Pondering a career change.....kindly opine

[Lifes' Curve ball]

Hello all,

I am a 35 year-old male and I have been working in the accounting field for some time. I hold a bachelor's degree but not a CPA. Throughout college, I pondered with the notion between a career in business or healthcare. However, at the time I concluded that a business degree would be a better option since I did not want to be in school forever or incur a ton of debt. I am single, no children and have about $60,000 debt for that business degree.

However, I have been laid off once and I am starting to realize that I probably made a mistake and I am meant to do something else in life. The lay-off really opened my eyes and I question job security in this field. I don't find my accounting career to be fulfilling anymore. I am not bettering peoples lives or making a positive impact. I leave work asking myself, how have I helped society today?
I enjoy learning about the human body and how an illness or injury disrupts the balanced harmony and how PT can intervene and potentially bring back normal function or pretty darn close to it. In addition, I also enjoy building long lasting relationships with people and I have a pretty laid back easy going attitude; with a mindset of serving a client's needs. I have a few inquiries to ask of you. . 1. Am I too old for a career change? It will take me 1 year to complete pre-requisites at my local CC AND 3 years to graduate pt school. I'll be 39 by the time all is said and done. Given everything goes as planned. i.e., getting admitted to pt school and passing all pre-requisites. Also, I'll be giving up my 65k salary and health benefits to return back to school.

2. Is there job security in PT? I want to go to work and not question if I'll get laid off.

3. Are most PTs happy in this career? Overall, I want to be excited about going to work.

4. The cheapest school I found in my area is $78,000 for the entire program. I have $60,000 incurred from undergrad. $78,000 + $60,000 = $138,000 in debt. Yikes! not accounting for accrued interest on those loans.
5. Is being a therapist hard work? Are productivity expectations reasonable? As an accountant, I'm thinking about billable units, patients seen per hour, insurance reimbursement rates, patient retention.

6. Whats' the starting salary for a freshly minted dpt?

7. How has health care reform affected PT?

Thank you!

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[ptbusiness]

1. No! you are not too old for a career change. you will have 20-30 decades to work as a PT after you graduate.
2. You are pretty secure with jobs. Especially if you are not very picky about the setting where you work. Definitely should find something within a month. If you do get laid off, you just go and find something else.
3. There are both happy and unhappy PTs. I have not met miserable ones yet, but I am still at the beginning of my career.
4. Look up PT salaries in your area or wherever you are planning to work and see if the debt is worth your career change. Most PT have a debt nowadays, but I have not heard yet them complaining about struggling financially.
5. It depends on the setting where you work. Some settings are very laid-back, slow, and easy (you may see 1 patient every 90 min) others are super busy and you see 4 patients an hour (crazy outpatient settings which often do not even pay that well).
6. Salaries vary depending on your location. What I have seen in CA is on average $35-45/h outpatient, $40-50 inpatient, $90-110/h home health and travelling PTs.

 

[deleted797640]

you can make some decent money as a travel PT or home health PT. Also, you have the ability to open your own practice and make more if you are business savvy.

 

[kdubz7w7]

Hello all,

I am a 35 year-old male and I have been working in the accounting field for some time. I hold a bachelor's degree but not a CPA. Throughout college, I pondered with the notion between a career in business or healthcare. However, at the time I concluded that a business degree would be a better option since I did not want to be in school forever or incur a ton of debt. I am single, no children and have about $60,000 debt for that business degree.

However, I have been laid off once and I am starting to realize that I probably made a mistake and I am meant to do something else in life. The lay-off really opened my eyes and I question job security in this field. I don't find my accounting career to be fulfilling anymore. I am not bettering peoples lives or making a positive impact. I leave work asking myself, how have I helped society today?
I enjoy learning about the human body and how an illness or injury disrupts the balanced harmony and how PT can intervene and potentially bring back normal function or pretty darn close to it. In addition, I also enjoy building long lasting relationships with people and I have a pretty laid back easy going attitude; with a mindset of serving a client's needs. I have a few inquiries to ask of you. . 1. Am I too old for a career change? It will take me 1 year to complete pre-requisites at my local CC AND 3 years to graduate pt school. I'll be 39 by the time all is said and done. Given everything goes as planned. i.e., getting admitted to pt school and passing all pre-requisites. Also, I'll be giving up my 65k salary and health benefits to return back to school.

2. Is there job security in PT? I want to go to work and not question if I'll get laid off.

3. Are most PTs happy in this career? Overall, I want to be excited about going to work.

4. The cheapest school I found in my area is $78,000 for the entire program. I have $60,000 incurred from undergrad. $78,000 + $60,000 = $138,000 in debt. Yikes! not accounting for accrued interest on those loans.
5. Is being a therapist hard work? Are productivity expectations reasonable? As an accountant, I'm thinking about billable units, patients seen per hour, insurance reimbursement rates, patient retention.

6. Whats' the starting salary for a freshly minted dpt?

7. How has health care reform affected PT?

Thank you!

I'm turning 39 in January, and am finishing up my first year. I will graduate right before I turn 40 - in fact, I'll be taking the boards around my birthday. I am carrying similar debt from a master's degree. And my program is over 100k. I gave up a salary of $68k and a part-time salary of around $12k to do this. Why? I hated what I was doing, and there wasn't anything else I could do within my education and expertise. I wasn't about to spend the rest of my working career miserable, nothing else sounded good and this sounded perfect, so here I am. Is it the financially brightest thing to do? Perhaps not, but I'm not a fancy person so I do not need a rich lifestyle, and if I am happy, financially stable, and am making loan payments every month for a very long time......it is what it is. We didn't all figure out what we want to do at a young age, but that doesn't mean we should be condemned to settling/being unhappy/being unfulfilled for the rest of our lives. I am not thrilled about the debt, but it was by far the lesser of two evils. Idk if that helps, just thought you'd want to know you aren't the only one

 

[snowcrawler85]

look into PTA, get to do the fun stuff, less paperwork, more treatments, good money and less debt

 

[Lifes' Curve ball]

Thank you to those that gave you input! I did look into PTA career, but that seems like taking a few steps backward. And it would take me just as long to complete the pre-requisites for the PTA program and obtain that associates degree if I were to pursue the DPT degree. Is my logic wrong? I have further inquiries; kindly continue reading.

Has anyone worked full-time while taking the pre-requisites part-time (i.e., night school) at their local community college or university? How long did it take you to complete those classes and how many courses did you take in a semester? The PT schools in Illinois (where I reside) all require different pre-requisites; some more than others, which can take an extra semester or so to complete, I suppose. Unfortunately, I cannot quit my current job (in accounting) because I need to pay the bills and most importantly I need health insurance.

Again, pondering a career change to PT at the age of 35.

Regards,

Lifes' curveball

 

[deleted797640]

Thank you to those that gave you input! I did look into PTA career, but that seems like taking a few steps backward. And it would take me just as long to complete the pre-requisites for the PTA program and obtain that associates degree if I were to pursue the DPT degree. Is my logic wrong? I have further inquiries; kindly continue reading.

Has anyone worked full-time while taking the pre-requisites part-time (i.e., night school) at their local community college or university? How long did it take you to complete those classes and how many courses did you take in a semester? The PT schools in Illinois (where I reside) all require different pre-requisites; some more than others, which can take an extra semester or so to complete, I suppose. Unfortunately, I cannot quit my current job (in accounting) because I need to pay the bills and most importantly I need health insurance.

Again, pondering a career change to PT at the age of 35.

Regards,

Lifes' curveball

So this is what you do. Most schools allow you to have 1-3 pre-reqs outstanding when you apply which you plan to take in the future. You could look at the pre-reqs all the schools have in common and complete those prior to applying then leave the ones which are different as planned or in progress with the hopes that you will be accepted prior to registering for a spring semester at a CC then you will know the school you will be attending and will only need to register and complete those pre-reqs. However, if you do not have a strong application already stating you have 3 outstanding pre-reqs could be detrimental to your application. If that is the case I would recommend applying early decision to a specific school and fulfilling all of that schools pre-reqs.

 

[jblil]

OP - I was way older than you when I switched careers to PT.

As for your questions:
- Job security: yes, pretty good job market overall, currently. Of course, desirable areas will have some degree of saturation, esp if there are lots of DPT programs in the vicinity.

- Are most PTs happy?: like with every field, there'll be happy and unhappy folks. I think the ones who are unhappy either work in "mills" where patient care is secondary to milking the most money out of insurance companies, or who had unrealistic expectations of the job: "work with athletes", make $100K+, minimal paperwork, etc.

- Is it hard work?: It depends on your frame of reference. If you were digging ditches before becoming a PT, this job is a dream come true. If you were a trust-fund baby before, you'll probably hate the job.

- Starting pay: it depends on several factors, but $65k-$70k seems to be the average unless you live in a very high COL area, or work in a mill/SNF.

- Health care reform affecting PT: nobody knows.

You're in accounting so you can run the numbers and see if they'll work out for you. As for me, I left a high-paying but stressful job to become a PT and so far I have no regrets.