The Mobile Physical Therapy
90-Day Launch Blueprint

Verify your PT license is active and in good standing. Log into your state's PT licensing board website and confirm your license is current, renewal date, and CEU requirements. If you're planning to practice in multiple states, check if your state participates in the PT Licensure Compact at ptcompact.org — compact privileges let you practice in 30+ member states without individual state applications.

Define your mobile PT niche today. The most successful mobile PT practices own a specific patient population: geriatric/home health (highest demand, often insurance-covered), orthopedic post-surgical (surgeon referral-dependent, cash-pay or insurance), sports/athletic performance (cash-pay, high rates, younger demographics), pediatric (home-based, often insurance-covered), or neurological rehabilitation. Your niche determines your marketing, your equipment needs, and your referral network.

Research mobile PT competitors in your area. Search '[your city] mobile physical therapy' and '[your city] in-home physical therapy' on Google. What are they charging? What patient populations do they serve? Are there any operators specifically targeting post-surgical orthopedic patients or senior living facilities near you? A gap in your local market is your opportunity.

Decide: cash-pay, insurance, or hybrid model for launch. Cash-pay is faster to revenue (no credentialing delay) but limits your patient pool. Insurance is slower to set up (60–120 days for credentialing) but covers the majority of the PT market. The recommended approach: launch cash-pay immediately while completing your credentialing applications simultaneously. You're earning revenue from day one while building your insurance revenue stream.

Research insurance credentialing timelines for your target payers. Call or email your top 3 target insurance companies (start with BlueCross/BlueShield, Aetna, and UnitedHealth — they cover the most patients) and ask: 'What is your current credentialing timeline for a solo physical therapist?' Most take 60–120 days. Starting your credentialing applications now means you can accept those payers' patients in months 3–4.

Model your revenue under both payer models. Cash-pay: 4 visits/day at $150 = $600/day × 4 days = $2,400/week. Insurance: 4 visits/day at average $110 reimbursement = $440/day × 4 days = $1,760/week before billing service fees. Hybrid at 6 months: 2 cash-pay + 2 insured per day. What does your break-even look like under each model? Use the calculator (Deliverable 2).

File your LLC through your state Secretary of State website. $50–$200. As a licensed healthcare provider doing hands-on treatment, the LLC is your essential liability protection layer alongside your malpractice insurance. Do both — they cover different risk categories.

Get your EIN from IRS.gov — free, instant, 5 minutes. Required for your business bank account, insurance credentialing applications, and any billing system setup.

Purchase your malpractice insurance today. Top providers for physical therapists: HPSO (hpso.com, ~$159/year for $1M/$3M coverage), CPH & Associates (cphins.com, ~$169/year), and Healthcare Providers Service Organization. You cannot see patients without active malpractice coverage — do not wait on this. Your certificate of insurance is required for all credentialing applications.

Open a business checking account. Relay (fee-free online) or your local credit union. All patient payments and insurance reimbursements route through your business account. Keeping healthcare revenue separate from personal finances is both good practice and important for healthcare billing audit compliance.

Apply for your NPI (National Provider Identifier) if you don't have one. Go to nppes.cms.hhs.gov — free, takes 10 minutes. You need an NPI type 1 (individual provider) to bill any insurance company. If you're forming a group practice entity, you'll also need an NPI type 2. Processing takes 7–10 business days. Apply now so it's active when you start credentialing.

Research billing software options this week. Jane App (jane.app, $74/month) — best for cash-pay PT with optional insurance billing. WebPT (webpt.com, $99–$159/month) — the dominant EMR for outpatient PT, excellent insurance billing features. Kareo (kareo.com, $110/month) — strong if you have a mix of cash-pay and insurance. All three have free demos — watch them this weekend and make your decision.

Start your credentialing applications today. Begin with your state Medicaid application (search '[your state] Medicaid provider enrollment PT') — Medicaid covers the largest portion of home health patients and has the longest processing time (90–180 days). Next: BlueCross BlueShield, Aetna, and UnitedHealth individual applications. Each insurer has its own online portal — you'll need: NPI, malpractice certificate, LLC documents, and license verification for each.

Contact a healthcare billing service today. If insurance billing is new to you, a billing service (5–8% of collections) handles: claim submission, denial management, patient billing, and payment posting. This is worth every dollar for a solo mobile PT — billing errors cost more than the service fee. Get quotes from: Aerocare Medical (aerocaremedical.com), Billing Paradise (billingparadise.com), and one local medical billing service.

Order your portable treatment table and primary equipment. Recommended: Oakworks One portable table ($297, oakworks.com) or Earthlite Harmony ($389, earthlite.com) — both fold to 28 lbs with a wheeled carrying case. Order a full TheraBand resistance band set (theraband.com, $35–$50 for a full progression set). These two items let you treat 90% of the orthopedic and functional conditions you'll see.

Order your assessment and documentation equipment. Goniometer (joint range of motion measurement, $8–$15 from Amazon or a medical supply), tape measure, hand dynamometer for grip strength ($30–$60 from ProHealthcareProducts.com), and a standardized outcome measure packet (print from your specialty's standard tools: OPTIMAL, DASH, Oswestry, etc.). Your documentation from visit one sets the clinical and billing foundation for every subsequent visit.

Set up your EMR/billing software today. Based on your Week 2 decision: sign up for Jane App, WebPT, or Kareo. Configure: your provider profile with NPI, your fee schedule (CPT codes with your cash-pay rates and your target insurance rates), your intake forms (patient demographics, insurance information, health history, consent to treat), and your SOAP note templates for your primary patient population. Invest 3–4 hours this week — proper setup saves 1–2 hours/week in documentation forever.

Draft your patient intake and consent forms. Required before treating any patient: consent to treatment, HIPAA acknowledgment, financial responsibility agreement (specifying your cash-pay rate and your policy for insurance co-pays and deductibles), and a cancellation policy (24-hour notice for no-show/late cancel fee). Many EMR platforms include standard templates — customize them for your practice.

Create your 'home PT vs. clinic PT' one-page PDF. List the advantages of home physical therapy: no commute for recovering patients, treatment in the functional environment where they actually need to perform, personalized attention without clinic distractions, and flexibility for patients with limited mobility or transportation. This document is your primary sales tool for patient and physician outreach — refine it this week.

Identify your top 20 referral source targets. For orthopedic PT: orthopedic surgeons and sports medicine physicians within 15 miles. For geriatric PT: primary care physicians with older patient populations, home health agencies, and senior living communities. For pediatric PT: pediatricians, developmental pediatricians, and school districts with special education programs. Your referral sources are the foundation of a sustainable mobile PT practice.

Contact 5 orthopedic or sports medicine physician offices today. Call each office and ask to speak with the office manager or clinical coordinator. Script: 'I'm a licensed PT starting a mobile physical therapy practice in [city]. I'd like to introduce myself to [Dr. Name] as a referral option for post-surgical patients who struggle with clinic transportation. Can I schedule a 10-minute introduction call or drop off materials?' Physician offices respond best to professional, specific, and brief introductions.

Contact 3 home health agencies about sub-contract opportunities. Home health agencies (search '[your city] home health agency') often need contract PTs to handle overflow referrals. As a sub-contractor, they provide the patients and handle billing — you provide the clinical care and receive $55–$80/visit (lower than direct billing but zero marketing cost and immediate patients). Use the home health agency proposal template (Deliverable 5).

Visit 2 physician offices in person today. Bring: your one-page 'mobile PT' document, a business card with your fax number (physicians fax PT referrals), and a brief cover letter with your NPI and license number. Leave materials with the medical assistant or front desk coordinator. A professional in-person introduction builds the relationship that email alone never will.

Contact 3 senior living communities about physical therapy services. Assisted living facilities, memory care communities, and active adult communities often need on-site PT for residents who can't easily travel to a clinic. Call the Director of Nursing or Activities Director. Your pitch: 'I provide on-site physical therapy for residents — I come to your facility, which eliminates the transportation challenge for residents who need PT.' Use the senior living partnership template (Deliverable 5).

Set up your patient scheduling system. In Jane App or your chosen EMR: configure your weekly schedule with geographic routing built in — cluster your patients by neighborhood so you're not driving across the city between visits. A route-optimized schedule of 4–5 visits in a compact geographic area is significantly more efficient than 4–5 visits spread across a 20-mile radius.

Create your cash-pay rate card and send it to all physician contacts. Simple format: your name, license number, NPI, fax number, services offered (evaluation, therapeutic exercise, manual therapy, neuromuscular re-education, etc.), your cash-pay rate per visit, and your service area. Physicians need your NPI and fax number to send you referrals — include both prominently.

Accept your first cash-pay patient this week. Whether from a physician referral, personal network, or your physician office visits, do your first evaluation. Complete: subjective history, objective exam (ROM, strength, functional tests), assessment, and plan of care. Document everything in your EMR — proper documentation is your legal protection and your billing foundation.

Establish your route optimization protocol. Every week: map your scheduled patients by address. Arrange your schedule to minimize drive time — start with the farthest patient and work back toward home, or cluster by geographic quadrant by day of week. Reducing your average drive time between patients from 20 minutes to 12 minutes adds 1–2 additional patient slots per day.

Follow up with all physician offices from Week 4. Call each office manager 1 week after your introduction: 'I wanted to follow up on the materials I dropped off last week. Has Dr. [Name] had any patients who might benefit from mobile PT?' A weekly or bi-weekly check-in with referring physician offices maintains your top-of-mind status until the first referral comes.

Contact a physical therapy clinic about a sub-contract arrangement. Many established PT clinics occasionally have home health overflow patients they can't serve. Call the practice manager and introduce your mobile PT services: 'I'm a licensed mobile PT in [city] — if you ever have patients who need home visits that your clinic can't accommodate, I'd be happy to sub-contract.' One clinic partnership can provide 2–4 patient referrals per month.

Set up your HIPAA compliance basics. As a healthcare provider, you need: a signed Business Associate Agreement with any software that handles PHI (Jane App, WebPT, and similar platforms provide these), a basic written HIPAA policy for your practice, a process for patient records requests and corrections, and a breach notification procedure. The Blueprint's compliance checklist covers the practical steps for a solo mobile PT practice.

Develop your home exercise program delivery system. Your HEP is your most powerful clinical tool for home-based PT — and it differentiates great mobile PTs from average ones. Use: HEP2go (free), MedBridge (medbridge.com, $395/year) for professional illustrated handouts, or your EMR's built-in HEP features. Patients who can access their exercises via an app or email link have better adherence and better outcomes — which drives referrals.

Ask your first patient for a Google review and a physician referral confirmation. After a successful treatment session: 'Would you be willing to leave a Google review? It really helps my new practice grow.' Also: call back the referring physician's office to report on the patient's initial evaluation findings — this closed-loop communication is rare and positions you as a high-quality referral partner that physicians remember.

Check your credentialing application statuses from Week 3. Call or email each insurance company's provider relations department to confirm receipt and ask for an estimated completion date. If any applications are stalled, ask what additional documentation is needed. Proactive follow-up on credentialing applications reduces processing time by 2–4 weeks on average.

Set your caseload target for months 2–3. A full-time mobile PT caseload: 20–24 visits/week (4–5 visits/day, 4–5 days/week). An 80% utilization target = 16–20 visits/week = $1,760–$3,000/week at current rates. What's your current weekly visit count? What specific outreach actions will close the gap between your current caseload and your 90-day target?

Contact your local hospital's discharge planning department. Hospital discharge planners (case managers and social workers) coordinate post-discharge care including physical therapy. Introduce yourself: 'I'm a mobile PT in [city] — for patients being discharged who live alone or have transportation barriers, I can often begin home visits within 48 hours. Can I leave my contact information with your discharge planning team?' This is an underutilized referral channel that generates high-acuity, high-frequency patients.

Create a corporate ergonomics assessment offering. Many companies pay $200–$500 per employee for a professional ergonomic workstation assessment and report — multiply this by 20–50 employees at a company with desk workers and you have a $4,000–$25,000 project. Use the corporate ergonomics template (Deliverable 5) to pitch HR directors at tech, law, and financial services companies in your area.

Set up telehealth as a supplemental service. Telehealth PT is appropriate for: exercise progression, home program review, patient education, and follow-up check-ins. Many insurers now reimburse telehealth PT at the same rate as in-person visits. Jane App and WebPT have integrated telehealth. Offering telehealth: (1) fills your schedule on days when travel is impractical, (2) extends your effective service area, (3) adds revenue between in-home visits.

Post your first patient success story content on Instagram or Facebook. With patient permission: 'A patient came to me 4 weeks post-knee replacement, unable to walk without an assistive device. Six sessions later, he walked his daughter down the aisle at her wedding.' You don't need photos — the story is the content. Patient outcome stories are your most powerful marketing tool and resonate strongly with patients and referring physicians alike.

Calculate your patient retention rate. Of patients who started treatment, what % completed their plan of care? A good mobile PT retention rate is 75–85%. If patients are dropping off early, identify why: inconvenient scheduling, inadequate clinical progress, pricing friction, or geographic barriers. Each dropout is data — use it to improve your intake process or clinical approach.

Confirm your first insurance credentialing approvals. When you receive your first credentialing approval letter, update your patient communication: 'I now accept [Insurance Name] — if you have this coverage, your visits may be covered.' Email this to all current cash-pay patients and to all referring physicians who have sent you patients. Activating a major insurer can significantly increase your patient volume within 2–4 weeks.

Host a free lunch-and-learn for a physician practice. Offer to bring lunch for the staff of a referring physician office and present a 15-minute overview of your mobile PT services, case types you specialize in, and your outcomes data. Lunch-and-learns are a standard medical sales relationship-building tool and are expected — most physician offices welcome them. This visit cements your top-of-mind referral status.

Build relationships at 2 senior living communities. Visit in person, bring your materials, and ask to meet with the Director of Care or Activities Director. Offer to do a free 30-minute group balance and fall prevention class for residents as an introduction. Senior living facilities that see your clinical quality firsthand become consistent, high-volume referral partners.

Contact a sports team or athletic organization about sports PT services. Search for local adult recreational leagues, high school athletic trainers, and club sports organizations. Offer: on-site injury screening, player wellness sessions, and injury rehabilitation. Sports PT referrals come from athletic trainers and coaches who see the same athletes repeatedly — one sports team relationship is 5–20 patient referrals per season.

Set up automated appointment reminders in your EMR. Configure: a 48-hour text/email reminder before every appointment, and a 2-hour same-day reminder. Automated reminders reduce no-show rates by 40–60% in healthcare practices — translating directly to 1–2 additional visits/week in a 20-visit/week schedule. Most EMR platforms include this as a standard feature.

Calculate your revenue per visit across all payer types. Cash-pay rate: $[X]/visit. Insurance A reimbursement: average $[Y]/visit after adjustments. Insurance B: $[Z]. Which payer generates the highest per-visit revenue? This data determines which patient population and referral channels to prioritize in your marketing. Time spent on the lowest-reimbursing patients is time not spent on your highest-value patient segments.

Apply for hospital privileges if relevant to your patient population. Some mobile PT practices benefit from hospital privileges — it allows you to evaluate patients in the hospital before discharge and accept direct referrals from hospital case managers. Requirements vary by hospital system. Call the Medical Staff Office of your local hospital and ask about the credentialing process for physical therapists.

Set your 90-day caseload goal and map the specific actions to reach it. If your target is 24 visits/week and you're currently at 14, you need 10 additional weekly visits. That might mean: 2 new physician referral sources (4–6 patients/month each), 1 home health sub-contract (3–5 patients/month), and your insurance activation driving 3–4 additional patients. Specific actions, not general 'grow my practice' goals.

Evaluate hiring a part-time PT assistant (PTA or aide). If you're at 80%+ capacity and turning away referrals, a part-time PTA can handle maintenance visits while you focus on evaluations and complex cases. Pay rate: $25–$45/hour for a licensed PTA. A PTA who handles 8 maintenance visits/week at $80/visit reimbursement = $640/week in revenue you couldn't otherwise generate. The net margin on those visits, after PTA cost, is typically $320–$380/week.

Apply for Medicare provider enrollment if you haven't already. Medicare covers a large portion of the geriatric PT market and is the primary payer for home health patients. Application is through PECOS (pecos.cms.hhs.gov) — the process takes 90–180 days. If you're targeting home health or senior living patients, this is a non-negotiable credentialing priority that you should have started in Week 3.

Research specialty certification in your niche. Orthopedic Certified Specialist (OCS), Geriatric Certified Specialist (GCS), and Neurological Certified Specialist (NCS) — all from APTA (apta.org). Specialty certification: commands a 10–20% rate premium with cash-pay patients, differentiates you with referring physicians, and positions you as an expert in competitive markets. The application requires 2,000 hours of specialty clinical experience.

Create a monthly clinical newsletter for your referring physicians. One page, once per month: a case summary (anonymous) demonstrating your outcomes, a clinical tip relevant to their patient population, and your current availability. Physicians who receive regular updates from a PT partner refer more consistently than those who only hear from you when you need something. Constant Contact or Mailchimp works for this.

Review your 8-week financials completely. Total revenue, billing collections rate (billed vs. collected), visit count by payer, expense breakdown, net income. What's your effective hourly rate including documentation and drive time? Are you on pace for your 90-day income target? What specific change in your payer mix, visit volume, or rate structure would have the highest impact on your net income?

Write your 3-month practice growth plan. Based on 8 weeks of data: your best referral sources, your most profitable payer mix, your target visit volume, and the 3 specific actions that will get you from where you are to where you want to be in 90 days. A mobile PT practice with a clear plan and a consistent referral network reaches full capacity within 12–18 months — you're halfway to a sustainable, thriving practice.