A little more than 3 years ago, just a few months before opening their new practice, Rebecca Meehan, PT, and Susan Clinton, PT, DScPT, sat down to discuss their plans. Atop their agenda was the question of payment.
![Mastering Cash-Based Practice](/contentassets/b3b75a0cff7f4fb4bf9fd5f1d2f0f13f/feature_cashbased_1.jpg)
"We knew that we didn't want to work with insurance at all," Meehan says, "so our business plan centered on being cash-based. For that model to work, though, you need a system in place. You can't just fly by the seat of your pants."
Meehan and Clinton's clinic, Embody Physiotherapy and Wellness in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, would leverage the 2 women's specialist certifications in women's health, orthopedics, and manual therapy, and would focus on prevention as much as rehabilitation. Together, they had 60-plus years of experience in the field. "We weren't fresh out of school, jumping right into private practice," Meehan notes. "We had a very strong sense of what our strengths were as physical therapists, and the various ways in which we could help our patient and client population."