State of the Present PT Profession
A previous poster complained that his PT was not doing very much to treat his ankle injury other than telling him to do exercises at the clinic.Sadly, this type of experience is becoming very common in PT clinics. The reason that PTs are doing less and less “hands on” treatment is simply a matter of economics. They can make more money whey they use assistants and aides to do much of their work, thus they can treat (and bill) several patients at once. They rarely use modalities anymore since Medicare cut down on the amounts reimbursed for them, thus PTs don’t want to waste time doing anything for which they will not be maximally reimbursed. Funny how moist heat, ultrasound, E-stim, manual therapy, etc. were so necessary until the Medicare changes: now all they do is give the patients exercises to do. It is a shame that so many PTs put money above the welfare of their patients. I challenge any of the PTs to dispute the facts above.
1 Comment found
May PT
Hello Fellow PT…yes, I agree with you…outpatient clinics have become “people mills”. I have the luxury, if you will, of working in an LTAC (long term acute care hospital), where I have lots of hands on and one on one interaction with all my patients. I love this type of therapy and would not give it up for the outpatient clinics. However, I did start up an outpatient clinic and supervised it for a year and at that stage of the game I was able to give complete hands on care and the outcomes were so much better. Yes, you’ve seen a lot of changes and I have too in my short 12 years of my career. Like you said, bottom line is the $$$…not the people.