Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mark Jagodzinski. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mark, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I was kind of late to the game so to speak on this, I had a number of colleagues who had already ventured out and started their own successful practices, and I just got tired of doing things someone else’s way. As ths saying goes, you don’t quit jobs, you quit bosses. At each stop in my professional life, i absolutely loved the staff, whether I had a hand in creating the content of it or not…and I had some great bosses, some not so good. So, when I decided to do my own thing, I vowed to be the boss i never had. I wanted to build something where everyone there feels as if they have ownership, and if they do, then there’s self-accountability, and when you have that, you are free to focus on the purveyors of your business, our patients.

AS with any health care provider, the challenge in starting your own business lies in the fact that 0% of our curriculums are devoted to the administrative tasks that go along with a startup…securing funding or investors, negotiating lease deals and insurance contracts, and most importantly, deciding who you want to surround yourself with. I am very blessed in this regard and have some quality people on the back end always pushing us forward. As far as advice goes, make sure your passion is equivalent to your vision, and then stay true to both. That will help you navigate the highs and lows of owning your own business.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I unfortunately have a long and significant history of orthopedic issues myself and chose PT after spending enough time as a patient. I enjoyed the amount of time and opportunity to develop relationships with our patients that many healthcare providers just don’t get anymore. I finished my athletic career at Northen AZ University, and got right into PT school, where I graduated with Honors and created a program to provide PT services to the non/under-insured populations of Northen AZ.

My own experiences as a patient, for better or for worse, have dictated the level of attention to detail that I provide to my patients. What sets me apart from others in my profession is the notion that I am evaluating a whole person, and not just a body part. As an outpatient PT in private practice, there is a tremendous amount of autonomy, and with that the responsibility to treat each individual case as if it’s the most important thing on your schedule that day. I have built my reputation on that, and I believe its reflected in my colleague’s and most importantly in my patient’s opinion of me. Our name RISE says it all, and the Phoenix bird for our logo anchors me to the Valley I serve.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I believe in leading from the front. I do not ask anything of my staff that I wouldn’t do myself. I started as a patient, then as a PT Tech myself, so in a regular workdays’ time, I will handle administrative stuff, treat patients, and fold towels, or clean tables, or even clean up the bathroom a bit because I take pride in everything I do. No detail is too small or trivial.

Treat everyone with respect, as the saying goes, it is both earned and also a two way street. I was raised to treat the janitor with the same level of respect as I would a CEO. Most importantly, family ALWAYS comes first, and my employees know that. What may be a temporary inconvenience for me could be someone else’s first choir concert or dance recital. My children are grown and just about out of the house, and I made sure I was around to be a great Dad for them, and I want my employees to feel they can grow with us, but never at the cost of losing family time.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

I take PT Interns all the time, I feel it keeps me on my toes, and I view it as a way for me to give back to the profession that has given me so much. I tell them there is an art and a science to what we as PTs do, the science is what you learn in school, the art is in knowing how to coalesce those abstract concepts to your own abilities as a person, and most importantly how you can you that to make connections with people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.riseorthosportspt.com
• Instagram: rise_ortho_sports_pt
• Facebook: Rise OrthoSports PT
• Linkedin: Mark Jagodzinski, PT, DPT, CIDN
• Twitter: @jagskidpt