On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast, I welcome Dr. Theresa Marko, PT, DPT, OCS, to talk about advocacy efforts in physical therapy. DR. Marko is a Board-Certified Orthopaedic physical therapist & Certified Early Intervention Specialist with over 20 years of experience. She is the owner of Marko Physical Therapy, a private practice in New York City, specializing in orthopedics, adolescents, and pediatrics. In this episode, we discuss: -Her path to advocacy -Federal Bills that are important RIGHT NOW: 9% Cut, Telehealth permanence, Student loan Debt -State vs. Federal Advocacy  -Traditional Advocacy vs Armchair Advocacy -Key Contact: APTA & PPS -Social Media importance: AMPLIFY, Access, Recognizable, Find others Resources: Dr. Marko on Twitter Dr. Marko on Instagram Dr. Marko on Facebook Dr. Marko on LinkedIn Advocacy is not a Spectator Sport A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode! Learn more about the Redoc Patient Portal here.  More about Dr. Theresa Marko:  Dr. Theresa Marko, PT, DPT, MS is a Board-Certified Orthopaedic physical therapist & Certified Early Intervention Specialist with over 20 years of experience. She is the owner of Marko Physical Therapy, a private practice in New York City, specializing in orthopedics, adolescents, and pediatrics. She has helped thousands of people to overcome injuries, optimize their movement, and return them to work and sports pain free and better than ever. When she is not caring for patients, Dr. Marko can be found in legislative offices in Washington, D.C. or Albany, New York. She is passionate about making a change in healthcare and has made advocacy a cornerstone of her practice. For over five years, and hundreds of hours, she has lobbied on behalf of her patients and her profession on topics such as repealing the Medicare cap, reducing student loan debt burden, and lowering copays. She forms public policy priorities as part of the American Physical Therapy Association’s Public Policy & Advocacy Committee, the advisory council for the board of directors of the association. In 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Doreen Frank Legislative Award, given to only one person a year, by the New York Physical Therapy Association for her outstanding advocacy work. Dr. Marko’s expertise is featured in The Wall Street Journal, PopSugar Fitness, Self, Cosmopolitan, Muscle and Fitness, Business Insider, LiveStrong, and Healthline. She has spoken at Columbia University, Duke University, & Touro College about patient and physical therapy advocacy. She was recently appointed to the editorial board of SpineUniverse as the first and only physical therapist on the board.  She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband of 13 years and her French Bulldog, Rondo.   Read the Full Transcript below: Speaker 1 (00:07): Welcome to the healthy, wealthy, and smart podcast. Each week we interview the best and brightest in physical therapy, wellness, and entrepreneurship. We give you cutting edge information. You need to live your best life. Healthy, wealthy, and smart. The information in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be used as personalized medical advice. And now here's your host, dr. Karen Litzy podcast. I'm your host today's episode Speaker 2 (00:40): Is brought to you by net health. So net health has created the reduct patient portal, which provides a secure line of communication between you and your patients. You can use it for video conferencing for tele-health for secure messaging, to respond to non urgent questions from patients. You can share documents and photos, and your patients have 24 seven secure on demand access to their therapy, health information without phone calls and voice messages. If you want to learn more about the Redarc patient portal, contact them at redox that's R E D O c@nethealth.com. Now on to today's episode, we're going to be talking all about advocacy for the profession of physical therapy. And I couldn't thi