See The Trainer

When a patient walks out of an orthopedic surgeon's office, a sports medicine clinic, or a physical therapy practice needing a knee brace, compression garment, or rehabilitation device, they face a fragmented, confusing supply chain that most clinics are ill-equipped to manage. That is the precise problem See The Trainer has spent nearly three decades solving. Founded in 1996 by Maurie Maher, See The Trainer entered the market as a specialized provider of orthopedic, sports medicine, and durable medical equipment, embedding itself directly into physician offices and rehabilitation clinics through a managed inventory-and-billing model that removes the operational burden of soft goods management from clinical staff entirely. The national franchise system is headquartered at 13106 W. Dodge Rd., Omaha, NE 68154, operating under the parent entity STT FRANCHISE SVCS, INC., with active franchise locations across Nebraska (Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Columbus, North Platte), Iowa (Council Bluffs), South Dakota (Vermillion and the newly announced Sioux Falls location as of September 2025), California (Torrance), Colorado (Kremmling), and Oklahoma (Edmond). As of current data, See The Trainer operates 6 franchised units with zero company-owned locations, making it an entirely franchisee-driven system with a lean corporate footprint. The franchise operates within a total addressable market that spans physical therapy services, durable medical equipment distribution, and orthopedic soft goods — a combined market space that touches segments valued collectively in the hundreds of billions of dollars globally. For franchise investors evaluating niche healthcare service opportunities with genuine recurring demand, low direct-to-consumer competition, and a B2B embedded clinic model, See The Trainer represents a distinctly differentiated concept in a category dominated by generalist providers. This analysis is produced independently by PeerSense and contains no sponsored content or promotional consideration from the franchisor.

The industry landscape surrounding the See The Trainer franchise opportunity is defined by powerful, multi-decade secular tailwinds that show no signs of reversing. The global physical therapy market was valued at USD 28.06 billion in 2024, grew to USD 29.18 billion in 2025, and is projected to reach USD 41.54 billion by 2034, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 4% through the forecast period. The broader occupational and physical therapy services market — which includes the outpatient rehabilitation segment where See The Trainer's clinic partners operate — is anticipated to grow from $57.6 billion in 2024 to $98.2 billion by 2034, representing a CAGR of approximately 5.5%. North America captured 39.5% of the global physical therapy market revenue share in 2024, confirming that the United States remains the dominant geography for this category and validating See The Trainer's U.S.-first expansion strategy. Orthopedic physical therapy, which is the precise subspecialty most aligned with See The Trainer's product line, dominated the physical therapy market by therapy type with a 31.5% share in 2024 — the largest single segment within the space. Consumer trends further accelerate demand: the aging U.S. population, the rising prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders, increasing surgical volumes, and a documented shift toward non-pharmacological treatment options are all direct demand drivers for orthopedic soft goods, bracing, and rehabilitation equipment. Approximately 61% of patients now seek structured therapy programs, and with the number of Americans aged 65 and older projected to grow substantially over the next decade, the patient population requiring durable medical equipment will expand correspondingly. The competitive landscape for clinic-embedded DME management remains fragmented, with most practices either managing soft goods internally at low efficiency or relying on ad hoc vendor relationships — a structural gap that purpose-built models like See The Trainer are positioned to fill systematically and profitably.

The See The Trainer franchise investment range spans from $77,500 on the low end to $2.41 million on the high end, a spread wide enough to warrant careful analysis of what drives the variance. The lower end of that range likely reflects a lean market-entry configuration — possibly a mobile or territory-based model with limited physical buildout — while the upper range accommodates a fully built-out retail and clinical service center with vehicle delivery fleet infrastructure, staffing scale, and equipment inventory. To contextualize these figures against category peers, consider that comparable fitness and therapy franchise investments in the broader health services space carry investment ranges from $85,000 (Special Strong, lower bound) to over $1.28 million (Vaura Pilates, upper bound), with franchise fees in the $59,500 to $100,000 range and royalty structures typically running 6% to 8% of gross sales. The See The Trainer franchise cost structure — specific franchise fee, royalty rate, and advertising fund contribution — is not publicly broadcast but is disclosed directly to qualified prospects through a formal application and video presentation process managed through the franchisor's national headquarters under Maurie Maher's direction. This selective disclosure process is consistent with healthcare-adjacent franchise models that require vetted operator profiles and is not uncommon among medically-oriented franchise systems. What is known is that the model's financial architecture is designed to be capital-accessible across multiple operator profiles, with the $77,500 floor suggesting that entry is feasible for entrepreneurs who do not require the scale of a full retail flagship. Investors should note that the wide investment range makes pre-application financial modeling difficult, and direct engagement with the franchisor to obtain the full Franchise Disclosure Document is an essential first step before any capital commitment analysis can be completed with precision. Veterans, women, and mission-aligned healthcare professionals may find particular resonance with the brand given its leadership example: Kristie Egan, owner and president of See The Trainer Midwest, is a locally and women-owned operator whose 2020 purchase of the Omaha location — after nearly 13 years as an employee — was celebrated by franchisor Maurie Maher as the first employee-to-owner transition in the system's history.

The See The Trainer operating model is built on a B2B service delivery architecture that is structurally distinct from most consumer-facing franchise concepts, and understanding that distinction is critical for evaluating fit. The core service delivery mechanism is the "Stock and Bill" program, through which See The Trainer franchisees assume full responsibility for managing the soft goods inventory within partner physician offices and rehabilitation clinics — monitoring stock levels, ordering and restocking product, delivering via a vehicle fleet, and submitting insurance claims on behalf of dispensed items. This program carries zero upfront costs to the clinic partner, making physician and practice adoption frictionless and creating a recurring revenue relationship that renews automatically through ongoing patient care activity. The product catalog spans over 60,000 orthopedic products sourced from more than 80 manufacturers, giving franchisees vendor-neutral flexibility to meet diverse clinical needs without being locked into a single supply relationship. On the billing side, See The Trainer's medical billing specialists handle all insurance claim submission and follow-up for dispensed soft goods, operating as an authorized Medicare provider and carrying provider relationships with over 1,600 insurers nationwide, while also accepting all major credit cards and offering payment options for uninsured patients. Staffing for a See The Trainer franchise therefore requires personnel competent in medical billing, inventory logistics, and clinical product consultation — a specialized labor profile distinct from general retail or fitness franchise staffing. The corporate support structure emphasizes decades of experience in medical product management, partnerships with certified orthotic providers, full compliance with insurance, federal, and industry regulatory requirements, and a dedicated support team accessible for inventory and billing questions. Training specifics are conveyed through the franchisor's onboarding process rather than public disclosure, but the operational framework — including 24-hour customer service infrastructure and a vehicle delivery fleet model — suggests a support architecture designed to replicate the successful Omaha and Lincoln location models in new geographies.

Item 19 financial performance data is not disclosed in the current Franchise Disclosure Document for See The Trainer. This means the franchisor has elected not to publish average unit revenue, median gross sales, or profitability benchmarks in the FDD, and prospective franchisees cannot rely on franchisor-provided earnings claims when conducting their investment analysis. The absence of Item 19 disclosure is a material data gap that investors must account for in due diligence, and it is not unique to See The Trainer — many emerging or small-system franchises in healthcare and DME distribution do not yet have sufficient location-level data uniformity or legal comfort with public performance disclosure to include Item 19. To construct a revenue estimate framework in the absence of FDD disclosure, analysts can reference industry benchmarks for comparable DME supply and orthopedic soft goods operations. The physical therapy and occupational therapy services market operates at revenue per outpatient location typically in the $500,000 to $1.5 million annual range, while DME distributors embedded in clinical settings can generate revenue streams that are fundamentally recurring — tied not to consumer discretionary spending but to physician-directed patient care episodes that repeat across the patient lifecycle. The See The Trainer model's competitive advantage in revenue generation lies in its insurance reimbursement infrastructure: by accepting Medicare and operating as a credentialed provider with over 1,600 insurance carriers, the revenue base is substantially insulated from the price sensitivity that affects consumer retail DME businesses. What the wide investment range of $77,500 to $2.41 million does suggest is that the system accommodates meaningfully different scale configurations, and that franchisee revenue outcomes will vary significantly based on the number of clinic accounts served, geographic density, and the scale of the vehicle delivery and billing infrastructure deployed. Investors conducting due diligence on See The Trainer franchise revenue potential should seek to speak directly with existing franchisees in Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Council Bluffs, and Torrance to gather firsthand performance data, and should request audited or reviewed financials as permitted under FDD Item 19 regulations and state disclosure laws.

The growth trajectory of See The Trainer reflects a deliberate, relationship-driven expansion model rather than rapid unit proliferation, and that pace carries both risk and strategic logic worth examining carefully. Beginning with founder Maurie Maher's 1996 launch, the system has grown to 10 active or announced locations across Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, California, Colorado, and Oklahoma, with the 6 formally counted franchised units reflecting the most current validated figure and additional locations in various stages of operation or announcement. The most recent expansion signals are clearly positive: Zane Brugenhemke and his wife Michelle launched the Edmond, Oklahoma franchise in 2024, extending the brand's geographic footprint into the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, while Tyler Brown was announced as the new owner of See The Trainer Sioux Falls, SD, in a news release dated September 23, 2025, marking continued Midwest and Plains region expansion. The brand's competitive moat is constructed around proprietary operational infrastructure — the insurance billing credentialing with 1,600 carriers, the vendor-neutral relationships with over 80 manufacturers, the Medicare provider authorization, and the 24-hour customer service and vehicle delivery fleet architecture — all of which create meaningful barriers to replication by independent would-be competitors. A physician practice that integrates See The Trainer's Stock and Bill program into its workflow develops an operational dependency on the service that creates high switching costs and durable account retention. The partnership with Nebraska Cancer Specialists' Occupational Therapy program in Legacy, where See The Trainer has become the primary referral source for medical compression garments, exemplifies the strategic value of becoming the embedded, trusted provider within specialty clinical programs. At 6 franchised units and zero corporate-owned locations, See The Trainer is categorized by the current FPI Score of 21, indicating a limited-scale system — a designation that reflects size rather than performance quality, but one that investors should weigh against the growth capital and operational risk profile of any emerging franchise.

The ideal See The Trainer franchisee is not a passive investor seeking an absentee revenue stream, nor is it a fitness enthusiast looking for a consumer-facing studio concept. The operational complexity of insurance billing, medical product compliance, physician relationship management, and logistics coordination demands an owner-operator profile with either a clinical, healthcare administration, or medical sales background — or the capacity to hire specialized staff in those disciplines from day one. Kristie Egan's career trajectory — from associate to billing manager to office manager to COO to owner over 13 years — illustrates the learning curve and domain expertise the model requires, though it also demonstrates that the business can be built through internal development rather than requiring pre-existing clinical credentials from the franchisee principal. Territory selection is an active part of the franchise application process, with the franchisor's website requesting desired franchise location as part of the intake form, suggesting exclusive or protected geographic territories are structured into the franchise agreement. The markets where See The Trainer has established presence — Omaha metro, Lincoln, the broader Nebraska plains, suburban Oklahoma City, greater Los Angeles (Torrance), and the Sioux Falls metro — suggest a strategy of targeting mid-size cities and suburban healthcare corridors with dense outpatient clinic and physician office infrastructure rather than attempting high-cost gateway-city entries. Multi-unit development potential exists within this model given the account-based B2B structure, where a single franchisee could theoretically expand coverage territory by adding delivery routes and billing staff rather than opening entirely new physical locations, though formal multi-unit program details require direct franchisor disclosure. The timeline from franchise agreement execution to operational launch will depend heavily on the time required to secure insurance credentialing, establish clinic partnerships, and build out the vehicle delivery logistics infrastructure.

The See The Trainer franchise opportunity occupies a specific and defensible niche within the healthcare services franchise landscape — one where demand is structurally driven by demographics, clinical necessity, and insurance reimbursement cycles rather than by consumer mood or discretionary spending. With the global physical therapy market projected to reach $41.54 billion by 2034, the occupational and therapy services market growing from $57.6 billion to $98.2 billion over the same period, and orthopedic physical therapy commanding the largest single segment share at 31.5% of the physical therapy market, the macro environment for a clinic-embedded orthopedic DME franchise is genuinely favorable over a multi-year investment horizon. The investment range of $77,500 to $2.41 million accommodates a variety of operator configurations, and the B2B account model — with zero upfront cost to clinic partners and insurance-reimbursed revenue streams spanning over 1,600 carriers — creates a recurring revenue foundation that differentiates this concept from consumer-facing retail health franchises. Serious investors will need to account for the absence of Item 19 financial disclosure, the current FPI Score of 21 indicating a limited-scale system, and the specialized operational requirements of medical billing compliance and DME logistics. These are material due diligence considerations, not disqualifying factors, but they require more intensive pre-investment research than a mature, high-disclosure franchise system would demand. PeerSense provides exclusive due diligence data including SBA lending history, FPI score, location maps with Google ratings, FDD financial data, and side-by-side comparison tools that allow investors to benchmark See The Trainer against comparable healthcare service and DME franchise concepts with precision. Explore the complete See The Trainer franchise profile on PeerSense to access the full suite of independent franchise intelligence data.