Deception in the Physical Therapy Profession
Have you seen the statement, “we offer one-on-one therapy” on a website or at a PT clinic and assumed it meant that you would get to spend a full hour with a physical therapist. Did it motivate you to try them out? Were you disappointed? For me, it wasn’t until I worked at a clinic making that claim, that I understood how deceiving that statement can be.
Many physical therapists have been experiencing frustration with productivity requirements and process protocols in corporate owned PT clinics or large multi location clinics that prevent them from giving patients the kind of quality care they know is best. Many are getting completely burned out in only a few short years.
That reality is creating a trend towards small PT owned cash-pay clinics that make the legitimate claim of providing a full hour of one-on-one therapy with the physical therapist. The larger clinics are feeling the effects of this trend and their patients are asking if they’ll get that personal attention as well. So, as a result, some who do not embrace the true meaning of that statement advertise that they also offer one-on-one services. But what does that really mean when they say it?
They do offer individual time with a physical therapist for the initial evaluation. After that, you can expect to be scheduled typically with a PTA (physical therapy assistant), but only for 20-30 minutes, followed by a half hour with a PT-tech who has no skilled education at all, and may be working with 2-3 patients at one time. Geriatric patients that require more guidance or have balance issues often do not end up with adequate oversight and therefore cannot spend time on the most effective exercises, resulting in inefficiencies that result in longer recovery times.
I often would only be able to see a patient after the initial evaluation every two to three visits or so, unless that patient insisted on only seeing me. Many clinics operate with only a handful of physical therapists and many PTA’s and PT-techs. We are expected to supervise both PTA’s and PT-techs, while also seeing our own patients. I found it very difficult to give patients the time and attention they deserved.
So, when a clinic advertises one-on-one time, it begs the follow-up questions of one-on-one time with who and for how long? What are that person’s qualifications? And how many patients do the techs typically oversee at one time? It’s important to do your due diligence because there are big differences between different PT clinics.
It’s so unfortunate that our mainstream medical system is forcing skilled practitioners to take lower payments for their services. It has caused too many doctors to operate with NP’s and PA’s, and too many PT clinics to operate with PTA’s and PT-techs. The system is broken and that is why there is a huge shift to concierge, cash-pay, and hybrid practices that reject productivity standards and spend the time for true one-on-one quality care from skilled medical practitioners.
