Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Rafael Salazar II, MHS, OTR/L, Principal Owner of Rehab U Practice Solutions, located in Augusta, GA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Rehab U Practice Solutions helps healthcare organizations increase revenue by improving patient experience, engagement, and retention. We've worked with private healthcare practices and healthcare systems to develop marketing strategies and optimize administrative operations to improve patient engagement and business and strategic planning. We've also helped several healthcare software startups with product development and new business strategy.

Common projects and engagements include to following:

  • Establishing lead generation & new business development systems
  • Marketing Strategy Development
  • Healthcare Software Product Development
  • Establishing Integrated Clinical Support Systems
  • Operational Performance Improvement for Outpatient Healthcare Services
  • Digital Healthcare Marketing Strategy Development
  • Revenue Stream Diversification for Healthcare Organizations
  • Managing Patient Experience & Engagements
  • Clinical Operations Diagnostic
  • Healthcare Marketing Diagnostic
  • Healthcare Software Product Analysis

We envision a world where skilled, competent, and caring clinicians serve and care for engaged patients to promote better clinical outcomes, unmatched patient satisfaction, and lasting relationships. I'm the host of The Better Outcomes Show, a podcast that explores the possibilities of new healthcare. I'm also the author of Better Outcomes: A Guide to Humanizing Healthcare.

Tell us about yourself

I started my career as an Occupational therapist in a subacute rehab center. From there, I moved on to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where I worked as the lead clinician in an outpatient specialty clinic at my local VA Medical center. There I was able to work on projects to improve patient and employee engagement and experience throughout the organization. In that role, I led a team to roll out a patient engagement initiative rooted in relationship-based care. That experience made me think about going into business on my own. I saw how valuable patient engagement strategy could be for healthcare organizations and wanted to work on more projects like that.

I ended up leaving the VA shortly after completing that project and began working as a healthcare consultant on a multi-million-dollar project for Georgia’s Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities. This project involved work related to transitioning individuals out of state institutions to community residences and establishing statewide mobile integrated clinical services for individuals on the state Medicaid waiver program. As part of that project, I developed and launched a large internal marketing and communications campaign to increase internal stakeholders' awareness of integrated clinical services within the state. I also developed protocols and systems to coordinate and manage interdisciplinary collaborative care within the State’s Medicaid Waiver system, as well as clinical and operational guidelines for case management, telehealth, and virtual service delivery. And that experience solidified my desire to continue in my own business.

I also have experience as an assistant professor at Augusta University’s Occupational Therapy Program, as a Licensed Board Member on the GA State OT Board, and have served on several committees for the national OT Board (NBCOT). I'm also on the Board of Directors for NBCOT. I own and operate Proactive Rehabilitation & Wellness, a multi-specialty outpatient clinic that treats patients experiencing musculoskeletal and orthopedic conditions as well as chronic pain. I acquired that practice at the tail end of 2020 and used it as a proving ground and case study that feeds my consulting work.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

  1. Simply making the decision to leave a secure, stable government job for entrepreneurship.
  2. Acquiring a business in the middle of a pandemic and tripling its growth in one year.
  3. Writing and publishing my recent book, "Better Outcomes: A Guide to Humanizing Healthcare."

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

I think one of the hardest things relates to managing expectations and priorities. As an entrepreneur, the work's never done. There's always another project, sale, or deal that you can work on. The question is: should you work on it? Every decision has its trade-offs and opportunity costs. So many entrepreneurs and business owners find themselves becoming workaholics, not because they want to work so much but because, by the nature of their entrepreneurial mind, they see the possibilities in each opportunity. It can become easy to spend so much time building the business that you miss out on the important things in life, like human connection, relationships, and family.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Understand why you go into business in the first place. You don't go into business because you're good at something and you want to do it on your own or be your own boss. You should understand that going into business for yourself is a strategic decision aimed at helping you create value in the marketplace and build wealth as a result. You want to build a business, not a job.
  2. Reference the last question, and balance the desire for business growth and wealth with the truly important things in life. It does no good to win the world and realize that you're now 70, your family hates you, and you don't have any close, meaningful relationships.
  3. Seek out guidance and mentorship. Over the years, I've found it invaluable to have friends "in the same boat" regarding business and entrepreneurship. Even just getting together once a month for lunch with other business owners can help you realize that you're not alone, that there are others in your shoes, and how to understand some of the tough decisions you have to make, etc. And also, seek out people who are farther along in business than yourself, people who have been where you are and have gotten through to the other side.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

A plug for my recent book: "Better Outcomes: A Guide to Humanizing Healthcare."

We have a problem in healthcare.

That problem is this: in today’s healthcare environment, especially in the United States, people take a back seat to the numbers in almost every aspect of healthcare service delivery. Productivity, utilization, and other business metrics rule the roost. If it’s not calculable, spreadsheet-able, or measurable, it hardly receives any attention from healthcare managers, administrators, and decision-makers. We can’t simply sit back and allow the dehumanization that currently runs rampant in our clinics and hospitals to continue to wreak havoc on one of the most important factors in clinical outcomes: the relationships between healthcare professionals and the people (patients) that they serve.

Healthcare is a great and noble profession, but it will only remain so if we, as healthcare professionals, return its focus to its true purpose: people, the people receiving care, and the people working to deliver that care. After all, we’re all more than simply numbers on spreadsheets or items on checklists.

Better Outcomes: A Guide for Humanizing Healthcare outlines 8 fundamental changes that organizations and clinicians need to commit to in order to return the focus of healthcare to where it should be: the patient.

The book covers topics related to truly patient-centered care, a biopsychosocial approach to service delivery, patient engagement, interpersonal communication, and developing long-term relationships with patients. Through an exploration of both clinical research and real-life examples and cases, the book outlines and supports a vision of a new healthcare where skilled, competent, and caring clinicians care for engaged patients to promote better clinical outcomes, deliver unmatched satisfaction, and lasting relationships.

Grab the book here.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://rehabupracticesolutions.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RehabUSolutions
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RafaelSalazarII
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelsalazarii/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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