In 1994 Harvey Schmiedeke, co-founded, Survival Strategies®, Inc. with business partner Craig Ferreira. Harvey, Craig and a staff of about 25 people evolved “the other half of the private practice owner’s education.” and from their Burbank-based headquarters have offered one-on-one training and consulting, courses, online workshops and webinars, business systems, educational books, and manuals, and other tools to enable their clients to survive and prosper in an increasingly challenging healthcare environment. Their clients span from “just out of school practitioners”, to small start-up businesses, to multiple location private practices that deliver thousands of high quality patient visits per week, as well as helping save the occasional business on the brink of closing.
Harvey and Craig have over 56 years combined experience with consulting and training in the healthcare industry and more than 4,000 clients having profited from the development of these practice-specific skills they didn’t learn in college—practice marketing and new patient development, management tools, and controlling cash flow and profitability. Harvey, Craig and Survival Strategies have since established a reputation as the nation’s foremost authorities in the development of professional referrals, private practice management and public relations & marketing.
As an authority on private practice marketing, Harvey “gave back” to the professions he loved in many ways. With the help of successful practice owners, he developed several “branding” campaigns to assist various professions to differentiate their services, making them “stand out” as the first choice for their core competencies. These campaigns include:
- Try PT First!®
- Helping You Help Yourself®
- Hand Therapists: In Touch™
- Audiology: Science of Hearing; Art of Listening™
- Helping Kids: Healthcare and Skills of Living for Children™
As a Master of Ceremonies for conventions and an avidly sought public speaker, Harvey presented business management solutions both in the United States and internationally. Thousands of businesses have benefited, and more importantly, people’s lives have changed for the better as a result of his speaking engagements.
Harvey Schmiedeke counted as his greatest legacy that he contributed to the career and personal success of professionals who help others, thus “changing lives for the better.”
Harvey, being a prolific writer spent the better part of 2006 writing his first handbook KEYS TO PRIVATE PRACTICE SUCCESS™ which was published and released for sale in 2007 becoming The Owner’s Manual for Private Practice and continues to receive rave success year after year. From 2008 – 2010 his book was donated through the generosity of Survival Strategies to every university, college and school delivering physical therapy education throughout the U.S. and Canada. Today his book can be purchased through Amazon.com and SurvivalStrategies.com online stores. Harvey’s full intention was to assist all private practice business owners by giving them the skills required to be successful owners in business and allow them to take time with family, friends and other life adventures.
Harvey, also a Master Diver, shared the beautiful world of many a diving adventure by way of another passion – professional underwater photography. He became quite the photo enthusiast always searching for the next great dive location and excitedly returning with literally hundreds of photos of brilliantly colored underwater life.
Harvey had also joined forces with two non-profit organizations, Sunken Treasures and California Ships to Reefs. The U.S. Navy would donate their old unusable ships sitting in storage; these two non-profit groups then gathered the donated funds required to clean them to environmentally safe standards and sink them at designated sites, creating new reefs to form around the world. If you research this further you will find a full Aircraft Carrier sunk deep off the coast of Florida – a blooming new reef!