If I Ran The Nevada Health Authority: The Real Housewives of Functional Medicine

Function is the new black, and occupational therapy is ready for its close-up.

By: Matt Brandenburg, OTD, OTR/L

Occupational therapy (OT) is the healthcare profession best poised to lead meaningful change; in people’s lives, in communities, and across our healthcare systems.

But for a profession built on function (i.e., what people need and want to do every day) we’re somehow left out of the “Big Picture” conversations.

Reimbursement rates stay flat. Tuition skyrockets. Connecting health to daily life gets skipped in care plans. Policymakers forget we exist. And our workforce burns out trying to prove its worth in a system that doesn’t always understand it.

That’s why we need more than good clinicians, we need strong, visionary organizations that aren’t afraid to claim space, reframe the narrative, and show how the entire healthcare system works better when OT leads.

And so, without further ado I present an unsolicited cover letter to a job that doesn’t exist but absolutely should.

Dear Hiring Committee for the Position of
Vice President of Making Occupational Therapy Cool Again (VPMOTCA):

Let me start with a compliment. I love NOTA and AOTA. I’ve been a member, a podcast producer, and a hype man in the comments section of every policy update they’ve ever posted. They work hard. Their webinars are solid. Their conference badge games? Flawless.

But we need to talk.

We’ve been playing small. We’ve been waiting on scraps. We’ve been asking permission to sit at tables we helped design.

Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics just posted a job, Director of Mind Health & Human Wellness, that reads like someone reverse-engineered the OT Practice Framework while binge-watching The Last Dance.

This job was shared by a prominent OT with the caption: “This would be a perfect position for an OT!” And they were right.
But here’s the plot twist: the Celtics didn’t list “OT” anywhere in the post.

Because we’re not in the room.
Because no one’s telling them what we do.
Because when it comes to health and human service policy and practice, we’re still acting like a polite guest in the house of healthcare, not the freaking architect of wellness.

Exhibit A: OTs Belong in Sports, Startups, and Spotify

Look around. Companies are spending millions on “performance coaching,” “behavioral optimization,” and “holistic resilience frameworks.” It’s all OT, but repackaged in sleeker fonts and with less licensure.

We need to go where the juice is. That means:

• Professional sports

• Functional medicine clinics

• Corporate wellness programs

• Mental performance consulting

• Lifestyle apps and wearables

• Digital health platforms

• Integrative pain clinics and brain health startups

It’s not just about branching out. It’s about staking our claim.

Exhibit B: Functional Medicine Is Basically OT in a Lab Coat

Functional medicine wants to get to the root cause of chronic conditions through client-centered routines, meaningful health behavior changes, and daily habit redesign.
Sound familiar?

It’s Lifestyle Redesign, just with a better Instagram filter.

We’ve been trained in:

• Root-cause thinking

• Systems-based intervention

• Personalized, occupation-centered plans

• Collaborative goal setting

• Client empowerment

• Preventative care

So why aren’t we the ones leading functional medicine teams?
Why aren’t we embedded in high-performance labs?
Why aren’t we the go-to professionals when someone says, “I just want to feel better again.”

Because no one’s making that case at scale.

My Proposal: Let’s Run State and National OT Associations Like a Union, Not a Courthouse

If I were the VPMOTCA, here’s what I’d do (Chat GPT Emoji List Incoming):

🔥 1. Launch an “OT Dream Job” Campaign

Let’s crowdsource it.

Ask OT practitioners everywhere: What’s your dream job?
Then analyze:

• Fit with our scope and competencies

• How to position the OT lens

• Barriers to entry or reimbursement

• Strategy to educate employers and legislators

Then we go to work.
Like a union.
Like a movement.
Like a profession that knows it’s the health and wellness authority.

🔥 2. Build a Strategic Partnerships Task Force

An internal team that’s not waiting for government scraps or CPT codes.
They’re talking to:

• Sports organizations

• Tech giants

• Functional medicine certification boards

• HR directors of major corporations

• CMPC trainers and IFM educators

And they’re saying: “We have licensed, credentialed, behavioral health experts ready to lead your programs.”

Because here’s the truth:
Strategic partnerships with high-visibility, high-revenue organizations translate to political recognition.
And political recognition translates to influence.
And influence brings the one thing advocacy needs to scale: funding.

Funding for state-level lobbying.
Funding for public health campaigns.
Funding for community programs led by OTPs, not as guests, but as anchors.

This isn’t about selling out. It’s about making sure the next big health initiative doesn’t forget to invite the people who know how to make life work.

🔥 3. Create the OT Career Matchmaking Service

• Want to work in nutrition? Here’s your roadmap.

• Dream of working in esports? Let’s talk attention and fine motor fatigue.

• Want to be a sleep coach for touring musicians? I’ve got circadian rhythm assessments and backstage passes (DM me if you know a band).

We match passion to possibility. No gatekeeping. No guilt trips. Just pathways and community.

🔥 4. Develop a Functional Medicine & OT Integration Toolkit

Because guess what? Casey Means was appointed as the Surgeon General (If that means nothing to you, buy a copy of her book Good Energy and get ready for a new era of healthcare standards).
We’re already doing this work.
We just need the narrative, the billing guidance, and the community support to scale it.

Give us:

• Sample documentation

• Scope alignment guide

• Language translation for job applications

• Advocacy templates for reimbursement

• Case studies of OTs already doing it

🔥 5. Start Telling Better Stories

We’ve got enough PDFs to sink a kayak.
What we need now are:

• Short-form video case studies

• Punchy podcast episodes

• Blog series from OTPs in emerging roles

• State and National Org-backed social content that slaps (that’s Gen Z for “good enough to share without cringing,” in case your last meme was a Minion in a lab coat)

Occupational therapy is sexy! We just forgot how to sell it.

In Closing:

We are not the waterboys of rehab.
We are not sidekicks to "real doctors."
We are not just post-surgical dressing trainers.

We are experts in daily living.
We are agents of health transformation.
We are the backbone of behavior change.

So if you ever open up that role, Vice President of Making OT Cool Again, just know my inbox is open, my elevator pitch is memorized, and my sock aid is ready for battle.

Let’s take the profession where it belongs:
Front and center in the future of health

.Sincerely,
Matt Brandenburg, OTD, OTR/L
Functional Medicine Fanboy. Sports Enthusiast. VPMOTCA in waiting.
(P.S. I make a mean podcast too).