Podcast | Episode 22: Workers’ Compensation with Joshua Schuette

Podcast Episode

 

 

Podcast Transcript

Tracy Davis:

Welcome to the Brooks Rehabilitation Podcast. My name is Tracy Davis. On this episode, we have Josh Schuette. He is the Executive Director of National Workers’ Compensation Sales and Account Management here at Brooks. I’m excited for you to listen into this conversation. Before we get into it, please check us out on social media, any platform. We are on LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Check us out on all the platforms. Just look for @BrooksRehab and you can find us there. And we look forward to connecting with you over there. And also, check us out on brooksrehab.org. Anything that you are looking to get more information on, we have a really comprehensive website. We keep it up to date. We have news, blogs, all kinds of stuff on there and all of our locations are listed as well. So go to brooksrehab.org. Again, thank you for listening. And we’re going to get right into the episode with Josh Schuette. And I want to start off with a very important question.

Josh Schuette:

Yes.

Tracy Davis:

Are you fired up for this podcast?

Josh Schuette:

Absolutely, man. I tell everybody I got one switch, one speed. That’s on. You wake up in the morning, put the feet on the ground and we’re ready to dominate.

Tracy Davis:

And so everyone knows, we’re sitting here and starting this podcast. And Josh has on his Jaguar bandana.

Josh Schuette:

Yes.

Tracy Davis:

Even though they just lost. So he is a true fan.

Josh Schuette:

Yes. A hundred percent.

Tracy Davis:

How’d you feel about the game? They just lost to the Chargers, right?

Josh Schuette:

Well they beat the Chargers.

Tracy Davis:

No. They beat the Chargers. Who’d they just lose to?

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. They just lost to the Chiefs.

Tracy Davis:

The Chiefs. That’s right.

Josh Schuette:

Mahomes. Yes.

Tracy Davis:

He injured himself and he still beat us. Yeah.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. There’s always a spin on everything. The spin is they kept it close. We’re not even going to talk about the injury. But I’ll tell you what, great team. Fired up about Jacksonville.

Tracy Davis:

Yep.

Josh Schuette:

They’re great for the community. I mean, that’s why I’m so fired up about the Jaguars. They actually helped out some of our pediatric patients in the past and it’s amazing what those guys do.

Tracy Davis:

Absolutely.

Josh Schuette:

So, little product plug for them. I remember one time we reached out to them and there was a young man, Brooks patient that I run with. We’d take him out in a racing wheelchair back in the day. He was going through some tough times. Reached out to the Jaguars. Jaguars got him in for a practice as soon as he was feeling well enough for it.

Tracy Davis:

Oh, that’s cool.

Josh Schuette:

And this obviously was a few years back. But it was amazing. They literally ran off the field. Leonard Fournette immediately gave him his gloves, put him in his wheelchair.

Tracy Davis:

Oh wow.

Josh Schuette:

And then Josh Lambo took off his cleats, gave it to him, and everybody just sat there, took pictures. And it’s like, if that didn’t make you a fan.

Tracy Davis:

Oh boy.

Josh Schuette:

It’s like, they can play, but also they take care of the community and that’s what it’s all about.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah. Josh, tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you into your field, I would say.

Josh Schuette:

Okay, I’ve been a physical therapist for over 17 years now. I love it. I still actually get to see patients on a regular basis and in the realms of work comp, we call them injured workers, but synonymous patient injured workers, somebody that’s been injured on the job, but physical therapist that long. Love what I do.

Tracy Davis:

Why’d you choose being a PT, originally?

Josh Schuette:

You know what’s interesting, is somebody asked me that recently, and it’s anything but. If you would’ve told me at age 22, finishing up my bachelor’s degree, that I was here as a physical therapist, now I never would’ve believed you. Because I did the route of exercise in sports science. In that background at University of Florida is you’re basically filled with a lot of people doing pre-physical therapy, pre-med. And practically everybody I had in my classes wanted to do physical therapy. And I remember looking at it going… Because they’re all thinking, I’m want to work with athletes. I want to work with the Jaguars. But there’s so many other ways it could go. And you’d hear about some of the rough stuff that they might be doing. I mean, it wasn’t all the glamour job like, hey, somebody dislocated a finger. I’m actually out on the field.

It wasn’t always like that. So I get to hear about all the rougher stuff. Just somebody that’s really debilitated, helping out in their time in need. And at 22, I never felt I always wanted to help people. But I’d tell you what, I definitely was not psychologically or emotionally mature enough to handle somebody with majorly injury like that. So I told them no. And it’s funny. And then I think a few years later what happened was I kind of fell into it. It was like I picked out everything else. So true story. What happened was this, at a bachelor’s degree, I always wanted to be what was called a strengthening conditioning coach. So I did want to be that guy on the field. Actually, the one behind the field, the one that actually goes to the gym because you and I have seen each other at the gym before.

I like to hit the weights often as I can. And at the time I was lifting a lot of weights. It’s obviously a little bit better than I was now. And I want to be what’s called a strength and conditioning coach. You actually go out and you help athletes get bigger, faster, stronger. And so I did my internship, the University of Central Florida, and I remember finishing it. And when you try something out, sometimes, not always what you think it’s going to be. So I got there and I’m like, this isn’t quite connecting with me. So here’s how it’s flipped. I was actually, at the time when I was finishing up in school, I actually had to volunteer for a class where you actually had to go help out kids with disabilities in educational classrooms and everything. And I got so into that first class I ever took, you’re supposed to volunteer 30 hours.

I volunteered a hundred hours. And I actually got into it. So then every semester I’d come back and 10 hours a week, I’d go help out kids with disabilities. So I finished up my degree and literally the teacher that had that class was my internship coordinator. And she asked me that golden question, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do when you’re done? And I told her, I was like, I don’t know now. I don’t want to work with athletes I think anymore. And she goes, weren’t you the guy that helped out the kids in my class? I go, yeah. She goes, we got a research grant right now. If you help out kids 13 hours a week, we’ll pay for you to get a master’s. And we’ll give you a thousand dollars every two months.

And I was like, holy cow. And I was already getting a thousand dollars a month from the guy, Dr. Cade that invented Gatorade. So I definitely want to throw a product plug into him. And all the people have helped me along the way. He was the most generous guy, invented Gatorade. And he gave out all these scholarships I had. One from the research grant, one from Dr. Cade. And I went through and I helped out kids, had a blast. And then I went out and got my first teaching job. So I don’t know if you knew this about me, Tracy. I used to be an elementary school special ed teacher.

Tracy Davis:

I did not know that.

Josh Schuette:

So very short time. And I loved it though. I was adaptive physical education. So I’d actually go out in the field, help out kids and everything. Had a blast.

Well, what happened was I got my first public school teaching job and it was far away from where I was going to be. Also, I went, decided to go back and go to school to get a degree in special ed. And I did my finances one night and I literally realized I’d be broke because I could only get a halftime job and I was still going to school. So I literally did a Google search. So if you want to know how they came to PT, it was a Google search. I typed in how to make money working with kids with disabilities outside. One of the first thing that came up was physical therapy. So I applied to physical therapy school and I literally got accepted that night. Within an hour, sent out the email, somebody responded from a school, says, you’ve already been accepted because you already have a master’s.

We just need to determine if you need any pre-reqs. Wait till tomorrow. Next morning I got an email saying, if you start right away in the next two months, you don’t have to take any more pre-reqs. So the rest is history. I went to physical therapy school.

Tracy Davis:

Where?

Josh Schuette:

University of St. Augustine. So I actually, I was born in Canada but grew in up in St. Augustine. Didn’t even know the school was there till later on, but it worked out perfect. I stayed with mom and go to school. But again, I only thought I was going to do pediatrics. So what happened was I owed a lot of money getting out of PT school. And again, not a Google search this time, but just going out looking for jobs. I found the highest paying job I could find and happened to be in chronic pain, which entailed a lot of work comp. So I flipped from doing pediatrics to workers’ compensation, chronic pain right away.

Tracy Davis:

Is that how you got to Brooks?

Josh Schuette:

So I did three years at another place. And then what happened was I was in Orlando and my wife and I decided to start a family. So we wanted to be closer to family. So we decided to move to Jacksonville. And it was interesting was I put out my resume. I had three calls within three days from Brooks and I’m like, man, I guess they must want me. So it turned out Brooks had a chronic pain job opening for months and nobody wanted to fill it for some reason. So background worked out perfect. And the rest is history. That was like, I’ve been with Brooks almost 15 years now.

Tracy Davis:

I was going to say, when did you start?

Josh Schuette:

So yeah, it’s almost been in 15. So in July, so a few months down the road it’ll be 15 years. And it’s just evolved. I started off in one area and then just kind of building from there. That’s what I love about it here. Get to freestyle.

Tracy Davis:

So you started there and then now, so now you wanted to do ped stuff. I mean you probably haven’t done that in a long time now, right? Because now you’re literally working with workers comp patients who are adults.

Josh Schuette:

Yes. I mean the one advantage, I got to say mean one of the main reasons I love working for Brooks, there’s so many opportunities here. And Brooks affords me that. So I still work with adult patients because obviously with labor laws, I don’t see a whole lot of pediatric work competitions. But they afford me the freestyle to be able to help out and do other community programs. So our community programs, I get help out kids with disabilities now just in my volunteer time. So I love it. And Brooks has really helped me out with that. That’s how I was able to meet with Jaguars that one time. So it’s kind of a hobby of mine. I run with kids with disabilities and absolutely love it.

Tracy Davis:

Great. A lot of people do mention that because we have so much under our umbrella that there’s opportunities, even if it’s just volunteering or getting involved or whatever it may be that you get those chances. So that’s great. Yeah. That’s awesome. So 15 years. That’s insane. Actually this is my 15th year as well. It’s not consecutive. I was gone for two, but yeah.

Josh Schuette:

All right man. So we basically probably had the same orientation.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah. It’s insane. So tell me about workers’ comp for people that you know, probably hear that term all the time. People get injured on the job and you hear workers’ comp, people make a joke about it if they fall at work, oh is it workers’ comp? And they laugh. But what is workers’ comp for real when it comes to your job?

Josh Schuette:

So workers’ compensation just at the very basic is somebody gets injured, but it’s in the scope or course of employment. So they’re actually doing something on the job. And I don’t want to get too complicated about it, but obviously since COVID happened, the definition of being at work has obviously changed a lot over the last four or five years.

Tracy Davis:

I’ve thought about that. Yeah.

Josh Schuette:

There’s actually questions. Somebody, there was a court case recently over the last couple years where a lady literally went up to get a cup of coffee at home. She was at work and working from home, tripped over her dog and injured her knee and it lead to court. And initially I believe it was covered because they said in the course of scope of employment, you’re entitled to a coffee break.

And so she was working, she got a coffee break. But I believe it was, and don’t quote me on this, but I believe it was overturned in the appeals because the question came up though, would her dog be standing in front of her while getting… Yeah. So that’s when it got overturned. But the initial question, just the very basics, she was doing the course of scope of employment. So very basic, somebody gets hurt at work and then they’ve actually, there’s been talk of actually changing the term workers’ compensation without taking a major shift because compensation just a lot of people think money automatically, but the term they’re trying to use now is more workers’ recovery.

Tracy Davis:

So I mean that makes more sense for us.

Josh Schuette:

Exactly. And ultimately somebody gets hurt of work and we are trying to help them recover the best they can so they can return to basically where they were before. Or if somebody’s been injured very significantly, very seriously, they might not be able to go back to that original job. But can they go back to a modified job? We just want somebody to be as productive as possible, help them recover as much as they can. Which is really rewarding.

Tracy Davis:

I got a little bit more peek inside of what you do with the Josh Shutts story that we did. Who is, for those that don’t know, is now he’s an employee here. But he was a workers’ comp patient to you. He came to you. So let’s kind of maybe use him as an example. Starting with he got hurt at his other employer. Kind of what’s the process? So people kind of know, I know it’s all different for everyone, but what’s kind of a process?

Josh Schuette:

And for Josh in particular, it was a significant injury. We’re talking amputee, saw accident, lost fingers in that actual accident. And so initially it’s all hands on deck. We’re talking the medical turn, triage. I mean you got to just save somebody’s life at that point, but then goes through the surgery. The question is what’s next? How do you actually help him recover? And so again, it’s a workers’ recovery. So he had the surgeries and the next step is getting him therapy. And I’ll tell you what, you’re talking about amputation, things tighten up, being able to get the nerves to connect, all the recovery involved with that. And he worked very, very hard. So to go along with what I do, I still see patients, injured workers, but I do specifically work called functional capacity evaluations. And that’s usually the last step. A lot of times one of the last steps in the workers’ recovery process.

Tracy Davis:

So are you working with them before that test through therapy or are they getting therapy elsewhere and then they come to you to get to pass or fail that test?

Josh Schuette:

Oh, that’s a great question. So I’ll cover a lot with that answer because you talked about fast or fail. So I used to, I’ve been stretched pretty thin. So if you want, we can go into what I do now. So I had to really become more of a specialist. And the cool part about me specializing in functional capacity evaluations is it’s a long test. I mean, I’m with an injured worker four to six hours on average. Just one-on-one. But when I’m done, there’s not a lot of follow up. It’s not a typical physical therapy session. I mean, it’s been through it. It’s like you go and then a couple days later you go again. Well this is a one, it’s a test.

Tracy Davis:

It’s pretty comprehensive. Yeah.

Josh Schuette:

It’s like a final exam at the end of a semester.

Tracy Davis:

So are they trying to, they know that it’s coming. So they’re just trying to fight to get as much recovery as they can because they know they need to pass this test.

Josh Schuette:

Well, the one thing I’ve learned, and this is you always learn. I mean that’s the one thing I love about my job and just, you can always evolve. And I’m always learning things. The one thing I’ve learned, especially over the last few years is not everybody knows as an injured worker what the process is. And a lot of times when people come to me, they’re pretty nervous. I mean for me it’s something I do every day. But I started talking to people like Josh, other injured workers, and you find out they didn’t know what they were going to do next. I’ll have patients show up and I’m like, hey, do you know why you’re here? And they’re like, nah, nobody told me anything. So they didn’t even know that it is even what they’re doing when they show up.

And then the other question is always real important, do you know how long you’re going to be here for? And some people are like, what, 20 minutes? Dang. Somebody should have told you in case you got childcare issues. Everything else. So not everybody knows. So one of the things I’ve been doing lately is I try to spend as much time, I spend 20 minutes initially just educating everybody. Whoever meets me, I’m like, hey, this is the process. And I’ll tell you the most rewarding thing that’s happening over the last couple years is I’ve had some injured worker, some patients come up and say to me, they’re like, you’re the first person a long time that’s actually just explain things to me, listen to me and explain the process. And it put me at ease. And I found that pretty rewarding when it’s all said and done.

Tracy Davis:

Instead of just treating them as a number.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, exactly. Hey, you’re here to do this. And it’s something I do every day, but they haven’t, again, what do I do next? So I used to also treat, so I would see a patient try to be that person that’s seen three times a week and then I would do the test at the end. But now, because my schedule, somebody else is treating them and it could be at a different facility. Outside of Brooks.

Tracy Davis:

I was going to ask that. Yeah.

Josh Schuette:

No. So it just depends on wherever they were set up initially. And sometimes I might even see patients that are out of state. I literally saw somebody from Michigan recently. Sent in for the test. So definitely wasn’t seeing them up there because it was real special request.

Tracy Davis:

But they’re coming to you because even if they’re going to another company that’s not Brooks, they might not have a workers’ comp that can do the evaluation like you can.

Josh Schuette:

Correct. Yes. Yeah. It’s a very specialized service. Not everybody does it. And sometimes it is better to send somebody to an outside person like myself that hasn’t seen them before. Because I prefer that. I don’t want a conflict of interest. And that’s what I tell them too. I’m like, I don’t know a whole lot about you because I’m here to be an outside objective observer. So I don’t want to know because they’re like, you’re asking me a lot of questions you don’t know about me. I’m like, that’s purposeful on my part. I want to meet you for you not what somebody else told me about you. And I told them it’s a double-edged sword. If somebody says, this is a real nice lady that came in automatically going to start thinking she’s nice or watch out for this guy, he’s mean. He is this, which neither here nor there, it doesn’t affect me on the test. But I got to meet people for who they are. So I don’t want to be biased.

Tracy Davis:

So that makes total sense. So then they either pass or fail the test when they come to you.

Josh Schuette:

And this is a great question. So pass or fail. So overall the test, and I tell this is the honest truth here. The main purpose of the functional capacity evaluation is to see what a patients or injured workers maximum safe capabilities are on that day. So overall, I’m just trying to get an idea where somebody’s. It’s cool if they can actually meet the physical demands of their job. If you have to lift 50 pounds or you have to pick somebody up or whatever, can you do that? So if they can do that, we don’t need to go on. I mean, if they lift 50, you maybe can stop right there. For other people, the question of pass or fail, you’re basically just trying to get an idea where somebody’s at and then you’re trying to match them up with whatever they can go back to at that point.

Tracy Davis:

I was going to ask, are you having to factor that in as to what their job role is and how, let’s say maybe there’s someone that has to lift a hundred pounds. Are you having to factor that in as to whether they pass or fail?

Josh Schuette:

Yes. Even though I don’t want to know a whole lot about a patient or injured worker before I see them because I don’t want to be biased. The one thing I do want to know though is I want all those specifics ahead of time. Those are objective. It’s like what does this person have to return to? Because an office worker is going to be way different than… I mean, I’ll tell you what an interesting one. Think about going back to the Jaguars, that’s high stakes work comp right there. You’re trying to return somebody because somebody got injured at work, they got tackled.

I mean Mahomes for instance, that happened at work. But however we got millions involved with this and we got millions of people around the worldwide. It’s not like, you and me get hurt. A couple of your buddies here at the office are like, Tracy, come out here, Josh, come back today. All right. And maybe five people know about it.

Tracy Davis:

Franchise players.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, exactly. And you think about it, trying to return Mahomes is obviously different than returning the kicker if he got hurt there. So you’re always trying to find out the specifics. What are the mechanics? What does that person actually have to do?

Tracy Davis:

So let’s use Josh Shutts again. So whenever he came to do the evaluation with you, were you thinking about OT? Because that was kind of the direction he was already wanting.

Josh Schuette:

He’s really interesting. So for him, it wasn’t a specific job description for him to go back to because it was kind of out in the open at that point, up in the air as far as what was he going to go back to. In fact, that was actually how we really bonded, Josh and I. And this doesn’t always happen, but I just asked him, I said, have you made, what are you thinking about? What are you going to go back to? And that’s when he actually brought up to me, I’m thinking about going in OT. And that’s how we kind of bonded.

Tracy Davis:

He wasn’t trying to get back to his old job.

Josh Schuette:

He pretty much made the decision. I mean the main thing with the workers’ recovery is you’re trying to at least get them back to what they initially hurt themselves.

Tracy Davis:

Typically, that makes sense.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. I mean it’s not like you get injured with what we’re doing now and you’re like, you know what? I actually want to be Patrick Mahomes when I’m done, so I want to see if you can get him running fast. I mean, we’re not going to cover that.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah, so we are kind of using a little bit of a special case and not the rule.

Josh Schuette:

But I mean the truth is we were trying to get them back to that, but with that particular job, there wasn’t necessarily a job description for that particular job. So there are a couple ways of doing this to go back to your pass or fail question, there’s what’s called if we were to group function fast evaluations, just two different ways of doing it. One is a job specific, so could he return to that actual job? But there’s also one that they just call a baseline or general capabilities test. And that’s in absence of that job, can they just return to any job at which point we’re testing them overall.

And what’s interesting about Josh is he mentioned occupational therapy. I did know about occupational therapy and I think it may have came up in the video, but we had a conversation right away. I said, I just want you to know upfront occupational therapy, in order to get in a program, typically you got to lift at least 50 pounds. And that really hit him. I mean, when we were bonding and I just said, hold on. I said, wait till we get there. And I was so excited when I saw him, he was able to do between 60, 65 pounds. So he met it. And then…

Tracy Davis:

Anyone interested that it’s going to the Brooks YouTube page and you’ll see I put a lot of the footage that he had of him doing different things to strengthen his hand back up and forearm and everything so that he could do that.

Josh Schuette:

A special guy. Yeah. I mean not everything works out like that all the time, but again, why do we do what we do? I mean, I know our mission statement, everything. I mean, I know one of our slogans is helping you be you again. I mean, you ultimately want to help somebody. I mean, what do we feed off of here when it’s all said and done. To going home, I mean, I always tell people we’re not working with widgets, we’re not a commodity. We’re dealing with people. So to talk to him and to see what he wants to get back to, because I helped him out in the beginning to help him get set up with therapy a few times. So to see where he came from and what he did that day. I mean that’s why, I mean, I was just so fired up and to hear how he’s doing now and to walk on the floor and see him working with people.

Tracy Davis:

I saw him outside the other day.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. I gave a tour one day and I was like, hey. I was like that guy from the video, there he is. I was like, awesome.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah. So he is an exception to the rule, but it kind of gives me a better idea of how you’re moving someone through that process. And so obviously a lot of times people aren’t maybe going to be able to return depending on the level of the injury and whatnot. So I’m sure those are tough cases to deal with.

Josh Schuette:

It’s very tough. And I mean it’s beyond the physical. And that’s one of the things I feel like we’re really blessed with here at Brooks too, is we have psychologists, neuropsychologists. I mean, think about if what you do, I see how passionate you are to make videos. I mean when I was asking how’d you learn a lot of this stuff, you’re self-taught and to see your passion about it. Yeah. But I mean, again, not everybody would do that. It’s something, I mean, you’re passionate about it. I could tell. That’s why I love talking to you about it. And I mean, you can imagine if something happened to you where you couldn’t do that anymore. It’s beyond the physical if you just couldn’t do it for some reason. And then to actually be able to, we got to help you recover your soul, your passion, everything else, the psychological parts of it. So that’s what I love about here too, because it’s not only about that, it’s just trying to help the overall, it’s a full workers’ recovery overall.

Tracy Davis:

So we might have skipped over a little bit, but what made you start specializing in workers’ comp? Where was that transition from being PT and you came for chronic and stuff? How did you go right into workers’ comp?

Josh Schuette:

That’s a great question. And this one’s a little bit more straight as far as the getting point A to point B. I told you before I went from coaching to teaching and all this stuff.

Tracy Davis:

Twenties phase of your life.

Josh Schuette:

Exactly. Yeah, that’s a good point. It’s funny, they actually have me teach in a class at University of North Florida now, just kind of finding your way.

Tracy Davis:

It’s very hard.

Josh Schuette:

And I tell everybody, I actually appreciate taking on students that actually kind of rather than just that straight line trajectory, actually you learn a lot.

Tracy Davis:

For me, it was the worst part of my twenties. A hundred percent was figuring, even though I had a job, it’s just what do I want to do? It’s very difficult.

Josh Schuette:

Well, like I said, what’s cool is to see what you do now, man. And to be able to bring things, I know it’s asking me questions, but to see you brother and to see what you’re able to put on camera and on film to really be able to tell somebody else’s story. I mean, I got a buddy that directs movies now and writes for Hollywood. And I was telling him, he goes, what you do in the hospital? I go, either way, you’re helping people, you’re telling a story. And I said, you’re brightening somebody’s day. So you’re doing excellent with that.

Tracy Davis:

Well, I feel the weight of, I have the responsibility to do justice to the person’s story and to Brooks. And usually the story of Brooks is told through their story. So I usually try and focus on their story the most. But yeah, I feel like I’m very blessed with the job that I have here. Absolutely. So yeah, I appreciate that. But how did you specialize in workers’ comp?

Josh Schuette:

So that’s more of a straight line. What’s interesting is chronic pain actually lends itself a lot of times to workers’ compensation patients or injured workers. The big thing at the time, I know it’s still a big topic, but really 17 years ago when I was doing it was opiates, methadone. Pardon me, I know methadone is one of the…

Tracy Davis:

But still got to be a big a topic, right?

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. Fentanyl. Yeah. So helping injured workers wean off those particular drugs and everything. And what we’d see a lot of times, and I’ll tell you what, it was pretty, what really got me interested in is when I took that first job and I was in chronic pain, I didn’t know what to expect. I just, again, I’m thinking money here, initially. I got to pay debt and all of a sudden I get into it. We literally had, where I was working before I even came to Brooks, we had patients sent from all over the country. So New York, New Jersey get flown in each week and they were injured workers and you’re trying to get them off those opiates and help return them back to their home state. And all of a sudden I come to Brooks, chronic pain, again, injured workers from all over the country except even more states and helping them return to wherever they were going.

So it basically went hand in hand with workers’ compensation. What happened was I learned what to do by learning what not to do. There are some particular rules to workers’ compensation that are a little bit different than general insurance. You just have, once you know the rules, it’s a lot easier, but there’s more parties involved. I mean patient insurance company. But now all of a sudden you, and not to get too technical, but you have, they all have an assigned case manager typically that helps them along their journey. And they have an adjuster that approves decisions. And then there’s attorneys involved. And I just started, and the one thing I’ll tell you, they don’t teach workers compensation typically in PT school. So I learned the hard way and then people started asking me questions and I just kind of became the guru from that.

Tracy Davis:

So it just kind of morphed into that.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, it just kept evolving. Yeah. I mean there’s technically, I mean two ways of going about it. I could have just said, oh, this isn’t me and gotten out of it. But I actually, I like this story. I like to travel too. I’m sure you do too. And just…

Tracy Davis:

Sometimes.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, exactly. Being able to see people from all over the country coming in. I mean, treated a guy from Hawaii one time here at Brooks, flew in and we stay in touch now and he’s made a full recovery too. And he actually complete, actually delivered a presentation about him at work comp conference recently because of the amazing comeback he made. Treat a couple of people here from Alaska. One was a crab fisherman, another one was a lumberjack. But something I kind of gravitate, I think maybe. I think what it does is it involves everything, all my past experiences from when I was in my twenties not knowing what to do to do. So for instance, being a coach, I’m technically a coach. Helping somebody get back. I mean that lumberjack. Same way you’re trying to help Mahomes get back to a physically demanding job. I’m trying to help somebody get back to being a lumberjack.

Tracy Davis:

That’s their NFL. Yeah.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. And it’s cool kind of seeing you, how passionate you are about making the movies, seeing how passionate somebody is about their own individual crafts. And I mean you see that lumberjack that’s like, this is all I’ve done since I was a kid and they’re so into it.

Tracy Davis:

That’s all I know.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. How do I get back to that? My dad did it, my grandfather did it. I was an oil rig worker. And seeing how passionate, that’s something I identify with. I may have known nothing about oil rig before, but now all of a sudden I’m learning from them and seeing their passion. So I always got into the story and find out what makes people tick. And that’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed. So workers’ compensation, it spoke to me. I learned the rules, learned how to help people out and just evolved from there.

Tracy Davis:

What are some, and I know workers’ comp has been very successful here at Brooks and whatnot, and you can talk some of that about that if you want. But what are some of the connections that we’ve made that where some companies kind of partnered with us, they trust us with their, anytime one of their workers gets hurt, any of those kind of things that have just evolved over the years.

Josh Schuette:

So initially the referral can come from a couple or a injured worker referral can come from a couple different sources. It can come from the insurance company themselves. Or what it can also come from is a self-insured, like a major employer, might say, hey, we like Brooks, we can send them over. We’ve really evolved. And one of the cool things about working here, like I said, not only just the awesome programs we got, it’s ultimately about the people. And seeing how Brooks took a chance on me just saying, hey Josh, how can you evolve with this program here? Workers’ compensation, it’s been awesome. They let me kind of experiment myself there and see how we can grow it. Sure. Make it ours.

But then seeing some of our, I mean people who I know you’ve interviewed in the past, MacGyver in the NeuroRecovery Center. And that guy is phenomenal with his craft. I mean him being like an expert neuro therapist, but also knowing about the technology, him and Michael Ron. And what’s cool is insurance companies have recognized how we’ve become a leader nationwide and even across the world. I mean for instance, our CYBERDYNE program, our robotics system. And I don’t know if you’ve talked about that before.

Tracy Davis:

We have in the past.

Josh Schuette:

And I apologize for that, Tracy, I just haven’t listened to every single one of your…

Tracy Davis:

I need you to listen to every single episode.

Josh Schuette:

I got homework. In between patients I’m going to be on or I’ll make the patients listen to it too. I’ll get into it. But again, so some of the insurance companies take notice that. And what I’m going to tell you is you’re asking about a particular company. One is Paradigm. Paradigm Outcomes. They are a great company. And what they did is we worked with them and we created, and it’s in the news here, some of our email blasts what’s called a value-based contract. And what’s so cool about value-based contracting is it’s something new to the workers’ comp industry. We’ve done it with Medicare before, but it’s focusing particular on an outcome for particular patient as opposed to… I mean you think about it, I always bring this example because I was teaching in the university recently and I was explaining about outcome and they’re like, we always work towards outcomes.

I’m like, but we’re not always paid for outcomes. I go, no, we’re paid for. I go think about this. I said, somebody gets a shoulder surgery and they got 12 visits of physical therapy and let’s just say you don’t get them better or you made them worse actually, I don’t know, you did some wrong technique. I don’t know, something bad happened. So are you really incentivized by the outcome or you actually incentivized? Because if you did worse, you actually get more physical therapy sessions. So you actually get to see them longer. So you actually, but what if somebody said, I want you to get them back to throwing a pitch again. I want to get Mahomes back to running that ball next week at a certain amount of time. But we’re only going to pay you for that outcome. You’re going to do all you can to focus on that and everybody wins. And that’s what’s so cool about this.

So Paradigm is we teamed up on that to focus on outcomes. And we had a patient go through it recently and the outcome was returning to walking. And what’s so cool is think about that as opposed to saying, well just take months and months. No, the faster you get this guy to return to walking, the faster you get that patient return to walking, everybody wins.

Tracy Davis:

That’s incentivized.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, I mean it’s awesome. So your question about who have we partnered? That’s one of the ones that we have partnered with that’s a value-based contracting.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah. Wow, that’s awesome. I mean overall when it comes to workers comp here at Brooks, you are the person that all workers comp comes to as far as, does it filter through you first or how does that work?

Josh Schuette:

So what happens is, I mean we’ve got patients all across the system.

Tracy Davis:

I know if they come in inpatient and stuff like that too.

Josh Schuette:

So one of my main jobs here is national accounts. So when the insurance company initially they have an injured worker wherever they are across the country, they might reach out to me initially, okay, hey Josh, I got this injured worker. In fact, I was doing a medical record review right before I came over here. Here’s the injured worker. And I say, can you send me the medical records? And then what I do is I get them to the team. It’s always about a team here. It might come initially, I’ll get the initial contact. But then we get a whole team. We got the nurse liaisons or clinical liaison team will review it, our doctors, Dr. Maher will review it. Then we might send it to our individual specialist. If it’s a brain injury, Dr No gets involved. Major multiple trauma, Dr. Watson.

Tracy Davis:

So a large part of your job is also being connected, not just staying connected here at Brooks who’s doing what. Now we got a new person that’s now responsible for this program, whatever. But also how did that insurance person know to call you?

Josh Schuette:

Yes. So meeting those initial contacts and actually saying exactly what we do. And I’ve developed a lot of great relationships with that. And one thing I tell you is I love what I do is I’m still invested. I’m still here because I might be that person that’d be the last person to see that injured worker and finishing up. And the one thing I always, it’s funny, sometimes people go, man, you’re kind of brutally honest. You’re asking me all these questions because I’ll tell them, I’m like, well, even when I met an injured workers’ family one time over at Helen’s house and they said, hey can you, literally wanted me to sell them on Brooks, they’ve been to some other rehab facilities. And I said, well, I go over there and I started asking the lady questions. It was a sister of an injured worker and she was deciding if her brother should stay at Brooks.

And I go, hey, can I ask you some questions first? What are you expecting out of us? What do you expect your brother to return to? And she kind of stops me, motivate through and she goes, what are you doing? And I go, what? and she goes, well I’ve been to a couple other places and they’re making promises right away. And she goes, you’re not, you’re asking me. It’s almost like you’re trying to not sell me on this place. I go, well here’s the deal. I got to follow your brother around when the time he gets here until the time he leaves. And if you’re expecting one thing and I need to know exactly what you’re expecting here and I also want you because I can’t overpromise, under deliver on something, because I’m going to hear from you at the end or all the way through. So I want you to know what your expectations are. I want to know up front if we can even meet those to begin with.

Tracy Davis:

That way you’re not promising them the world and then they can’t deliver and then now they’re unhappy.

Josh Schuette:

Exactly. Because I mean it’s like anything, I mean you go to a restaurant like, oh I promise you this, you get in the food’s terrible. You’re not just going to go home dissatisfied. You’re going to tell 20 other people.

Tracy Davis:

Same with me working on a video job. What’s the expectation before you even shoot anything? Yeah. What are your expectations?

Josh Schuette:

Exactly. So initially, it might come through me but I’ve got an, definitely, the more connections I have, the better because it benefits that patient, that injured worker. So not only before they come in to know where we can get on the best possible care, but then also the teams that we have here at Brooks. I mean think that’s probably my favorite part of this job is, I didn’t expect this at the beginning, but that’s something I’ve really gravitated towards is I get to work with everybody here. I mean workers’ comp covers other than maybe a pediatric department covers pretty much all of our facilities. So I get to work with everybody. So sometimes people are like, how do you know that person? I’ve been here 30 years. I didn’t know that person. I’m like, oh, I had to work with them on so-and-so the other day.

And then we shared that great success story with so-and-so. So I got to work with all of our 48 outpatient clinics. Every facility I get to work with somebody. So it’s pretty cool. But then also when you’re talking about connections, I got to have connections for when people leave Brooks. So I met a gentleman here the other day that worked for another company. He works specifically for wheelchairs. So connecting the insurance company Brooks with that wheelchair provider. So again, you’re trying to get everybody set up, make those connections. So when somebody goes home, I mean if they’re coming here from another state, what if somebody lives in a three-story home or a third story apartment doesn’t have an elevator before they came here and they’re renting, these are the things we got to deal with here. We really got to prep. So they might be rocking here, but what are they going back to? And I mean for me it’s never a success story until it’s all done.

Tracy Davis:

That makes sense. And I know you go to a lot of conferences as well. What is the main priority I guess whenever you’re going to those conferences? Is it making connections? Is it getting the Brooks name out there and what we do? Are you going to, outside of Brooks type, are you going to insurance conferences to talk about us? Or how does that work?

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, great question there. Yeah. And I mean a lot of this is just learned on my own for because just to be honest with you, the actual more of the sales role probably came in about six, seven years ago. And I tell everybody I’d be, I’m the first guy to tell you I’m not the brightest guy out there. I’m pretty simple. Just like, and I’ll probably tell you this, I’m not the most creative guy out there either because I mean I see some people, I’m just amazed by that, just naturally creative. But for me I’m just pretty simple when it comes to problem solving. I tell people, it’s like I do research on what people have done before. It’s like, is there a work comp expert out there? Let’s talk to them, find out what conferences they go to get to their business.

And I’ll find out too just people that have similar business models to us because it’s amazing. Somebody that’s totally different and they’re like, you should go to this conference and show up. You’re like, oh, what was that? I haven’t met anybody. Oh, well that’s because they do this. They don’t do what we do. So specifically it is a lot of specific workers’ compensation conferences. And I’ll tell you what I’ve liked about some of them recently is I’ve noticed they’ve really even kind of done a little paradigm shift where initially it was kind of the nuts and bolts of it, but now they’re really focusing on what’s the reason we’re all here, which is the injured worker. And those are the conference I really gravitate towards now because I know I’m going to meet people that also speak my language when I’m there. As opposed to the thing I mentioned earlier is the thing I hate is when I talk to somebody and I feel they could be talking about a commodity again, they could be talking about flour, sugar, water.

And we’re supposed to be talking about a person here. So if I’m talking to that person, I know it’s talking about an individual like their commodity, we’re probably not going to be able to work too well together in the future. You want somebody that shares similar core values. So when I go to those conferences, I’m trying to meet people that also are sharing in that experience. Because the reason I bring up that person’s not a commodity is people also go sideways too. And what I mean by that, it’s never a straight line trajectory. I mean we wish Patrick Mahomes, again, go back to that example. He injures his ankle and he’s back in the game this week. But you never know what’s going on with somebody. What happens if he goes home and lo and behold he has a friend or family member something, they get ill and he’s focused on that and he’s dealing with that emotion.

I mean there’s all these different things that could come about. So you realize, especially when somebody suffered a catastrophic injury, it’s not just about them, it’s about their families. It’s about their livelihood. I mean, think about it. Somebody that’s injured and they’ve got little kids and now they can’t provide for them anymore. And how now all of a sudden that’s stressing them out more. So it’s not just the physical, it’s the mental. So I try to find those conferences, people that understand that, that we’re really trying to work together here. It’s a team effort, patients part of the team. We’re the team, whoever we’re working with, outside providers are part of the team. We all work together for that common goal of getting that person back.

Tracy Davis:

And working together with not just your values, but it’s the values of Brooks. Everything. I feel like everybody at Brooks is that way. Where everything is first with the patient. So it wouldn’t make sense if we’re trying to partner with other companies on whenever their money is their ultimate goal. Okay. Well I mean that’s awesome because I know that you go to a lot of different conferences, I had never talked to you about that before.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. I’ve been fortunate they’ve asked me to talk at a few more. It’s funny, the thing I love now about going to conference is doing intros, it just kind of happened spur the moment one time. Somebody was getting ready to speak and I think it was Member Brooks and they’re like, oh well we had this person getting ready to introduce him, but they stepped out, Josh, can you? And I didn’t think they knew my name. Hey, you work with him. And I go, oh. And I just look at him, I go, can I do whatever I want? Can I freestyle?

And they kind of look at me and I just went out. I had a blast with it. I always think about that movie Knights Tale with the late great Heath Ledger back in the day and Jeffrey Chalser’s doing that intro on somebody. And I gave one of those Jeffrey Chalser intros. I know if you miss the movie reference, but instead of just talking about reading the script, because I always think about it, somebody read your bio, nobody’s going to remember any of that stuff. Two minutes from now, two seconds from now.

Tracy Davis:

They’ll remember the entertainment.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. And I always get up there and I’m like, I just basically just kind of freestyle about who they are, some mythical beast. And we get on the whole thing and he once saved this many people from this. And people just kind of get into it and then I’m like, and here’s so and so. And they ask me, they go, you come back and do a few of these. So I love the entertainment. I love to present and I’ve had the office, so I go to conference, I present sometimes on different topics. I got asked to do another conference the other day. So I love that.

Tracy Davis:

I mean a lot of conferences, sure people listening have been to a conference or they can get pretty stuffy. So some levity is always a good thing. I don’t see why anyone would not like that. So tell me, we’ve kind of already been talking about it a good bit here, but what’s unique about workers’ comp here at Brooks? Why, if anyone’s listening, they might need us for workers’ comp care, something like that. What makes us unique?

Josh Schuette:

Great question. It always comes back to the why with anything. I always bring that up to people. It’s like, why would you send your family or why would you come from across the country to go to Brooks? What makes this unique? First of all, I’ll tell you this. One young lady I used to work with here had a great line. She goes, it’s a restaurant. And I go, what do you mean? She goes, think about Brooks like a great restaurant. That analogy I go to tell her, get a little bit more specific here. Now I’m hungry. But then she goes, if it’s a great restaurant and you work at it, your family would eat there. You would eat there. If it’s not a great restaurant, you work there, you get your tips and you go home but you never touch that food. She goes, we actually eat here.

She goes. And I got it then because I think about that. Would I send my family here? Yes. I have sent my family here before. My friends, anytime a friend knows me, even if they work in another rehab company, just to be honest, this happened recently. They go, Josh, I worked for this company. However, I got a family member that’s got something really bad. I’ve heard Brooks is the best. Can you help me out? Get them in here. So the one thing that makes, I know this is kind of cliche, but it’s the absolute truth. The one thing that makes all the difference is the people you have.

Again, as I mentioned before, you have people dedicated to their craft working here, Brooks advances people that have aptitude and have passion for what they do. They saw I had an aptitude for work comp. They let me take it and run with it and get people underneath to get them passionate about it. You got people here that are just nothing but neuro specialist. Spinal cord injury specialist. Amputee specialist and you’re talking about Steve and Dr. Wise in the amputee clinic. They’re passionate about what they do. Number one, it’s the people.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Josh Schuette:

That’s why…

Tracy Davis:

Where else could you go? Especially here for that it would have all that under one umbrella.

Josh Schuette:

It’s true because it’s interesting. Sometimes they’ve had me speak to people and they go, hey, can you talk to this injured worker? He’s debating on going to another rehab facility and I’ll actually ask him, I’m like, do you know how many amputee patients they’ve treated here over the last two years? And I’ll find out the stats and I’m like, they’ve treated one in the last two years. We treated 15 over the last few days. I’m like, where would you rather go to? The place that does it all the time? So one is the experience, but in terms of the work comp program, again, we got a lot of unique programs. We got things here. I’m not being cliche when I say we’re the only ones in the country to have it. Our robotic system, we are, I mean that value-based contract I was telling you about with Paradigm to focus on getting patients walking again.

That’s specific to right here. We have a dedicated work comp team actually here in inpatient and actually helps me, we work together as a team to help injured workers throughout our facilities. So it’s a dedicated case management team. Nick and Megan, they work and they help injured workers out and they greet them from day one when they get in and they actually help out that patient family as they go through the system. So we have a dedicated team. We got the people, we got the technology. And when you put it all together, you got the sauce there, you got what you want.

Tracy Davis:

Yeah. I mean everything’s, like we said, everything’s under one roof. So tell me a little bit about just the fun that you like to bring to the job and stuff like that. Where did that kind of come from? Where did that start? Wearing the headband. Yeah.

Josh Schuette:

I had to get a picture of this lady. You put it on the advertising. So it’s interesting is it’s kind of that levity you mentioned there.

Tracy Davis:

Things get stuffy.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. I mean you talk to people and everything and the headband thing was actually kind of unique. It was… And Dr. Chu from Paradigm would get a kick out of this. This was actually him that I started wearing headbands at one time when COVID was happening because he had that mask stuff. He had the safety goggles on. They were just sweating like crazy and nobody even seemed the care at that point. They were just kind of happy. Hey, you’re here, you’re doing your job.

Tracy Davis:

Everyone’s just making it.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah. So I remember I was sweating like crazy and I just put on a headband one time. Well, I had a Spartan headband on from doing the Spartan races. And anyways, I came running back for a Zoom meeting and I had it with Dr. Chu of Paradigm and I forgot I had the headband on. So all of a sudden I get on there and I start talking and he goes, Josh, is that a Spartan headband? And what’s funny is, and I go, oh man, sorry, I forgot it. No, no, keep it on. I like it. And everybody’s doing these Zoom meetings and next thing you know, I started putting in nicknames. So I’m like Superman or Maverick. And I just started going with that and everybody, and what’s funny is I started wearing the headband so much, and I have a different one.

I have a Deadpool, I got a Superman, all these other ones, I started showing up so much and the patients loved it. It’s funny. Again, I still love the kids. So I see some of the pediatric patients, they’ll see me and I came in, I let them pick out my headband for the morning. I walk over and I’m like, which one do you want? Do you want Thor? Do you want Superman?

Tracy Davis:

That’s awesome.

Josh Schuette:

And pick it out. And I put it on, and now I actually show up to the meetings. And if I’m ever trying to get really dressed up and be stuffy and I get a tie on, they’ll literally actually stop me and go, where’s the headband? In fact, Doug, our CEO, he actually, I remember one time we showed up to a meeting and I was all professional.

I had the tie on and everything. I was ready to deliver. And they walk up in front of our CEO and they look at me and they go, Josh, good to see you, but where’s the headband? He started cracking up right away. So levity comes from, I’ll tell you, the only time from what you know of me, I’m a pretty happy guy. The one time I’ll tell you that I’m not happy is when I’m not living up to who I am. And I think we hustle, we give our all every day, and I tell everybody, I’m going to give you everything I got from the time I’m here, till the time you leave. I tell patients that I’m sincere, but in order to do that, I got to be myself. I’m never disrespectful, but this is me. It’s like wearing the headband, making somebody smile. That’s what it’s all about. I’m going to do a couple kids race over the next few weeks for charity and they get a kick out of it. It’s like that’s, it’s me.

Tracy Davis:

Well, and it shows that you’re… People that are not passionate about their job, they’re just clocking in and clocking out. They don’t do that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? So obviously it just shows how passionate you are about what you do, changing people’s lives. I mean, that’s what we do here. Right.

Josh Schuette:

Exactly.

Tracy Davis:

So anything else that you want people to know about workers’ comp? About Brooks? We kind of went over everything I think. If there’s anyone out there right now trying to figure out where to send a workers’ comp patient, I mean, I don’t know why they wouldn’t choose us now after this conversation.

Josh Schuette:

No, most definitely. I think the last thing is I’m pretty accessible, and I’m not lying about this. We have what we call all day hustle here at Brooks and we’re always there to respond. If you check out the Brooks website, you go to workers’ comp, you’re actually going to see my direct contact on there. If you’ll call me on my cell phone, you got my email, reach out to me if you have any questions. And I’m like I said, I’m pretty upfront and honest with people. I’d rather tell you we’re not the right place and give a suggestion of where you should go for your particular injury than again getting here. And I totally promised you something I can’t deliver on. So we’re here for you. Very passionate, love working here, and I’m very fortunate I have guys like you here, Tracy. I mean, again, just you dedicated to your craft and I appreciate you. Appreciate the team. Appreciate everybody.

Tracy Davis:

Thank you. Well, I appreciate you coming on.

Josh Schuette:

Yeah, thanks so much, man. Stay legendary, brother.