Episode 75: Andrew Provost and Meaghan Harwood Provost (PT In Cadence)

Meet Andrew Provost and Meaghan Harwood Provost! They're the co-founders of PT In Cadence, a physical therapy practice here in Watertown. In this conversation we talk about their paths to physical therapy (Andrew through a sports injury and Meaghan in a shift away from neuroscience and research), their strong patient-centric view of designing care and helping people navigate the challenges of a fragmented healthcare system, one of their key focuses being pelvic health care and why its often overlooked, and what it's like building a physical therapy practice and building a community within Watertown.

Find out more about Andrew and Meaghan at ptincadence.com

Transcript

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Matt 0:07

Hi there. Welcome to the Little Local Conversations Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. For this episode, I sat down with a couple folks, Andrew Provost and Meagan Harwood Provost, who are co-founders of a physical therapy practice here in Watertown called PT in Cadence. I'll let them introduce themselves, then we'll get into the conversation.

Andrew 0:32

My name is Andrew Provost. I'm a physical therapist here in Watertown, Massachusetts. I've been practicing for 16 years, primarily in outpatient orthopedics. My wife Megan and I started our own practice in September of 2024 called PT in Cadence. We live in Watertown and work in Watertown, and we're happy to be part of the community here.

Meaghan 0:51

And I am Megan Harwood Provost. I am also a physical therapist and co-founded and now currently work with my husband at PT in Cadence here in Watertown.

Matt 1:00

Great. Actually, before I go back, I usually go back in time first, but now I'm just curious, why PT in Cadence? What's with the name?

Meaghan 1:07

I get asked that a lot. 

Matt 1:08

Yeah. It's an important thing when you have a, when you name a company. 

Andrew 1:11

So the lousy answer to that is partly because we wanted a domain name that we could own and have. 

Matt 1:17

That's an important thing. Yeah. 

Andrew 1:20

But there is the cadence of life, the cadence of music, the cadence of how you march, the definition of the word of how can we bring physical therapy into other people's lives and create that cadence for them. And healthcare can be a little bit of a fragmented industry and we're trying to provide a little bit more clarity for people within our space.

Meaghan 1:38

With that rhythm and that flow, kind of working alongside them in a partnership.

Matt 1:43

Gotcha. Cool. Well, we'll get into more details about that theory and your perspectives on that. But I always like to go back, get a little bit of the behind the scenes of the person. So I guess we did rock, paper, scissors kind of before and determined Andrew, you would go first. So where did you grow up? You from around here? How did you get into this field? Take us through that little journey.

Andrew 2:04

Yeah. So I grew up in Western Massachusetts, Chicopee, Massachusetts, specifically, near Springfield, where I guess the most famous thing in the area is the Basketball Hall of Fame and the birthplace of basketball.

Matt 2:13

And so were you into basketball growing up then?

Andrew 2:15

I was. Fun fact I guess, I grew up 15 minutes from the Basketball Hall of Fame and I’ve never actually been to the Hall of Fame. But I am a huge basketball fan. But it’s just one of those things, proximity is.

Matt 2:25

It's too basic. 

Andrew 2:26

Totally. It's just too simple to go there. So and then Chicopee, I guess, is pseudo famous for it previously had a big kielbasa festival that people often reference with Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Matt 2:36

So you have two ins with people. Either you can talk about basketball, you can talk about sausages. 

Andrew 2:39

Or food. Yeah. Exactly. Usually that's pretty much a daily occurrence in my life of food and sports. I got introduced to the physical therapy realm by way of having my own injury. I broke my leg buying soccer in high school, had surgery, was in PT for a while, and then spent a ton of time in my high school athletic trainer's room. He was like, ended up becoming a really great mentor to me, furthered my interest in the field, and decided that was the path I wanted to take. And you know, here we are.

Matt 3:05

What’s your experience with PT and that first experience being on the other side of it, what made you see the value in it?

Andrew 3:12

Great question. I think above all else, it’s being empathetic providers and having the opportunity to spend time with people above anything else. There's the medical side of things, which is obviously very interesting and still is to this day, which makes us use our brains quite a bit. But it's a unique environment where we get to spend time with people and learn about them as much as their injury and their pathology. I think that's what really spoke to me initially was getting to know my PT at the time, getting to know my athletic trainer at the time. It's a unique environment in the healthcare industry to allow us to not be with people for way more than five minutes at a time in this day and age.

Matt 3:48

Yeah. And was there a particular moment in that stage where you had an interaction with them that was impactful that you could talk about? Like you were having a hard time and they gave you a talk or something, you know?

Andrew 3:58

Yeah, I mean soccer was very centric in my life at that point. And it was constant positive feedback from my athletic trainer and from the PT to be able to do the thing that I wanted to get back to doing that I loved, which was soccer. I don't know if there was a specific moment or it was just the culmination of support along the entire time of being in PT for like four or five months and really wanted to get back into doing that thing. And then at some point I think it was a culmination of, oh yeah, I really love soccer, but I also probably want to go to college at some point, and this might be a really good path for me. And those two things kind of intertwined at one point, and it wasn't just about sports, it was about like, well, I gotta get my grades up so I can be a good applicant for PT school at some point. So it was kind of a blessing in disguise in a lot of ways. 

Matt 4:36

Yeah. And where'd you go to school?

Andrew 4:38

I went to Springfield College for undergrad and then American International College for PT school.

Matt 4:42

Gotcha. All right, let's flip over to you, Meagh an. Where did you grow up and where's your introduction to the field?

Meaghan 4:48

So I grew up in a very small town in upstate New York called Hoosick Falls. Population 3,000, roughly. It's right on the border with Vermont. And we are not famous for very many things. I think the probably most remarkable thing is that we have zero stoplights in our town, which is pretty unusual. Also, though, a very, very strong athletics program, specifically field hockey. So a lot of my life revolved around that growing up. I came into the field of physical therapy a little bit later. I did not think I wanted to do anything in that realm growing up at all. I did love sports and being active and being outside, but I thought that I was going to go to school and either be a philosopher or a lawyer or something along those lines. I loved reading and writing and nothing in the science realm. I fell in love with science from a neuroscience class in college and completely switched gears, but really thought that I was going to go to medical school. That sort of led me on a variable path to graduating and thinking that that was going to be sort of my next step was medical school, but then working in biomedical research for a little while. Realizing that I wanted much more human interaction versus, you know, thinking about subjects of a research study versus actual patients. Also realizing that the work-life balance of being a physician was not necessarily conducive to what I wanted in my long-term life. From there, investigated a lot of different options within the healthcare realm. I did some work shadowing at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital here in Boston, which was amazing. Decided that I was going to jump all into physical therapy, but specifically working with inpatient neurological conditions.

Matt 6:39

Was there a particular patient or story that made you like, oh, this is it?

Meaghan 6:44

Yeah, so there was one specific patient that really stood out. So I was volunteering there, and it was a younger patient who came in with a pretty serious motorcycle accident, subsequently had a traumatic brain injury, double amputation. And just the things that I saw over a short period of time that they were able to allow him to do was pretty remarkable. And to be like, wow, you could have that kind of impact, not only for him, but his family after something that tragic was pretty powerful. I still didn't know exactly like how that was gonna all play out, but that was sort of my first moment where I was like, this is a career that I could really feel like I was making an impact in my day-to-day. So just seeing that type of human interaction and human impact was pretty powerful.

Matt 7:28

Yeah. Doing studies and then seeing that up close is a very different emotional experience.

Meaghan 7:34

Very, very different emotional experience. Yeah. So from there, I actually applied to physical therapy programs and then in the interim did some other things. I worked as a college field hockey coach. So sports came back into my life a bit, and college admissions, and then made my way to PT school. So I went to physical therapy school with a gap. So my undergraduate degree was at Brown University in Providence, and then my doctoral degree was at Temple University in Philadelphia. And I graduated from physical therapy school and everyone's like, you're definitely doing sports medicine, you're definitely doing orthopedics because sports had always been a part of my life. And I was like, no, no, no. I'm going to help these people that have major traumas in their lives. And then quickly realized that there's a lot of impact that you can make just in people's day-to-day. It doesn't have to be quite so dramatic. And made my way to outpatient orthopedics.

Matt 8:24

Now, how did your paths cross then?

Meaghan 8:28

We were actually hired by the same company to start working the same week. So we were both separately moving to Boston. Just happened to be hired by the same company.

Matt 8:38

Yeah. So you guys work together at the same place. What's the timeline? How far is that between then and opening your own place in 2024?

Meaghan 8:47

We talked about opening a place for over a decade. So quite some time, but.

Andrew 8:49

Yeah, I think certainly the pandemic put a wrinkle in a lot of things for a lot of people, right? That changed our course and our thought process during that time. And then we had a child, and that kind of changed perspective on things for a while. And looking back on it now, I think he was probably the biggest driving force into us starting our own practice in a lot of ways, just to make sure that we were proud about something for him to be proud about in the future. But yeah, there was 10 plus years between then and now. 

Matt 9:14

Felt well prepared?

Andrew 9:17

Yeah, I mean you always feel anxiety of doing your own thing and going on your own. And we felt prepared and confident to be able to provide care, but running a small business comes with its own set of challenges, and we're still trying to figure it out.

Meaghan 9:28

I was going to say, every day is a learning experience, learning curve. 

Andrew 9:32

It's been great.

Matt 9:32

So what's the advantages of you for working for someone else and then starting your own business? You know, you're saying there were advantages. What are the advantages to you?

Andrew 9:40

I think the advantages of working for somebody else is there's security, right. I think that's the biggest thing. You know, you're gonna probably get a paycheck, assuming the business is in good stature. Beyond that, there's the tone set of challenges of you're always gonna be working for somebody else and their views. And I think the biggest positive for us opening up our own practice is that we kind of control the narrative now. And that was a big thing for us is wanting to be able to control the narrative in the sense of being able to provide the care that we want to provide for people without being told how to provide that care and how many people we need to provide that care for on a weekly basis and monthly basis. And this is a knock on the industry more than a knock on any specific place, but everything is very revenue and metric based and health care. And we don't feel like it has to be. We didn't become physical therapists because we thought we were gonna be millionaires. We became physical therapists because we enjoyed working with people and being with people and providing care to people and providing access to care to people, and that's kind of the core of our principles for our practice of being able to continue to try to provide that care without guardrails in a lot of ways. So that's probably the biggest thing. 

Andrew 10:46

The challenges that come with that, healthcare is a really fickle industry, and number one, we're dealing with humans that are often coming in our doors because they're in pain, right? And we're trying to fix that problem. Which is the easy part of our industry. The challenging part is probably the back end with insurance and making sure we can balance our books and get paid for the services that we're providing from the insurance companies. So it's a challenge, but it's a good challenge. We've learned a lot in the last two years since we started the practice, or almost two years, and by and large, it's been great.

Matt 11:14

Yeah. So were you in Watertown before? How did you find the space in Watertown? Why Watertown? All that.

Meaghan 11:20

So we moved to Watertown prior to opening up the business, bought a home and started to try to create some community roots here. Initially, when we were opening, we were hopeful that we could find something at least nearby, and we were really lucky that we did find something in Watertown itself to really lay down some community roots where we're raising our family as well as creating this business. Finding real estate in this area is very challenging, for sure. So we were very, very lucky that we were able to find something within Watertown.

Matt 11:52

Yeah, and where is your location too?

Andrew 11:54

Yeah, so we're at 350 Pleasant Street in Watertown. We're inside a mixed-use building on the second floor of a primarily apartment complex, but there's also a couple retail places as well. We have a pretty small space currently. We're hopefully gonna move to a larger space sooner rather than later and expand our current operations, not to expand too fast, but just have a little bit more elbow room along the way. I think the biggest consideration for us was like Meaghan said, we're trying to be in Watertown. We lived in Watertown ourselves since 2017. We love the community here. It's been really great, especially since having a child.

Matt 12:26

So is it just you two there? Are there other people who help you out? What is your staff?

Meaghan 12:30

Yeah, so we currently obviously have ourselves, and then we do have one other physical therapist, Margo, who also works with us. And then we have some remote staff as far as administrative side of things, billing side, those types of things. But within the space itself, it's the three of us. So Andrew, myself, and Margo. And we are looking to expand with additional physical therapists. But yes, currently we have the three of us.

Matt 12:55

Nice. And so now let's dig in, what is PT in Cadence? What do you do?

Meaghan 13:01

So in general, PT in Cadence, as in physical therapy in cadence. I think a lot of people probably have an idea of the bigger realm of physical therapy. So our foundation is grounded in orthopedics, all things musculoskeletal, in the sense of, it could be an injury that occurred from playing some sort of sport or activity.

Matt 13:23

Perhaps soccer.

Meaghan 13:24

Perhaps soccer, yes. Or field hockey. Because we are in Watertown.

Matt 13:28

True. That's right. 

Andrew 13:30

Shout out field hockey.

Meaghan 13:31

Go red readers. It could be more of like a chronic type of pain that you've been dealing with for many years that we're rehabilitating. It can be post-surgical rehabilitation. So there's a wide range that I think most people have heard of in the past when it comes to physical therapy, this outpatient orthopedics, musculoskeletal realm. And that is where our foundations are. That's where both Andrew and I are grounded. And then as we've sort of developed the business and our own interests, specifically myself, I now have specialized along with Margo, actually, our colleague, in pelvic health and obstetrics. So I see a lot of people that are pregnant, postpartum, and that can be a large range. You know, it doesn't end after six weeks, so it can be many years postpartum. But I really have a big interest in all things pelvic health.

Matt 14:25

Was there something that set you on that path, or was it just a slow going into that path?

Meaghan 14:30

It started out relatively slow in seeing people coming into the clinic that were coming in maybe for more like quote unquote standard orthopedic conditions. You start to have conversations and they would start to mention certain things. And realizing that it's just a very underserved population, it doesn't get talked about very often. People don't realize that it is something that they don't just have to live with. And honestly, this goes across the board. It's not just if you've had a baby, it's a lot of different realms. But just starting to realize that as you have conversations with people, they would start to open up about certain things and you'd be like, actually, let's talk about this a little bit more. This is something that we might be able to address along with your other concerns. 

Meaghan 15:13

So that started very, very small. And then very quickly morphed when I myself went through pregnancy and postpartum period. And even with the knowledge that I had, realizing how much I didn't know, how much resources were not there for others. And again, just how underserved people are in that realm. So a huge piece of us opening and expanding PT in Cadence was me having this strong belief, along with Andrew, that we needed to figure out a way to provide access to people to this type of care. So again, our foundation is certainly orthopedics, but it's really, really hard, specifically in the greater Boston area, to find facilities that serve the public health realm that take insurance specifically. So that was a huge piece of what we've been trying to offer.

Matt 16:07

Yeah. And how do you find those patients? So you're making relationships with hospitals, or how do you make sure people with those needs are finding you?

Meaghan 16:16

Yeah, I mean, I think we're still figuring that out. But honestly, the biggest piece, and this is across the board with anyone we see, has just been word of mouth. We've been extremely lucky. I think again, with our foundation of wanting to have a big community connection, as we start to have people come through our doors and talk to people on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, the word just has started to spread. We certainly have connections with physicians. I have several OBGYNs that I work with. And a lot of times referrals are coming from primary care providers that are seeing people. So we certainly have those connections. But honestly, I think our biggest way that we find people is through word of mouth of someone else.

Matt 16:57

Gotcha. Was there a most surprising thing that you found out about pelvic health or some big shift for you as you were going through that?

Andrew 17:06

I'll answer it from my perspective really quickly. And then we can get into the details of this. But as a father in the situation of going through a childbirth and stuff, it was eye-opening to me to see how much lack of support there are for women, I guess, postpartum. I shouldn't say lack of support. There's support out there, but there's more support that I think than women probably know they have access to. And I obviously knew a little bit about that realm from spending time with Meaghan and learning about the pelvic health realm in the clinic and conversations we have outside the clinic and stuff too. But the little bit that I knew, seeing you go through childbirth and the postpartum care that you received, which was wonderful, but it was kind of like, here's your handout, do your thing, go about your merry way. Women have done this for centuries, you'll be okay. And there's a tremendous amount more nuance to it than that.

Meaghan 17:49

I mean, I think the biggest piece is kind of, to play off of what Andrew just said, is the fact that so much of the care is transactional. And unfortunately, I think it's a lot of healthcare in general, is very transactional. As you're going through your pregnancy, you're going to these appointments, and it's are there any red flags? You know, are all things working as they're supposed to be when it comes to your health, the fetal health? Of course, those things are very important. But then anything outside of that is, like Andrew said, like here's a handout on the fact that like you're having pelvic pain that's searing like down your leg and into your hip, or you're having significant back pain and fatigue. Well, that's just normal. Like that's totally part of this process and it'll all go away when you have the baby. 

Meaghan 18:33

Or you go through the actual birthing process and don't realize that potentially there are strategies or ways that you could have made that process a little less painful. And postpartum, you start to have various symptoms that people just tell you is, you know, this is just part of it. Like this is part of being a mother. Along with all the other things that are new as a new parent, you're also dealing with these things that are a bit embarrassing to talk about, but you just feel like, okay, this is normal. Like I am going to pick up my child and bring them up the stairs and I'm peeing my pants, and everyone tells me this is what happens. This is just part of the joy of being a parent. And it doesn't have to be that way. And realizing though, that when these things are brought up, either people don't talk about them or when they do maybe get to the point where they ask someone about it, it's very transactional of here's a handout, here's a website, maybe go see someone, although that's very rarely said. And there's not that human interaction and that kind of taking someone through it. That's a big piece of why we got into physical therapy, but it's also a huge reason why I love this realm of physical therapy. Because you can make such an impact just by having a one-on-one conversation with them, truly listening and trying to parse out how can we make this work for you? How can we make these things better? These aren't just things that you just have to live with.

Matt 19:52

Yeah. So take us through if someone comes in with a problem. What is the process of working with you guys?

Andrew 19:58

So take a quick step back on that of, to answer your last question of what PT in Cadence is and why we started our practice, is we, not to belabor the point of it being kind of a fragmented healthcare system, but Massachusetts allows people to see physical therapists on a direct access standpoint. So we try to create our practice in a way that you can come see us for an ache or a pain or a pelvic floor issue sooner rather than later. And then if we don't think you're appropriate for our realm, we have proper referral sources within our community to reach out to and send you to to try to speed up the whole process. So if someone comes into our clinic day one for initial evaluation, say they're coming in for a shoulder thing, we spend a fair amount of time going through tests and measures, making sure that there are no red flags, like Meaghan said, for all of our realms, orthopedic or pelvic floor. 

Andrew 20:44

And then the process starts from there. What's our working diagnosis? What are they most functionally limited with on a daily basis, whether it be work or play? Our spectrum of patients we see is like ages six to we have like a 96-year-old right now who's independent, she's wonderful. It's a big range of what we see. So we're trying to curtail and be as specific to our caseloads and our plan of care development as to each individual patient versus here's your four exercises that you do for low back pain, go on your merry way. So it's trying to be as specific as possible. So that's curtailed to those people. That's where I think we as PTs have a really distinct advantage to a lot of the other healthcare industries, is we have the opportunity to spend time with people and create those relationships and see people once or twice a week for weeks or months on end, versus seeing your primary care doctor one time a year for your blood pressure checkup and your cholesterol and so on and so forth, or seeing your orthopedic doctor to say, okay, are you a surgical candidate or not? We have a little bit more nuance to be able to provide more unique specialized services for people.

Matt 21:44

Yeah. So that's another interesting thing, though, too, because you have the personal relationships. Have you come to a realization that this field is a lot more the mental? Like you're obviously trained in the body, but also dealing with the relationships is a whole other level that you've probably had to work on over the years too. Any specific points of interest in dealing with that?

Andrew 22:04

Yeah. I mean, I think that's a really, really great point, Matt. There's the objective orthopedic stuff, that's our bread and butter. And then there's a double-edged sort of trying to create this welcoming environment for people to feel comfortable in to get better for whatever they're coming in for. But then there's also the aspect of, yeah, people need support beyond just the orthopedic realm. And I think that's a huge thing that we try to provide. And it's a challenge. And the biggest challenge, I think, is like, what's the line of demarcation for us as physical therapists and practitioners in our realm? What point is the mental and emotional side of things spilling into the physical side of things and superseding that? And that's a, it's a delicate line to balance.

Meaghan 22:40

I mean, creating those relationships is really one of the most important things that we do. And I think the most important thing that we do every day is listening to people. And then we have to figure out ways to parse out, you know, how much of this is impacting their physical health and how much of this can we address? And how much of it do we maybe need to provide other resources to them? But our biggest asset is the fact that we do have that ability to sit back, listen, talk to people, create these relationships, and hopefully figure out a way holistically to help them. Because it is huge. I mean, there's so much out there now. And luckily, like people are hearing more about it too, about the mind-body connection for sure.

Matt 23:21

Yeah. How about I know it's only been a couple of years, but any particular big success stories with your business so far?

Meaghan 23:28

Opening in Watertown.

Andrew 23:30

We're still in business. 

Matt 23:33

Did you get some big scissors and everything?

Meaghan 23:35

We did not. We were gonna do a big opening and then we didn't. We talked about that, a big party. Hopefully, our next location. If anyone wants to find us a place in Watertown, we're open to it. And we will have a ribbon cutting. I think honestly, from when we started and from talking to various people from the business side of it, from the small business side of it, I think passing year one was a huge milestone. And passing year one on an upswing, we have been extremely lucky in big part to the community that we're in and that we've created and the people that have come through our doors to be very busy and be thriving. And so I think just passing year one was a huge, huge success and feeling like we're ready to expand.

Matt 24:18

You've seen it all now. No, you're ready. Yeah, no. Next cycle, you've seen everything.

Meaghan 24:23

I don't know about that.

Matt 24:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Andrew 24:25

I think it's important for us. That's a good point, Matt. Of like we want to stay grounded as we, like Megan said, we've been very lucky to be successful and busy and feeling very supported by the community that we're in over the last year plus. But it's also easy to get caught in the headwinds of we should open another location, we should hire four more physical therapists. And we've been in that structure for a long time, multiple times in our career. And we also want to stay grounded to make sure that we're still providing care and still stay true to being physical therapists versus being only business people. How we balance those things is the challenge, right? And how we balance insurance reimbursements for the services that we do and still trying to provide access and provide the care that we want to provide to be proud of going forward is what we're trying to figure out how to balance those scales in year two and beyond.

Matt 25:09

Any other behind-the-scene things about running a PT business the general public might not know about that you were like, oh, this is interesting now that I got into it myself?

Meaghan 25:20

I mean, maybe not surprisingly, but surprisingly, the most eye-opening piece has been the bureaucracy and challenges around our healthcare insurance system. People are probably not surprised by hearing that, but I think they would be very surprised if they really knew the details. Even being in it for like 15 years and having some roles that were managerial and knowing some things that were going on when it comes to the insurance business, every day I'm surprised by things. The healthcare system is unfortunately very fragmented. And I think the one thing that I would love the general public to understand is that as providers, whether it seems like it or not, the majority of providers across the board, whether in physical therapy or in other healthcare professions, the majority of us really truly got into the field because we care about people and we wanted to provide good care. And a lot of times when people get frustrated, it's because their providers are working within the constraints of a very fragmented and challenging industry. So a lot of the behind the scenes for us is trying to figure out ways to make it as seamless as possible so that our clients don't see that side of it, which is always a challenge.

Andrew 26:34

Yeah, say that's a big part of providing quick, competent access to our care and I think our services as an industry was also trying to leverage technology as much as we possibly can on the backside to get prior authorizations for insurance and have all those things set up in a way that we can be as transparent with patients the first day that they walk into the clinic to say, this is what your copay is going to be, this is what your deductible may be, so that we can make good conscious decisions on how do we adjust things, perhaps based off of their plan of care. If someone says I have a $50 copay and they come to our clinic and says, Well, I can't really afford to do that twice a week. All right, well, let's curtail things specific to you and say, okay, see me once this week and see me again in three weeks, do these exercises. You have my email, you have access to us to reach out to us in the interim. 

Andrew 27:18

And consultants in our industry would say we're probably really bad business people for treating it that way, but it's also putting ourselves in other people's shoes. If we had to, you know, Meaghan gave the example before of most of the public health industry is cash-based services, not having access to insurance and the cash services are not cheap. If we had to make that decision as a family for Meaghan needing those services postpartum, it would have been really tough for us to afford those services for long durations of time. So we're always constantly trying to put ourselves in other people's shoes. And, you know, we worked, both worked in other customer service industries prior to PT. And at the end of the day, we are a customer service-based industry, albeit medical, but we still want people to feel like they're, you know, it's like the barbershop vibe into our client. They want people to feel like they're coming into a place they're comfortable with and they feel like we're giving them truthful, honest information, whether it be about insurance payments or about their orthopedic conditions.

Matt 28:10

Yeah. Nice. All right. Well, maybe we'll just wrap up with some thoughts on Watertown. So you've been here for a little bit and you have a family in Watertown. What are some of your favorite parts of Watertown to live in as a community? Favorite spots, favorite things you do?

Meaghan 28:22

I spent a lot of time at the library with my son. We love the library.

Andrew 28:27

Yeah, I mean, I guess taking a step back, we bought in 2017 a condo that we kind of fell into, I guess, a little bit to a certain extent. We looked for a long time and finally found something we could afford. Since moving here, I think it's been a really, really great community. I don't want to leave Watertown if we ever want to move into a larger space. It would be great to stay in Watertown. The parks are awesome. Shout out to Ernie.

Andrew 28:50

We really liked Watertown prior to having a child. And then we really appreciate Watertown since having our son for how many great services there are just to go for a walk and go to the park or come to the library for whatever the programming might be. And as you know, Matt, we've been part of the WBC for the last year and a half, and that's been a really great extension of our business too. And like it just speaks to community. Everything seems sincere when you talk to people here. Like it it does feel very small, albeit there's been a lot of growth in Watertown since we've been here, certainly with the Arsenal Yards project and a lot of development and stuff, but it still feels like a town. I know it's a city now, but it feels like a town and a community. And we've certainly felt that as a small business in the last year and a half. The tremendous amount of support and community. And people are sending their friends and family to us because they feel like they want to support us. That's been really great.

Meaghan 29:39

Yeah, as Andrew mentioned, we have definitely grown to love Watertown even more having a child. Like there's just a lot of really great services and resources from a really outstanding variety of parks to services like the library, as I mentioned. And also just the smaller shops and restaurants and getting to go to some of the stores along Mount Auburn Street or some of the diners in the area. I feel like even you walk in the second time and people recognize you, that kind of vibe is really lovely. We won't shout out any specific places, but we like many of them.

Andrew 30:16

Our world between home, business, and daycare is for good, better, and different is very small and very Watertown-centric.

Meaghan 30:22

It’s about two miles.

Andrew 30:24

Are we getting take-out tonight? Where are we going to go? And it ends up being like the same three or four places in Watertown. And so it's not a bad thing.

Matt 30:29

Yeah, we got plenty of restaurants, so you're always close to something. So it's like 80 or 90 restaurants in Watertown, which is amazing for four square miles. It's crazy. Cool. Well, to wrap it up here, where should people find out more information about you guys?

Andrew 30:44

You can find us at ptincadence.com. Don't judge us by our social media, because our social media, we do have Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, but it's pretty bad. So the website is probably the best access to us. You can certainly give us a call. I'll be happy to chat to you about our services if you guys have more questions about it beyond the website. We were at the Faire in the Square last year, hopefully, we'll be at the Faire in the Square again this year. You can see us there.

Meaghan 31:09

And then our current location is at 350 Pleasant Street within the Watermills complex.

Matt 31:16

Well, any last thoughts before I just wrap it up?

Andrew 31:19

No, just thank you so much, Matt, for having us. It's really been great to meet you over the last year and a half. And I think this is really cool what you're doing for our community as well. So thank you. 

Matt 31:26

Yeah. Thanks for sitting down to chat and share your thoughts and stories.

Matt 31:30

So that's it for my conversation with Andrew and Meaghan. You can find out more information about them and their practice at ptincadence.com. If you'd like to hear more episodes of the podcast or see what live podcast events are coming up, head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com. 

Matt 31:48

All right, and I want to give a few shout-outs here to wrap things up. I want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. And a couple more shout outs to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community Is Our Business. Find out more about them at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.