A Physical Therapist's Daily Workload?

[flyingsquirrel]

Hello,

I currently work as a PT aide, and most of our therapist will work 30mins/patient with 30min for regular eval or 1 hr evals for spine. We have an average of 15 patients per day with your typical 9-5 day. There is also a 30 min block for paperwork in the middle of the day to catch up. The therapist would also stay an hour or so after work to finish paperwork. Our aides "float" between patients and typically work with patients right after treatment.

From what I know, 2pts/hour is pretty standard, and yet to me this still seems like a very high workload. I mean, the therapist barely have time to use the restroom and could sometimes miss half their lunch because some patients simply need more time. In the end of the day, paperwork gets stacked and you come home with work (unpaid of course).

I know it can be worst, how do other clinics work with 4/pts hour? I can't even imagine. What kind of treatment quality do you get?

I just recently been accepted to PT school, and I love PT + the one on one interaction and clinical reasoning. However, it seems like most PT places are factories, and if I wanted to do that, I could easily make more money with less debt in a non-pt career.

How is your clinic workload?

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[nicolej5]

Hello,

I currently work as a PT aide, and most of our therapist will work 30mins/patient with 30min for regular eval or 1 hr evals for spine. We have an average of 15 patients per day with your typical 9-5 day. There is also a 30 min block for paperwork in the middle of the day to catch up. The therapist would also stay an hour or so after work to finish paperwork. Our aides "float" between patients and typically work with patients right after treatment.

From what I know, 2pts/hour is pretty standard, and yet to me this still seems like a very high workload. I mean, the therapist barely have time to use the restroom and could sometimes miss half their lunch because some patients simply need more time. In the end of the day, paperwork gets stacked and you come home with work (unpaid of course).

I know it can be worst, how do other clinics work with 4/pts hour? I can't even imagine. What kind of treatment quality do you get?

I just recently been accepted to PT school, and I'm love PT and the one on one interaction and clinical reasoning. However, it seems like most PT places are factories, and if I wanted to do that, I could easily make more money with less debt in a non-pt career.

How is your clinic workload?

you should probably ask this question on the other forum.

 

[ems7]

Hello,

I currently work as a PT aide, and most of our therapists will work 30min/patient with 30min for regular eval or 1 hr evals for spine. We have an average of 15 patients per day with your typical 9-5 day. There is also a 30 min block for paperwork in the middle of the day to catch up. The therapist would also stay an hour or so after work to finish paperwork. Our aides "float" between patients and typically work with patients right after treatment.

From what I know, 2pts/hour is pretty standard, and yet to me this still seems like a very high workload. I mean, the therapist barely have time to use the restroom and could sometimes miss half their lunch because some patients simply need more time. In the end of the day, paperwork gets stacked and you come home with work (unpaid of course).

I know it can be worst, how do other clinics work with 4/pts hour? I can't even imagine. What kind of treatment quality do you get?

I just recently been accepted to PT school, and I love PT + the one on one interaction and clinical reasoning. However, it seems like most PT places are factories, and if I wanted to do that, I could easily make more money with less debt in a non-pt career.

How is your clinic workload?

I've been working at a tech for about a year now in a really successful outpatient facility. We have 6 therapists who working during the day as well as a PTA. Most of the therapists will have patients coming in every 30 mins, but the patients stick around for about an hour. Therefore, for the first 30 minutes of the patient's appt. will typically be spent with the therapist themselves as they receive manual therapy.

Whenever the PT's next patient arrives, they will either pass off the flow sheet of exercises to one of us techs (there are 3 on the job at a time because it is so busy) to help them finish their activities, set them up on modalities, etc. The only time a therapist will spend an hour with a patient is usually only for an EVAL.

During times when it is really busy, a therapist could have up to 3 patients there at once (if one shows up late, my boss finds it highly unacceptable to turn them away, causing a 'back-up' in the PT's schedule). I understand that turning patients away is 'bad for business', but at the same time, they will not be receiving the attention and quality treatment they deserve if forced into a shorter time slot. Now I'm getting off topic, but anyways, I thought this might give you another perspective!

On average, I would estimate about 80 patients/day come through for therapy. Our hours are 7am-7pm.

Erin

 

[easb]

I have been volunteering in a rehab center for elder people for a few months. Therapists always spend 100% of their time with one patient, regardless how serious their injuries are. I have seen maybe 5 times during those months that one therapist was working with 2 patients at a time.Their work usually looks pretty laid-back and they take their time to see patients and do paperwork.
I believe if you do homehealth, you will also be able to fully devote yourself to your patients.
As for outpatient facilities...The one where I was had 2-3 patients per therapist per hour. They had one aid and 3 therapists. Therapists were usually "treating" patients and doing paper work at the same time. It did not look good to me because they would leave patients in the excercise room, for example, and go to another room to treat their 2nd patient.