production (how well they execute the job they were hired to do) and Value Alignment (how deeply they buy into the culture, the team, and the mission). The result is four distinct player types — A, B, C, and D — and each one requires a completely different response from a leader.
The most dangerous player is not the one who can't do the job. It is the one who can do the job but quietly poisons the culture around them. Will calls them C Players — high producers with low value alignment — and he makes the case that they are the single greatest threat to your A Players, your culture, and your ability to build a practice that runs without you. The room will recognize them immediately.
Attendees will work in small groups to complete a live team audit during the session, placing every member of their staff on the matrix in real time. From there, Will walks through the specific leadership response for each quadrant: how to coach up B Players, how to protect and reward A Players, how to manage out D Players, and — most critically — how to powerfully and gracefully transition C Players out of the organization. This includes a step-by-step framework for having the firing conversation in a way that protects the culture, honors the individual, and gives the leader confidence.
Every attendee leaves with a completed team audit, a written action plan for their top two or three personnel decisions, and a clear next step for implementation.
Compliant & Consistent: An HR Collaboration on Standardization & Compliance
Scott Booher, MBAWho should join: HR leads and owners managing people operations.
When HR is handled ad hoc, risk hides in the gaps. This collaboration gathers the people responsible for HR — often an owner wearing yet another hat — to tighten compliance and standardize the things that quietly create exposure: employee files, classification, onboarding, documentation, and progressive discipline. Guided by Scott Booher, the session is built for practices scaling past the point where "informal" works, including those operating across multiple states. You'll trade the policies and systems peers wish they'd put in place sooner — and walk away with a clearer picture of where you're most exposed.
AFTERNOON BREAK
Every winning team knows when to call a timeout. Grab a snack, a cold drink, and hit the espresso cart.
The Change Equation: People, Process & the Courage to Lead DifferentlyClosing Session for GCC 2027 · Panel Collaboration
Brandon Seigel
Will Humphreys
Scott Booher, MBA
Amy Lafko, MSPT, MBAChange in a private practice is never just operational — it's personal. It challenges identity, disrupts culture, and tests every relationship in your organization. In this closing panel conversation, Brandon Seigel sits down with Scott Booher, Will Humphreys, and Amy Lafko to explore the human architecture of change: why good ideas stall, what leaders must model to move people forward, and how to build a practice culture where change isn't feared — it's expected.
Sunday Overtime
Open Group Networking & Collaboration
Brandon Seigel1:1 Consulting
Scott Booher, MBABook through the conference app. Limited slots, first come, first served.
The 6 Types Of Working Genius Workshop
Brandon SeigelA GCC 2027 Bonus Collaboration — led by Brandon Seigel, Certified Working Genius Facilitator.
Championship teams aren't built on the most talent — they're built on the right people in the right positions. The 6 Types of Working Genius is the fastest, most practical tool available for figuring out where your people (and you) do their best work — and where they quietly burn out.
In this hands-on, three-hour bonus workshop, Certified Working Genius Facilitator Brandon Seigel breaks down all six types of Working Genius, walks you through your personal assessment results, and helps you build a live team map you can put to work immediately — to hire smarter, delegate with confidence, run better meetings, and grow a stronger, more energized team. This isn't sit-and-listen. We roll up our sleeves and model it together, in the room, with your own results and your own team.
Whether you're a solo owner trying to understand your own wiring or a leader bringing your management team, you'll leave knowing exactly who belongs in which seat — and why.
Register your team — the more of your people in the room, the more powerful the mapping. Seats are limited.
1:1 Consulting
Scott Booher, MBABook through the conference app. Limited slots, first come, first served.
Please be advised that the agenda may change at any time and this is more to give a general outline of what is planned.
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