Growth and AI visibility for exercise physiology practices
The referrer first. The patient second.
Exercise physiology marketing built the way the profession gets paid: a page a GP or support coordinator can refer from in thirty seconds, condition pages that get your practice named when a patient asks Google or ChatGPT who helps them exercise safely, intake that books the first session the same day, and end-of-plan reports drafted from the clinician's notes. Go Forth Digital does this for exercise physiology practices across Australia, inside ESSA's advertising guidelines.
Go Forth Digital is run by a founder with ten years in B2B sales and growth, who has co-owned a gym and carried its P&L, and spent five years building websites and systems for health and wellness businesses.
What keeps an exercise physiology practice owner up
Three GPs who send everything, forty who have never heard of you, a diary that empties in the fourth week of every care plan, and a patient who booked a physio for the job you do better because they did not know your title existed.
Exercise physiology is a referred profession. The patient with type 2 diabetes, a knee replacement or a return-to-work plan does not search for an exercise physiologist; a GP, a rehabilitation coordinator, a support coordinator or a DVA-registered doctor sends them. So the practice's growth is the size of its referrer list, and most practices have a list that fits on one hand. The website talks to the patient, the GP gets a brochure from 2019, and the coordinator finds out about capacity by ringing.
The second problem is the cycle. A Medicare chronic condition management plan funds five allied health services a calendar year, a DVA treatment cycle runs to twelve sessions or a year, and an NDIS plan funds what the goals justify. Each one ends, and a practice that waits for the next referral has a diary that breathes in and out with the plans. The third is the paperwork that comes with being referred: the end-of-cycle report to the GP, the NDIS progress report, the WorkCover update, each one clinician hours between sessions. Referrals, rebooking and reports. We work on all three.
What that looks like for an exercise physiology practice
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Get found
When a GP's practice nurse searches for an exercise physiologist who takes care plan referrals for cardiac patients, or a patient asks ChatGPT who can help them exercise safely with osteoporosis, your practice is in the answer. Referrer pages, condition pages written for the question a patient asks, a plain explanation of what an exercise physiologist does, and a Google Business Profile that names the conditions and funding you take.
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Get booked
A referral form that captures the funding stream, the referrer, the condition and the sessions available, routed to the clinician with room, and a first appointment offered the same day. A follow-up sequence that books the next block before the current plan ends, and asks the patient to see their GP for the next one.
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Get your hours back
Initial assessments, exercise programs, end-of-cycle reports to GPs, NDIS progress reports and WorkCover updates all take clinician hours today. A draft from the clinician's own de-identified notes and outcome measures, read, corrected and signed by the clinician, hands those hours back as sessions.
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What we do first for an exercise physiology practice
The referrer page, before anything written for the patient. The GP makes the referral; the patient turns up to it.
That page answers the four things a GP or a practice nurse checks: which conditions you see and which clinician sees them, which funding you take (care plan, DVA, WorkCover, NDIS, private), how soon the first appointment is, and how to send the referral without ringing. Then the report back. A GP who receives a one-page summary at the end of the five sessions, with outcome measures and a recommendation for the next plan, refers the next patient. We set that report up to draft from the clinician's notes so it goes out on the day of the last session rather than the following month.
Then the patient side. One page for each condition group you see most, in the patient's words: exercise for type 2 diabetes, exercise after a cardiac event, exercise for knee and hip osteoarthritis, exercise with a disability, return to work after injury, exercise for older adults. Each says who it is for, what a first session involves, what it costs under each funding stream and what the gap is, and answers the question a patient asks an AI in its first hundred words. One page explains what an exercise physiologist is and how that differs from a physiotherapist and a personal trainer, because the patient does not know and the AI answer that explains it is the one that gets quoted. Then intake and rebooking: the referral form that lands in the right diary, and the sequence that books the next block before the plan runs out.
Funding streams we work inside
An exercise physiology practice runs five funding streams through one diary, and each has its own referrer, its own cycle and its own report.
- Medicare chronic condition management
- A GP can refer up to five allied health services a calendar year under a care plan, and item 10953 pays a benefit of $63.40 against a schedule fee of $74.55 (MBS Online, item 10953). Five sessions is an assessment, a program and a review, so the page states the gap plainly and the follow-up sequence books the private sessions that follow. The report to the GP after the fifth session is what earns the sixth patient.
- DVA
- A veteran's GP refers under the allied health treatment cycle: up to twelve sessions or one year per referral, whichever ends first, with an end-of-cycle report to the GP and no session limit for TPI Gold Card holders (Department of Veterans' Affairs, allied health treatment cycle). The referrer page says you are DVA-registered and states the conditions you see; the report drafts from the outcome measures the cycle already requires.
- NDIS
- Exercise physiology sits in Capacity Building at $161.99 an hour in 2026-27, with non-face-to-face work at the same rate and provider travel on its own line at $81.00 (NDIA Pricing Schedule 2026-27, v1.2, 22 July 2026). Coordinators refer to the practice whose page states capacity, travel area and the line items you claim. Intake records how the plan is managed, and the service agreement names the report hours so the clinician claims what the program took.
- WorkCover and CTP
- The referrer is a treating doctor or a rehabilitation coordinator working to a return-to-work plan, and the report is due when the insurer says it is. A page written for the coordinator, stating the injuries you see, the reporting you provide and how fast you can start, is what puts the practice on their list. Intake captures the claim number and the approval before the first session.
- Private and health fund extras
- The patients who pay privately are the ones whose plan ran out, the ones a friend sent, and the ones who searched their condition and found your page. The condition pages and the rebooking sequence do the work here, with fees stated plainly and extras named by fund where you have the numbers.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits practices with two to fifteen clinicians whose diary rises and falls with the care plans, and whose referrer list has not grown since the founder stopped doing GP visits.
It suits practices inside or beside a physiotherapy or GP clinic where the exercise physiology pages are buried under the physio's. It suits practices with a strong NDIS or DVA mix where the reports eat the margin. It suits practices adding a second clinician who needs a referrer list of their own. And it suits practices that run group programs and want them full from referrals rather than from a Facebook ad.
It does not suit a sole clinician renting a room in a gym who wants to be a personal trainer with a degree; the buyer there is the member, and the fix is the gym's own marketing. It does not suit a practice that wants testimonials on the website while sharing rooms with a physio; ESSA rules it out and we follow it. It does not suit a practice that wants to be found by the public for "exercise physiologist near me" and nothing else; that search exists, and we work on it, but the referrer list is where the growth is. For what the wider market charges, read what allied health marketing costs in Australia.
Frequently asked questions
How do we get more GP referrals for exercise physiology?
Make the referral the easiest thing the GP does that day. A GP writing a chronic condition management plan has five allied health services to allocate and a list of providers they already know. The page that wins is the one they can act on in thirty seconds: which conditions you take, which clinician sees them, how fast the first appointment is, and a referral form or fax number that goes to a person. Then the report. A GP who gets a one-page outcome summary after the fifth session, with a recommendation for the next plan, refers again; a GP who hears nothing does not. We write the referrer page, set up the referral intake so it lands in the right diary, and set up the end-of-plan summary so it goes out without the clinician writing it from scratch. Practice managers and GP liaison visits still matter; the page is what they leave behind.
What is the difference between an exercise physiologist and a physiotherapist, and does it matter for marketing?
It matters more than for any other profession on this site, because the patient does not know. An accredited exercise physiologist is a university-qualified allied health professional who prescribes exercise to manage chronic conditions, injury and disability, accredited by Exercise and Sports Science Australia rather than registered with Ahpra. A physiotherapist diagnoses and treats with hands-on and exercise methods and is registered with the Physiotherapy Board of Australia. The patient searching "exercise for knee osteoarthritis" or "who can help me exercise safely after a heart attack" does not use either title, and when they ask ChatGPT the question in this heading, the answer names the practices whose pages explain it plainly. So the page that defines the difference in one paragraph, then says which conditions you see and how a GP refers, does two jobs: it is quoted in the AI answer, and it stops a patient booking a physio for a job an EP does better.
Is the NDIS still worth it for an exercise physiology practice?
Yes, if intake and reports are tight, and no if the plan funds the session and the clinician donates the paperwork. The 2026-27 price limit for exercise physiology is $161.99 an hour, with non-face-to-face work at the same rate and provider travel on its own line at $81.00 (NDIA Pricing Schedule 2026-27, v1.2, 22 July 2026). That is below physiotherapy and well below psychology, so the margin is in utilisation and in claiming what the schedule already allows: the report, the program written between sessions, the travel. The practices that do well with NDIS participants have a page a support coordinator can act on, a service agreement that names the non-face-to-face hours, and a progress report drafted from the clinician's notes rather than typed on a Sunday. We set up all three. The practices that struggle treat NDIS as a lower-paid version of private and wonder where the margin went.
Can an exercise physiology practice use testimonials?
It depends on who is in the building. ESSA's advertising guidelines say that exercise and sports science professionals working in a multidisciplinary setting that includes an Ahpra-regulated profession, such as a physiotherapist, are not permitted to use testimonials under the National Law, and that a sole practitioner may use them only where all relevant legislation allows (ESSA, advertising guidelines). Most practices we see share rooms with a physio, so the practical answer is no. Google reviews a patient leaves on your Business Profile of their own accord are a separate matter and they help you rank on Maps; copying them onto the website is where the line sits. What does the work instead is a page that says which conditions you see, what a first session involves, what it costs under each funding stream and how long the wait is. Referrers and patients both read that, and it needs nobody's permission.
Are group programs worth marketing?
Worth running, rarely worth marketing to the public. Medicare pays a benefit of $20.25 a person for a type 2 diabetes group service of at least sixty minutes with two to twelve patients, up to eight a year, after an assessment item (MBS Online, item 81115). Twelve patients at $20.25 is $243 an hour, which beats the individual rate, but nobody searches for a diabetes exercise group; the GP and the practice nurse fill it. So the group program gets a page written for the GP and the diabetes educator, a place on the referrer page, and a spot in the follow-up sequence for existing patients whose individual sessions are ending. It does not get a Google Ads budget.
What does it cost for an exercise physiology practice?
Pricing is quote-based and set in ranges, all ex GST: one-off projects from $1,500 to $10,000, ongoing work on one service from $800 to $6,500 a month, and full-service retainers from $3,000 to $8,000 a month, on a three-month initial term then rolling. Work it from your own numbers: an NDIS exercise physiology hour is $161.99 and a Medicare care plan session pays a $63.40 benefit plus your gap, so a $1,500 a month retainer is roughly nine to twelve sessions. If the referrer page adds two GP referrals a month at five sessions each and the follow-up sequence rebooks patients whose plans have ended, the retainer is covered inside the first month. If the numbers do not say that, we say so in the first conversation and you keep them. Tell us what you need and we will quote it in writing. Our article on what allied health marketing costs in Australia sets out what moves a quote up or down.
Tell us what you need
You know your business. We know how to get it found and booked. Tell us what you need help with, we’ll find what’s in the way and clear it, so you can go forth.
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