WE'RE

FIXING

THE

HEALTH

CARE

SYSTEM.

The current system of U.S. healthcare is not sustainable. It is not affordable. It is not effective. Together, we can fix it. Sign the PT Pledge & get your complimentary take-action bundle.

Take The Pledge Today

We are creating a national tv campaign exposing the truth of the US Health System and the solution that Physical Therapy provides. We need 1,000 Private Practice clinics in America to participate in this National Campaign for a healthcare system that is affordable, accessible, and effective.

Seth-Coulter

"We need to change the industry and make physical therapy the first option."

- Seth Coulter, PT

Meet-Dr-Lightsey

"Something has to change.....fast."

- Amanda Lightsey, DPT

Sean Weartherston

"Tired of time and money wasted on ineffective treatments. PT first...and PT for the win!"

- Sean Weatherston, PT, OCS, CSCS

The Physical Therapists' Pledge

We pledge to our patients, our families, and our country, that we will work together to build a healthcare system that is affordable, accessible, and effective.

We pledge to put the needs of our patients first. We pledge to work together to find solutions that will improve the health of our nation.

The only way to solve the problem is to educate our communities and raise awareness for what physical therapy can do for them.

We pledge to build patient demand.

Take Action Bundle

2023 Practice Growth Planning Template

Plan of Care Template

On-demand Patient Demand, Marketing Basics Training

Your Practice or Name Listed in the patient demand directory

We're Fixing The Health Care System t-shirt

Take The Pledge & Get Your Take Action Bundle

PPS Recap

Major Progress Toward The National Campaign

More than 100 physical therapists signed a pledge to fix the broken healthcare system at APTA’s Private Practice Annual Conference in early November. By signing the pledge, they agreed to join a national campaign for a better healthcare system that is more affordable, accessible, and effective.

PPS 2022 - Recap

Session 208

How to Generate Consistent Patient Demand

by Marketing Across All Stages of Awareness

Chad Madden, Co-Founder of Breakthrough and Owner of Madden & Gilbert PT, delivered a CEU session unpacking the state of healthcare and how to generate consistent patient demand.

Get the recording!

Session Overview
Historically, practices relied on physician referrals. Practices implementing direct-to-consumer marketing have grown, yet most are still missing out on an untapped opportunity.


Most PTs today only capture demand from people who already know them. While this group makes up the lowest-hanging fruit, it excludes many potential patients: Those who could benefit from PT but don’t know it.

Practices looking to generate consistent patient visits can achieve greater success by marketing across all five stages of awareness. Join to learn proven strategies for increasing patient demand.

Identify gaps in your private practice marketing strategy by evaluating which stages of awareness you are effectively reaching

Develop or revise your marketing campaigns to target all stages of awareness and educate your community about PT

Define growth metrics to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategy across all stages of awareness.

A System In Crisis: US Health Care Ranks Last, Yet Most Expensive

During the economic downturn, US Healthcare spending surpassed a critical threshold — $4 Trillion! This accounts for a staggering 20% of the Economy!

$4.3 Trillion

Total Healthcare Spending

The average healthcare cost per person is over $1,000 per month in the US. Most of that money goes toward prescription medications, surgeries, and hospital care. It's more than any other country.

$460 Billion

Wasted On Unnecessary Prescriptions & Hosptial Care

If wasted medical expenses in the US were a nation, its GDP would rank 25th in the world. That’s a lot of wasted dollars.

$34 Billion

Spent on PT & OT

Only 0.78% of US Healthcare expenditure is on PT & OT. In fact, The total amount spent in the US on PT and OT combined is a mere one-fifteenth of the total amount wasted on unnecessary prescription medications and hospital care.

How David Can Defeat Goliath by Creating Patient Demand

Today, more people are referred to pain meds or surgery than to physical therapy. As a practice owner, you see the impact this has on people’s lives on a daily basis. We are losing. People simply do as they’re told in this healthcare system... They do it “because the doctor told me so”... They do it without objection and little questioning. Despite this, there is hope. PTs can win. The solution lies in building Patient Demand.

Most People Don't Know PT Can Help Them

People don't realize that PT can often provide better results than surgery. As a result, far too many patients end up addicted to painkillers or in debt from repeated surgeries that often cause more harm than good.

As a PT, you no doubt feel the impacts of the broken healthcare system through declining reimbursements, a challenging referral environment, intense competition, and a largely unaware community that’s not being educated or guided towards your services. This makes consistent growth a challenge.

How Did We Get Here?

Back in the early 1800s health care was divided equally between natural practitioners and medical doctors. Patent Medicine companies sold addictive concoctions promising benefits of healing. Many of these concoctions contained alcohol, morphine, opium, and cocaine.

The pharmaceutical companies succeeded by capturing the attention of people who were in pain and promising them a solution (albeit a shitty one). They figured out a way to advertise and sell the profit of their product- ably, many using simple direct response advertising techniques.

They "won" because they controlled the media (advertising).

Creating Patient Demand

Patient Demand is educational marketing and business strategy designed to increase awareness for your practice and conservative as a whole. It meets people where they are at. Whether they nothing about PT or they are a current patient, it strategically engages them.


When you run a patient demand campaign you can see exactly how much you spent on that campaign, measure the number of patients you converted, and see the true ROI.

It puts you in the driver's seat and helps your community better understand why PT is important.

About Us

When Carl Mattiola learned about how broken the current healthcare system was (and experienced it firsthand), he was motivated to start Breakthrough. He met Chad Madden during his early research phase. Today, Breakthrough is made up of 40+ employees who have helped thousands of practices grow. At Breakthrough, we believe conservative care options like physical therapy should be the foundation of the healthcare system. Our vision as a company is to help 1 billion people get healthy naturally by 2030. We do that by helping private practices educate patients and make them aware of what’s possible with conservative care.

Carl-Mattiola

Carl Mattiola

Co-Founder of Breakthrough

Carl is the former Head of Online Sales for Tesla Motors where he helped them go from $625,000/week to $60,000,000/week in online sales.


In 2013, he took his decade of Silicon Valley experience and co-founded Breakthrough with the mission to help people in pain get back to normal naturally without pharmaceuticals, injections, or dangerous and unnecessary surgeries.


He believes physical therapy is the best solution for providing the care needed to help people who are suffering get back to living normal, pain-free life.


The Breakthrough platform he created is already transforming communities across the world.

Chad Madden Headshot

Chad Madden

Co-Founder of Breakthrough and Owner of Madden & Gilbert PT

Chad Madden is the Co-Founder of Breakthrough and Owner of Madden & Gilbert PT. Since opening his private practice in 2003, Chad has scaled it across 6 clinic locations and recently received a valuation of $16.5 Million.

Through Breakthrough, Chad has helped thousands of physical therapists and chiropractors get consistent patient visits.

Chad is the author of 3 Books: Pain-Free Motion™ for Your Lower Back: Relief without Medications, Injections and Surgery; Killer Marketing Secrets; Back to Normal and Host of the Grow Your Practice Podcast. 

Patient Demand Software

Get a risk-free demo to see how Breakthrough can help you get consistent visits with Patient Demand Software.

Reactivate past patients.

Get the marketing tools and training you need to increase visits.

Track all of your marketing and follow-up in one place.

Get a return on your investment, guaranteed.