| Days per week | 5, building to 4 | You start at five. The goal is four, and we work towards it with you. |
| Saturdays | None | Unless you actively want them. |
| Appointment length | 45 min initial 30 min review |
Long enough to assess properly and still get people moving. |
| Allocated admin time | 3 hrs/week | Paid and in the diary once you are above 80% clinical capacity. Notes and letters do not follow you home. |
| Caseload mix | 79% private | The rest is Medicare, WorkCover, TAC and NDIS combined. |
| Rehab classes | 1:3 to 1:4 | You run small group rehab as part of the role. Three or four clients at a time, in the gym, with programming you own. |
| Referrer nurturing | 60 min/fortnight | An allowance for catch-ups with referrers. You build your own referral base, and the time is there to do it. |
| Team social media | 2 hrs/month | Blocked out for the team to build our online presence together, in work time. |
| PD budget | $1,000/year | And we will go past it for the right course, if you can make the case for what it does for the clinic. |
Traralgon East, Gippsland VIC
An experienced physio role that shows you behind the scenes.
Start at five days, build to four. No Saturdays. A base set properly against your experience, and a reward you can calculate yourself before you ever speak to us.
The actual job
What your week actually looks like
Most job ads tell you about the culture and leave you to guess the job. Here is the job.
What actually walks through the door
Our caseload by body region. This is the honest answer to “what would I be treating”, and it is the reason we bought force plates rather than another plinth.
| Body region | Share of caseload |
|---|---|
| Knee and ACL | 25% |
| Lumbar spine | 16% |
| Shoulder | 15% |
| Foot, ankle and lower leg | 15% |
| Hip and groin | 10% |
| Muscle strain (hamstring, quad, calf) | 6% |
| Elbow, wrist and hand | 4% |
| Cervical spine | 4% |
| Thoracic spine | 2% |
A quarter of the work is knee and ACL
57% of our patients are aged 11 to 40
79% private, and 21% third party
Our own clinic data, October 2024 to June 2026. Funding split is by revenue received.
Pay
How your base is set, and how the reward works
Part one
Your base
We will not put a single number here, because a physio four years out and a physio twelve years out should not be paid the same.
Your base is set by your experience and classified under the Health Professionals Award, and we pay above the award minimum for your level. You get the actual figure in writing early, before you are asked to commit to anything.
Part two
Your reward
Your billings are measured each month. Once you pass the threshold, every additional $666.67 you bill earns you another $333.33, paid that month. That is half of each step, and it keeps going up with no cap.
It moves in steps rather than dollar by dollar, so you need to complete a step to be paid for it. Nothing is discretionary. Nobody sits in a room deciding what you deserve.
| Clients per week | Per day at 5 days | Per day at 4 days | Billings per month | Reward per month | Reward per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | 8.0 | 10.0 | $19,520 | $1,000 | +$12,000 |
| 45 | 9.0 | 11.3 | $21,960 | $2,000 | +$24,000 |
| 50 | 10.0 | 12.5 | $24,400 | $3,333 | +$40,000 |
| 55 | 11.0 | 13.8 | $26,840 | $4,667 | +$56,000 |
| 60 | 12.0 | 15.0 | $29,280 | $5,667 | +$68,000 |
The assumptions behind those numbers
- All figures include superannuation.
- 48 working weeks a year, after four weeks annual leave.
- $122 average fee per consultation. That is our clinic-wide average across every practitioner, graduates included. We run tiered pricing, and our senior rates are $162 initial and $129 review, so your own average will sit above $122. The figures in the table are deliberately conservative.
- Reward starts once your monthly billings pass $18,000, then steps up $333.33 for every further $666.67 you bill.
- Reward is paid monthly and calculated on billings.
- The yearly figures assume you hold that caseload across all 12 months. A quieter month pays less that month, and a busier one pays more. Nothing is averaged out or clawed back.
- 55 and 60 clients a week are shown because people ask. They are the top of the range, not the expectation.
Where it goes
Three pathways, and what each one actually involves
Pathway 01
Build a niche caseload
ACL and post-op rehab, running, throwing athletes, whatever you want to be known for. We market it for you and route the referrals your way. This is the fastest way to make the job look like the one you actually want.
Pathway 02
Lead the clinical team
Take responsibility for our clinicians: their caseload quality, their weekly mentoring, their progression. Comes with allocated non-clinical hours and a review of your package to match the responsibility.
Pathway 03
Own the clinical standard
Run our in-house PD program and set the testing and rehab standards the whole team works to. Suits someone who likes teaching and arguing about evidence.
How the team runs
The rhythm
The things that are in the calendar and do not get cancelled when the clinic gets busy. This is most of what separates one clinic from another, and it is usually the bit nobody tells you about until you have started.
Getting better
- 90 minutes every week of in-house PD, whole team, online or in person. It runs whether we are flat out or not.
- An external specialist every month — strength coach, titled physio, sports physician.
- Fortnightly one to ones covering what is on your mind, your progression, your goals, and how your patients are actually tracking.
- A quarterly review of your development, your caseload and your pay. Structured, written down, and the same for everyone.
Being a team
- A monthly team lunch, on clinic time. You are not giving up your own evenings to be part of this.
- A quarterly team culture day — out of the diary, away from the treatment rooms.
- Birthdays and work anniversaries marked properly, not with a group email.
- An end of year celebration that we actually put effort into.
On the quarterly review: it is not an audit. It is the conversation where your progression and your pay get looked at on a schedule instead of whenever you work up the nerve to ask.
What you work with
Objective testing, and a gym you will actually use
Testing and tech
- VALD ForceDecks force plates for jump, landing and asymmetry testing
- VALD ForceFrame and DynaMo for isometric strength across the body
- VALD AirBands for blood flow restriction work
- CliniScribe AI scribing for notes and referrer letters
- MoveHealth for exercise delivery and loading guidance
- Cliniko and Peptalkr for rebooking, follow-up and outcome tracking
On-site gym
- Squat rack, trap bar, dumbbells, kettlebells
- Leg extension, hamstring curl, calf raise, cable machine
- Treadmill and bike
- Plyo boxes, hurdles, landmine, bands and cable attachments
- Enough space to run a return-to-sport session properly, not in a corridor
The testing gear is the part most physios notice first. How we use it matters more. Every decision here is made against objective data: whether someone progresses, whether they load heavier, whether they return to sport. We measure it, we show the patient the numbers, and we test again. Nobody here is guessing from how a squat looks across the room.
If you are moving here
Living in Gippsland
If you already live in the valley, skip this bit. If you are coming from Melbourne, this is the part that usually decides it.
Housing
In Traralgon, a three bedroom house sits around $587,000 to buy or $477 a week to rent. A four bedroom is around $759,000 or $582 a week. The median house is $680,000 and the median rent $489 a week.
Traralgon 3844, HtAG Analytics, August 2026. Worth knowing that prices here have moved roughly 17% in the past year, so check current listings rather than relying on a number on a webpage.
Time and outdoors
Home in ten minutes, not ninety. Melbourne CBD is 160km west, under two hours when you want it.
Seaspray Beach 50 minutes. Mt Baw Baw an hour and twenty. Trails, riding, hiking and surf all inside an easy drive, and a real community once you are in it.
No CV, no obligation
Not ready to apply? Just ask.
Physio in this region is a small world, and plenty of people reading this are working somewhere else nearby right now. So here is how this works.
- Email goes straight to me. Not reception, not a shared inbox.
- I do not discuss it with anyone, including anyone at your current clinic.
- Ask one question or ask twenty. If the timing is wrong, that is a fine outcome.
Chris Calabrese, Director.
Straight answers
The questions people actually ask
Because it depends on your experience, and any single number we published would be wrong for most people reading it. We classify against the Health Professionals Award structure and pay above the minimum for your level. You get the actual number in writing early, before you are asked to commit to anything.
Guaranteed. The reward sits on top. There is no clawback and no debt carried forward if your billings sit below the threshold in a given month.
Every number on this page includes superannuation. We have written it that way deliberately, because mixing the two is how most physio pay conversations go wrong.
About three months for an experienced physio. Our graduates take around six. That is not a number we hand you and walk away from, though: the expectation is that you do your own referrer nurturing and community work, and we give you the time and the support to do it properly.
No. Email me directly rather than using a form, and the conversation stays between the two of us.
Next step
Two ways to start
Apply properly
Send your CV and a couple of lines about what you are after in the next three years. You will hear back from me personally within 24 hours, with the full role pack and the pay calculator attached.
Ask something first
No CV, no obligation. Ask whatever you want about the pay model, the caseload, or what it is like here. If the timing is not right, we will leave it there.
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If you have read this far, that already tells us something. Either way, we would rather hear from you than not.
