Question on Payscale...

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thorn22

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So I was browsing around looking for median salaries for Physical Therapy and came across this website.

http://about.salary.com/salarywizar...=1&isforcompanalyst=1&r=about_swzresbtn_psr&p=

If you look in the box on the left side, it says the Median for Denver, CO is $73,500, while the national average is $69,900. I know that this is not the median for new graduates, but are these amounts accurate? I was under the impression that PT's made A LOT less than this, maybe around the 55k-70k range after a few years of experience, and around 50k right out of school.

The report says it is as of February 2009. Is this too good to be true?

Would love to hear your thoughts
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Although I am only a student (not a PT yet), it really depends on location, as well as what you are getting in to. I did a lot of shadowing in different PT settings and was NOT shy in asking each PT how much the salaries were. In the pediatrics setting, the girls I shadowed said they only made around $45,000...but it was also because they did not work 40 hour weeks. On the otherhand, I shadowed a clinic manager who spent his weekends doing some travel work and he was making around $80,000 a year. Somewhere in between, I shadowed an ortho making $65k at 40 hours a week. On top of all this, it depends where you work. If your in california, you can easily hit $70-$80k a year. In New York, more like $60k...

One experience a friend of mine had was that he had a dozen offers a week to be a PT from multiple private places who actually had a bidding war on his salary. As a new grad he was making $70,000 a year. This was in South Florida.
 
Its also important to remember that at Hospitals, you get bonus' and pay raises. So just becuase you make 70,000 a year doesn't mean it stays like that year after year after year. You can slowly work your way up the chain to a higher salary.
 
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I dont know about ya'll but 60K is huge. So when I see 70k-80k I'm like, WHAT!?

Anyway, when I was volunteering, the person I shadowed had her phones blowing up from people asking her to relocate here, relocate there to work for them. She told me that once they start doing that, you can really negotiate your salary, even their loan forgiveness. Like PharmDan said, this was in Florida also.
 
While I agree that 60K is not a bad salary, you have to put it in perspective; you are accumulating an upwards of 100K in student loan debt for school and living expenses. It doesnt take a mathemetician to see that once interest starts being applied once you graduate, it could take quite a few years to pay this off.

This is rather different if you come out of medical school making in the 6 figures. I imagine it would be a lot easier to pay off your debt then.

It is all relative.
 
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