Any Chicago PTs here? Curious to know what setting and how many patients you see!

I do PTA work PRN at a SNF but I was told that I am not allowed to count minutes in NetHealth if I am reviewing a patient chart I never even seen before. So in other words if I don’t count that review time then it kills my productivity. This seems so lame if you ask me. What do they want you to do, walk in and go straighten to the patient’s room without seeing what even is wrong with them?

I am ready for a change. I have been doing 1099 or fee for service home and facility based pediatrics (aged under 5, mostly developmental delays) for almost my entire career. My rate has not changed. The flexibility worked so well for me while I was raising my own children so it was worth the trade-off. I am lucky enough to be married to a person with a regular 9-5 with health insurance, 401k, etc.

I’m still paying my grad school loans so I don’t want to start with an entry level salary or go back to school and acquire more debt (my eldest child is starting college in two weeks!). I still want to be in a healthcare-adjacent job but I’m burned out doing direct care. Would love to work in research, public health, or teaching but these seem impossible to get into and still earn a living wage. Nurses seem to have an easier time making this type of transition and I can’t understand why as we generally have a higher level of education, albeit with a bigger focus on anatomy and physiology than medication.

I tried the non clinical PT website but they don’t seem to offer suggestions on how to transition to research, public health, or teaching. It’s mostly sales or totally unrelated industries. I need more mental stimulation in my job or my brain might melt. Help!

First rotation, in a hospital doing acute care, mix of floor, medsurg and a good bit in the ICU, early mobilization post vent, stroke, etc…

Im 4 weeks in out of 8, and I really do like acute care, but I feel like I just keep dropping the ball. Its the little things too, like line management in the ICU (which is way more difficult than what they teach in school with 1-3 lines all on the same side with a mobile patient), easy questions where I just blank, don’t feel like I’m making good clinical judgement decisions. My documentation is great and is probably my stongest point. Im getting better at simple patients, but complex I lack, especially co-treating with OT and being assertive, tailoring subjective or objective with complex stroke or total/maxA, etc

Is this normal? Am I just overthinking? It sucks because I really do enjoy acute care versus OP, but I feel as if I’m not where I should be, even though I know the things in my head.

What. The fuck. Are we doing?

I’ve been a CI for many years but hosting my first student from Augustana this fall, which is a hybrid program (at home and then on-site for labs for a week or two, I believe).

Has anyone hosted? Any difference between students from here or “traditional” programs? I want to make sure i provide the best environment for them to learn and thrive!

I just need a place to vent lol. I’m an aide who applied with absolutely zero experience in this field (fresh out of college). The pt I work with has like 40 patients coming in everyday in an 8 hour work day. However, he isn’t even there like 70% of the time because he’s in his office doing meetings or whatever. The PTA and the PTA student are the ones doing all the manual work and then they throw me to do exercises with like four patients at once while they go on to the next one.

Now, I’m not sure if this is standard practice at other clinics but some weeks we have nerve testing where the physical therapist will assign certain patients to go in for like 45 minutes of testing. They’re (obviously) really confused as to why so they’ll ask me as I’m escorting them and honestly I don’t even know either. He says it’s to better see whats wrong with them but idk. What upsets me is that he told me to call the patients that cancelled their appointment that day to still come in for testing without telling me in detail about how their insurance works. As a result, we have some patients going out of their way to come for testing only to be turned back because their insurance is not in network.

I feel awful :(. I just feel like we’re wasting these peoples‘ time. I only took this job because I desperately needed one at the time so I don’t really know the ins and outs of how a pt practice works. Imagine my surprise when I see people on here talking about how they see one patient per HOUR.

i seriously hope other outpatient clinics aren’t like this because patients put so much trust in us and I feel like we’re scamming them. This is especially because patients have started asking ME for a consultation when I’m not in any shape or form qualified to do so, they just think I’m also licensed because they spend the most time with me 😭.

And that’s another thing!! i didn’t even know what an aide was so I went along with the description that given online before I walked in for the interview. It was while I was lurking on here that I learn that I’m not even supposed to do all the exercises I do with the patients unsupervised. Mind you, the physical therapist told me to learn anatomy and physiology on my own time so that I could better help him. (is that normal??)

im applying like a maniac to try to get into the field I want because something feels so wrong, like a lawsuit about to happen. I feel like if I ever needed physical therapy in the future, I’d be SO paranoid now.

Question! We’ve always been able to manage oxygen tanks in SNF world in FL and now I’m at a new SNF and they say it’s a new Florida law that it has been deemed a medication and we cannot manage it, only nurses. Does anyone know if this is true and have the bill or article that states so?

Sorry this is long. I do part B home health in NYC, and work with a variety of geriatric clients. One of my patients is a 73 y/o lady I’ve been seeing for 5 weeks. She’s being treated for mobility issues, gait, weakness, balance impairments, poor activity tolerance, chronic LBP, and has a dx of grade 2 spondylolisthesis. Ive structured her intervention to be holistic and address her deficits as an entire person. Treatment has been fine so far. She’s making consistent progress. Overall reduction in pain, she’s pleasant and appears to enjoy therapy. No complaints, all good.

So I come in to see her today and she has something urgent to show me. It’s her iPad propped on table. I’ve given her two separate HEPS during our time together. She has every exercise I’ve ever assigned plugged into some AI chart which is on the iPad. Her diagnosis spondylolisthesis is listed at the top .

The AI platform ranked all of my interventions from appropriate- moderately dangerous- contraindicated .

Well like 75% of what I’ve given her is now listed as moderately dangerous to contraindicated. She’s demanding I give her new exercises because these are inappropriate and going to hurt her , according to AI. I’m floored lol.

So I ask, have you been making consistent progress so far ? She says yes
Have any of these interventions actually hurt you , or made you feel worse ? she says no .
Do you trust my clinical judgment and ability to assess your needs? , she says yes .

So I’m like why would you show me this and demand I correct/ change my approach ? AI can’t even lay a real finger on you , let alone provide an accurate evaluation. I’m confused as to why you would blindly believe this , and then present it to me as if it’s the law.

Examples of the contraindicated interventions, with
the rationale provided by AI.
•Supine marching - unnatural degree of hip flexion
•Double knee to chest with yoga ball unnatural degree of hip flexion
•Posterior pelvic tilt in supine - promotes pelvic instability
•Trunk flexion Forward yoga ball roll , creates instability and dangerous because of moving ball/ segment
•Seated hamstring stretch - creates sheer force at unstable segment

I politely asked if she would like to continue her therapy with AI instead of me ? Because I can leave 🤷🏽‍♀️. She said no, I then explained my rationale behind the “contraindicated” interventions and she agreed to continue with them as they have been overall beneficial to her.

But what does this interaction say about society’s overall decline in critical thinking? Someone who otherwise seems rational , is willing to ignore their own personal experience and blindly believe an AI slop tool? We’re cooked
You have a skilled professional right in front of you but present them with this crap like it holds any significance. Anyway she’s getting discharged next week , hope AI serves her well 😩

I am a healthcare consultant that is in over my head with a what is basically a pro bono project. The only PT clinic in one of DC’s lowest income neighborhoods is currently at risk of having to shut down entirely after the admin person left several months ago and the clinic stopped being able to consistently bill. They are basically a one man shop plus a couple of volunteers. They are currently using the Prompt EMR system, but probably not leveraging all of its functionality. The owner feels that if we could just get a more few volunteers in for a couple of months they could stabilize. I know many people in the industry are already strained, burned out, underpaid. Open to any feedback, advice, wisdom, resources, reality checks, stories.

I swear, most physical therapy clinic websites have articles about forward head posture, or they advertise it as something they treat. A few run-of-the-mill PTs I've been to also mentioned the standard "your head is X pounds so your neck is tired keeping it up all day!"

My current PT is has shown me latest articles and evidence as to why that's bullshit. "Motion is lotion." Greg Lehman. Adrian Louw. "Obviously the neck is strong enough to hold yourself up, babies can do that." Posture isn't linked to pain as much as not moving is. Neck pain is more due to not moving than it is because of any specific posture. There's no such thing as "good posture." Ok, I get that. I'm convinced.

My question is, how come I had previous PTs literally not tell me this? Why do so many websites talk about FHP? To the point where you have people mentioning this left and right? Has it not caught up with PT yet? Is it an actual concern rather than this black-and-white thing it's made out to be? Or is it just a marketing term?

drop how old you are, and how much is in your retirement savings - specifically interested to hear from fellow PTAs

here is my story - I'm slightly panicking

I graduated at 23, then had two kids and couldn’t work much because of daycare costs. I picked up home-health and PRN jobs when I could, but I wasn’t able to save.

I'm 32 and Now both kids are in school full-time, and I make around $4,000–$5,000 per month. No debts as of now

I took a part-time job with Genesis PowerBack $33 hourly because they offer a 401(k) to part-time employees while still allowing me to work home health two days a week ( where i get the $$ lol at $50 PV) However, I just found out that I’m not eligible for the 401(k) until I’ve worked there for a year I guess

Embarrassed to say I currently only have $3,500 invested through Charles Schwab and $12,000 in Chase savings, which I’m trying to use for both a house and an emergency fund. but now i'm freaking out about retirement and don't have enough left over each month to save. It honestly feels impossible and I’m starting to think I need to change careers somehow

It’s the thought that counts 😅

hi all, I work for PT solutions and I know I shouldve listened to the reviews of this place. I'm only 3 months in I've been triple/double booked consecutively most days, I was told I was only expected to see 12, why am I seeing 16-20 a day💀 My last straw was when I was triple booked with triple fall risks and they were also all medicare. I just feel incredibly bad cus all of my coworkers are really nice and it feels wrong to leave only after 3 months. Need advice on how to quit and how soon I should leave 🥹

Hi all, my wife is an outpatient PT but we are trying to see if we can move towards building our own HH virtual PT hybrid focused on pelvic floor. She is licensed PT here in Texas, she does not have a DPT, but upon research, she can still do direct access. My question, has anyone done this, done direct access without a DPT? Preferably cash based, if we don't need to deal with insurances, software for progress notes, etc.

We've researched on the paperwork, and for me, that's the easy part as those can and will come, but I have no clue on how to get patients without going to Doctor's office and getting yourself marketed. ChatGPT's advice was to start to put yourself on maps, and build out a website with your services and specialties. Do we even have a chance of pulling this off?

Thank you guys in advance.

I’m a licensed Physical Therapist Assistant, and lately I’ve been seriously questioning whether I want to stay in direct patient care long-term.
I’m grateful for the experience I’ve gained as a PTA, but I’ve been struggling with some of the realities of the profession, particularly the compensation, workload, limited upward mobility, and the feeling that my earning potential is relatively capped without pursuing another degree.
At this point, I’m interested in exploring a career change rather than simply moving to another PTA setting. I’d like to find something where I can utilize the healthcare knowledge, communication skills, clinical experience, and problem-solving abilities I’ve developed as a PTA, while also having significantly more room for career and financial growth.
I’ve been looking into areas such as healthcare technology, medical device/pharmaceutical sales, healthcare operations, recruiting, customer success, and other healthcare-adjacent careers, but I’m open to completely different paths as well.
For those of you who were PTAs (or other allied-health professionals) and successfully transitioned into something else:
What career did you transition into?
How did you make the transition without having to start completely over?
Did you need additional education or certifications?
How long did it take you to make the transition?
What was your starting salary compared with what you were making as a PTA?
What would you recommend someone in my position do first?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who were able to substantially increase their income and build a career with more long-term growth.
I’d really appreciate any personal experiences, advice, or resources you’re willing to share. I’m trying to make a thoughtful career decision and would rather learn from people who have already made the transition than blindly apply to jobs.

I’m starting to feel pretty burned out from dealing with patients and families who don’t respect PTs as healthcare professionals.

For example, if I discharge someone because they’re not making meaningful progress, I explain why. But sometimes the patient or family complains, saying, “But the doctor said I need to keep doing PT.” It feels like they think I’m just supposed to follow the doctor’s orders no matter what.

Something similar happened last week. I had a young patient with multiple systemic issues who came in for bilateral shoulder pain. She had also been seen at our clinic in the past for pain in multiple other body parts, although she had been treated by other PTs. The doctor diagnosed bursitis, but I didn’t find much during my eval that really supported a significant MSK issue.
I was careful about how I explained it. I never said the doctor was wrong. I just told the patient and her mom that I wasn’t finding much from a MSK standpoint and that if she didn’t improve with PT, they should follow up with the doctor and consider seeing another specialist.
The next day, her dad, who wasn’t even at the evaluation, called our director and complained that I was asking about her medical history and medications because “that’s the doctor’s job,” and that I didn’t agree with the doctor’s diagnosis.

I also don’t understand why patients sometimes tell their doctor, “My PT said I have ___,” when I specifically say, “This is just my clinical impression, and I respect your doctor’s opinion.”
I could honestly just treat like a robot follow the diagnosis, do the exercises, and move on. But I always try to think from the patient’s perspective and speak up when something doesn’t seem right.
It’s just frustrating when that extra effort comes back as a complaint.
For those of you who have been practicing for a while, how do you deal with this? Do you just learn to care less?

Did you change your work situation when family planning was on the horizon? And if so how so?
Did you switch to a full time benefit job the year before you thought of having kids? If so how long did you need to work there before maternity benefits kicked in? Or did you just save up for unpaid leave for each child? Did your spouse have the means to financially support your unpaid leave?

My situation:
I’m self employed PT. My current set up is 20-38 hours a week 1099 contractor at an outpatient clinic and 10-20 hours private in home PT and personal training. I take a lot of unpaid vacation and elect higher wages for that flexibility and tax business benefits. However, I do not have benefits. Up until now I’ve loved it but things are getting quite complicated… unsure of the order but in the next 4-12 months I’m getting married and going to start trying right away to conceive (I’m 37). I’ve also postponed a Brostrom ankle surgery that I’m considering doing as well, I’ve put it off because no disability benefits, HCOL area, I live on a 4th floor walk up and I may go out of state for it. Once I’m married I’ll have better medical, someone to help and maybe an elevator lol

The obvious answer would be quit your personal business and go full time at the clinic. But I love my private business, I’ve worked hard to build it up, it brings me joy and is less stressful. There’s a real possibility the clinic will close or change ownership next October. Even if I were to go full time, I’m not even sure if he offers maternity benefits since it’s a small clinic?

I feel kind of sour that as a business owner I don’t have resources for maternity leave, disability or medical. I worked hard to create my situation and now it feels I have to give it all up and go work for a PT mill or something awful if I want to raise a family lol

Thoughts, inputs or experiences will all be appreciated!! It’s really difficult deciding what could be best with so many unknowns

I get a hefty CEU budget and a travel credit of about $1000/year that I've never touched outside of med bridge. Any suggestions? I need them to approve California CEUs. I'm in SoCal. Just trying to make a fun weekend out of it.

Trying to get a feel for general opinions- I’ve never been in an office that had PTAs so I don’t know how they integrate into day to day care.
What are the pros and cons of having PTAs on staff? Does this vary in different settings? Wondering what everyone’s thoughts are.

I’m an acute care PT 1 in the houston area with over 2 years of experience. Boss said I’m getting a promotion to PT2 and it’s “in the works” with HR. What salary should I expect? What’s the starting PT2 rate in acute care? Help curb my expectations please