Guides

Operator-grade, from day one.

How to get set up, how to read what PT—DASH tells you, and the operating ideas behind the numbers.

Written by operators, for the person making the calls. Same bar as the platform.

NRPV vs benchmarkIllustrative
$114.20your blended
Your blended NRPV
$114.20
Benchmark panel
$108.40

Every figure is tied to a real benchmark — and when there isn’t a credible one, Dash tells you instead of guessing.

Getting started

Your first twenty minutes.

You do not need your data perfect to begin. Enter what you have; PT—DASH flags what is missing instead of guessing.

~20 min to set up the first time ~10 min each Monday Once a month to close the books
01

Set your Clinic Profile.

The one source of truth every module reads from. Enter your clinic basics once, specialty, size, the shape of your practice, and you never re-key them. Business inputs only. No patient health information ever reaches the platform.

02

Enter the core numbers you already know.

Visits, payer mix, your rates, and your costs, the figures that already live in your P&L and your EMR reports. Leave a field blank if you do not have it yet. Dash tells you what is missing rather than inventing it.

03

Read your KPI Dashboard.

Nine core numbers, each shown against an outside benchmark and against your own target. On-color means you are clear. Off-color means look closer, and the module tells you where.

04

Start each week on the home screen.

This Week surfaces what needs a decision, capacity risk, a KPI out of band, an off-track goal, an open commitment, each with a first step attached. This Month closes the books; the trend tabs hold the longer arc.

05

Ask Dash.

Type the question the way you would ask a partner. Dash answers in operator vocabulary, cites the source behind every figure, and stands behind the numbers that are grounded. When one cannot be sourced, he says so.

Your inputs

Where your numbers come from.

Most of this already lives in your P&L and your EMR reports. Here is where each one comes from, and how to work it out if you do not track it yet.

Monthly visits

Your EMR's visit or encounter report. Count completed visits, not scheduled ones.

Payer mix

Your EMR's payer or financial-class report: the share of visits each payer covers.

Net revenue per visit

Net collections divided by visits, both from your P&L for the same period. Not your charge rate, what you actually kept.

Rate per payer

Your remittance or EOB detail, or the fee schedule: the allowed amount per visit for each payer.

Direct cost per visit

Provider and treatment-space cost divided by visits, from the wage and occupancy lines on your P&L.

Denial and clean-claim rate

Your clearinghouse or billing report: the share of claims denied, and the share paid on first submission.

Days in A/R

Accounts receivable divided by average daily charges, straight from your billing system.

Labor and EBITDA percent

Off your P&L: total labor as a share of revenue, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Do not have one yet? Leave it. Dash flags what is missing rather than guessing, and the number sharpens the moment you add it.

Dash · ask anythingIllustrative
What is dragging my margin right now? Am I overstaffed for my volume? Which payer is underpaying me? How many visits to hit my target? Where am I leaving money in billing? Which patients are at risk of dropping off? Is my top provider's pay in line with market? What would my practice sell for today?
Working with Dash

Ask him like a partner who can see your numbers.

Plain questions, operator answers. Dash reads your live inputs, cites the source behind every figure, and stands behind the ones that are grounded. When a number cannot be sourced, he says so instead of inventing it.

Guides

The ideas behind the numbers.

The decisions every rehab operator makes, and the module that does the work for each one.

Read

The nine numbers that tell the truth.

Revenue and cash are outcomes. The numbers that move them sit upstream: net revenue and units per visit, cancel + no-show, core direct units, denials and first-pass rate, AR days, EBITDA margin, and length of stay. Read against a benchmark, they show which lever is loose first.

KPI Dashboard
Money

Net revenue per visit is where the leak hides.

Same visit count, tens of thousands apart, almost always payer mix and the rate behind each payer. A single underpaying contract drags your blended rate without ever showing on the surface.

Revenue Analyzer, Payer Contract Guide, Outcomes, Value-Based Care
Cash

Getting paid what you already earned.

Revenue booked and revenue collected are different numbers. Clean claims, denials, days in A/R, and net collection are where earned money sits on the table. The work is finding whether it is a front-desk, claims, or follow-up gap.

AR Recovery, Billing Reference, Eligibility & Benefits, Cash Flow Forecast
People

Paying your team without eroding margin.

The loaded cost of a provider is more than salary. Benchmarked against workforce data, you see where a package drifts under or over market before it becomes a retention or margin problem, and the hard conversation gets framed before you walk in.

Compensation Strategy, Personnel Alignment, Credentialing, Staff Ramp
Capacity

The visits you can already serve.

Before you hire or add space, know the throughput your team can carry. Capacity is a minutes problem, and most clinics leave utilization on the table in unfilled slots and patients who cooled mid-plan. Recovering that is cheaper than growing the roster.

Staffing Model, Scheduling Optimizer, Front Desk Funnel
Worth

What your practice is worth, and how to build it.

Value is normalized earnings times a multiple, and the gap between the headline and what you take home runs through add-backs and deal structure. Working back from a target tells you which lever to pull first, and how hard.

Exit Prep Toolkit, Growth Forecast, Goal Planner
What Dash surfaces

Not a chart to read. A call to make.

Every module ends in something you can act on: which contract drags your blend, which conversation needs which touch.

Money

See exactly which payer is dragging your blend.

Each contract ranked by how far it sits above or below your blended net revenue per visit, from your own rates and volume, never a made-up average. The rate you can move gets a conversation; the one set by statute gets worked from the clinic side.

Per-payer drag vs your blendedIllustrative
BCBS Commercial+$18.20
Workers Comp+$34.40
Aetna−$1.60
Cigna−$5.20
Severity classifierIllustrative
Low · Coaching opportunity
A nudge in the next 1:1.
Medium · Structured conversation
Driver: workload change after two new payer contracts.
High · Performance plan indicated
Behavior and clinical-quality concerns.
People

Know what a conversation actually needs before you have it.

The hard 1:1 goes better when it is sized before you walk in. Dash surfaces the driver, grades the severity, and drafts the opening, with the patient and staff detail kept out of the advisor by design.

Reference

The terms, defined.

Plain-language definitions for the numbers the guides lean on.

Open the glossary+
Net revenue per visit (NRPV)
What you actually collect per completed visit, after contractual adjustments and denials. The honest read on your pricing.
Payer mix
The share of your visits covered by each payer. It sets your blended rate more than any single contract does.
Net collection rate
Of what you were allowed to collect, the share you actually did. The mid-nineties is the mark; below it is money left on the table.
First-pass clean claim rate
The share of claims paid on first submission with no rework. A high rate means an efficient front desk and billing.
Denial rate
The share of claims denied on first submission. Every denial is rework, delay, and sometimes revenue you never recover.
Days in A/R
The average number of days a dollar you billed sits unpaid. Lower is better; rising A/R is cash stuck in the pipe.
EBITDA
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The profit number a buyer values a practice on.
Add-backs (normalization)
Owner-specific or one-time expenses added back to earnings to show a buyer the real run-rate profit of the business.
Multiple
The number normalized earnings are multiplied by to estimate what the practice is worth.
Loaded cost
A provider's true cost: salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, and the productive hours actually behind the number.
Utilization
How much of your available treatment capacity you actually fill. Recovering unused capacity is cheaper than adding more.
PTA leverage
Using physical therapist assistants for the visits that suit them, expanding the capacity behind each PT.
How it works

Questions that come up.

Do I need my data perfect before I start?+

No. Enter what you have and PT—DASH works with it. Where a figure is missing, Dash flags it rather than filling the gap with a number it cannot stand behind. You can sharpen your inputs over time; the platform gets more precise as you do.

What do I actually type in, and is any of it patient data?+

Business figures only: visits, payer mix, rates, costs, staffing, the numbers you already pull for your own management. No patient health information ever reaches the platform. Dash advises on the business decision, and PHI cannot get to it, enforced in code, not just in policy.

How is this different from my EMR?+

Your EMR records what happens in your clinic. PT—DASH is operating intelligence, a decision framework for the person making the calls. It does not replace your EMR; it makes sense of what your EMR produces and tells you what to do about it.

How does Dash know things, and can I trust the numbers?+

Dash reads your live inputs and benchmarks them against reputable public sources, CMS Medicare 2026 rates and BLS workforce data, plus operating data from a scaled and exited practice. Every figure is sourced, he stands behind the ones that are grounded, and where a number cannot be sourced he tells you so.

Where should I start each week?+

The home screen. This Week surfaces the decisions that need you, each with a first step attached. This Month is for closing the books. The trend tabs hold the longer arc across quarter and year. It is built to be the Monday-morning read.

Can my team see this?+

Yes. Every teammate gets their own login and dashboard access at no extra cost. If you run more than one location, owners and executives also get a single company-wide rollup across all of them — the whole picture in one place. No separate enterprise tier, no upsell.

Operator or Growth, which do I need?+

Operator is the complete toolkit to run a clinic day to day. Growth adds the depth for operators who are growing, hiring, or preparing to sell. Both are billed per clinic, so every clinic you run pays at the same rate. Full breakdown on the pricing page.

Get started

Start with full access.
Convert when you're ready.

See what operator-grade intelligence feels like. Get started with better decisions today.

14-day trial, then $349/clinic per month. Cancel anytime.