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Kinda depends on your ethics and drive. The vast majority of procedures that insurers will reimburse for have to be billed as a CPT code - this is true for most medical professions. The PT has a set of codes under the PM&R section of CPT codes (eg: therapeutic exercise, neuromuscular reeducation, ultrasound, etc.) that they bill to the ins. company. These are usually in 15 minute increments, so if I see you for 30 minutes of strengthening, I bill 2 units of ther. ex. In addition, most of the CPT codes used by rehab providers have the definition "per 15 minutes of one on one contact with patient". Herein lies the ethics part of my statement...if you...ummm...don't remember the "one on one" part of the CPT code description for the service you're providing, you can EASILY see 3 (or often MANY more) patients at once, running from one to another, within a short period of time. That's the drive part of my first sentence - if you're not treating one on one, and you feel that you can see multiple patients at once, your drive is the only limit to the money you can make (that is, until someone catches you). A very typical, oft-seen scenerio, is 4 "easy" patients (minor hand injuries, very bacis ortho) in a half hour block of time. Start one or two on a resistance exercise, then put the other two on electric stim or a hot pack, and then adjust the treatments as necessary for the rest of the time with the patients. A poor payor source, like Medicare, would pay around 45 dollars per patient. 45x4=180. That's 180 ducats in 30 minutes...nice return on investment...
I graduated with a guy that made 250k his second year in practice as a PT in NYC....
dc
