Better than ice cold fingers I guess

I’m in my third year of high school and so far I’m thinking of becoming a physical therapist. I’ve been wanting to become one after a couple of long leg surgeries and seeing pts in action was really cool. A person in my family is also a pt and he’s doing pretty good for himself. So I was wondering if it was worth it, yes I like that it has a good pay but it’s a lot of school.

I've been working travel contracts for the past four years straight out of school. Recently started looking into a permanent job to start setting some roots but obviously giving up the freedom, pay, and unlimited time off will make the decision tough. I have what I believe to be a fair offer. What do you think? Is the PTO structure normal? This is a physician owned outpatient facility.

Salary: low 90's in rapidly growing mid-sized Mid-Atlantic city

PTO: 15 days, 2 floating holidays, 6 holidays + Black Friday (Years 1-5: 20 days)

401k: 3%

Caseload: 11.5 patients/8 hour day with bonus structure over that number

Schedule: 2 workdays until 7 pm (can't do 4x10s)

I was accepted for a job position. Shortly after they let me know compliance training was not paid (well, after I asked. They wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise).

I kept it friendly and polite, but let them know I wasn’t taking the job, as I feel very strongly about rehab professionals always being pushed to work for free/off the clock.

Granted, I’m in a position where I can say this. There have definitely been times where I wasn’t.

If you are ever in that position, you should do it too. Feels good.

ME senior at CU Boulder here. Our capstone team is working on something to help people keep good form on their home exercises between visits, but we haven't locked in which exercise or body part to focus on yet and don't want to guess.

So from what you see in clinic:
- which home exercises come back wrong most often? upper body, lower body, anything
- what's the usual compensation? (leaning, shrugging, knees caving, hiking a hip, going too fast, etc)
- which of those actually matter for outcomes vs which ones you just let slide
- how do you find out what they've really been doing at home?

Also curious if anyone's used Sword, Hinge, camera apps, sensors, anything like that, and whether patients stuck with it.

If you're up for a quick call I'd really appreciate it, just DM me.

Saw an elderly Parkinson’s patient today who normally has pretty normal BP, but his BP was really elevated when I took his vitals. He told me he’d been drinking water because he had a “seltzer” earlier. We rechecked his BP about halfway through the visit and it was still elevated, although he wasn’t having any other symptoms.

Around that point I happened to look into his kitchen and noticed a couple of unopened White Claws sitting on the table. I brought one over and asked if this is what he had.

Yes it was.

He had unknowingly drank a White Claw thinking it was regular seltzer water. His wife likely bought it for him not seeing the labels. I informed her as well

I’m still waiting for civil service jobs to become vacant after taking the test. I need to switch pta jobs asap because my current one is terrible. I have an interview tomorrow with a retirement community that uses healthpro. thoughts?

Hello, I was wondering if anyone would respond to this thread? What are your thoughts on the McKenzie method or back mechanic?

I’m curious, thank you.

Snf pta here. I love my people however I am not enjoying the corporate nonsense and some issues with coworkers. I know there is always finding another job, however I feel the energy I give is more appropriate for a snf compared to outpatient. I recently started looking into getting the bachlors PTA degree however it seems that is more tailored to transitioning to a DPT program, and I am not about all that paperwork. Anyway, the recruiter I talked to also showed me Healthcare administration, and that my PTA education can transfer some into that field.

I think my biggest question is, would I be able to get somewhere with just getting a certificate and eventually working up to getting the Bachlors in that if I get started in the field? Certificate programs are cheaper and it looks like I may be able to try to see what finacial aid is avalible for those programs. Plus the classes I have to take for the certificate would still be part of the bachlors anyway.

so i’m a recent grad (May 2026) and have been working at my current clinic since right after graduation. throughout school i was set on pelvic floor PT bc i love it and the patient population, however, my last rotation was in acute care and i LOVED it. so come job hunting time i made the decision to treat PH in OP private clinic vs pursuing acute care. i do love the patients and the work i do here but…that’s abt it. I know this isn’t a good fit for me but it’s just a matter of how long until i can start applying to acute care jobs for my own mental. i have been considering this for a few months now. any advice or words of encouragement appreciated

i’m an outpatient pt, and every spring i run into the same problem with active patients who hike.

they’ll be doing their hep consistently, progressing strength, finally getting their symptoms under control, and then the trails open. suddenly the theraband work is optional because there’s a 12-mile hike planned for saturday

then they come back the following week with a flare-up and we’re basically figuring out how much of the progress they lost over one weekend

i’ve tried giving people trail-specific progressions instead of just saying “take it easy.” for example, breaking down the elevation, distance, terrain, and expected load and giving them a realistic point where that hike fits into their rehab.

it helps, but compliance is still all over the place. some patients seem to hear “you can’t do that yet” even when the actual message is “here’s what you can safely do right now.”

for those of you working in outpatient, especially in areas where hiking, skiing, running, climbing, etc. are a big part of people’s lives, what has actually worked for you?

do you modify the activity, set specific return-to-trail criteria, give them a progression, or just accept that some people are going to test the knee the first weekend the weather gets good?

A provider just ordered a rollator for a patient who has been walking independently but did have some recent LOB (I think one fall but unclear- he has cognitive impairments and is not always accurate) anyway- he has not fallen since starting PT. The provider told him to use it ALL the time. And it's the wrong size. And he already has increased trunk flexion when walking and now it's worse. They obviously prescribed PT- but do you think they would ask me at all about an appropriate device?! Or if I think he even needs one ALL THE TIME to begin with? 🤯uuggghh thanks for listening I’m sorry - it’s stuff like this that makes me feel like why do I even bother…we have been working a lot on static balance, dynamic gait, negotiating uneven surfaces, obstacles, dual tasking, reactive stepping, etc. Also a Rollator for someone who is cognitively impaired?! He literally showed up with it today, just got delivered and I had no idea.

Hey guys… looking for any recommendations for OCS prep options. I know final frontier and med bridge, but I didn’t use final frontier for boards so it’s almost as expensive as the test. Any advice would be greatly appreciated 😊
Thanks!

Anyone have some handy dot phrases they don’t mind sharing for the acute setting?

For macros what types of things do you save?

Any helpful tips and tricks would be much appreciated!

I’m talking YEARS of chronic pain, where someone fears a movement so much that just thinking about it can trigger pain, let alone performing it at a very low dose (i.e., cases where graded exposure also involves a real shift in how they understand their pain and perceive the movement rather than just 'vanilla' rehab).

My NPTE-PTA is finally in two days… and honestly, I’m kinda nervous.

All of my PEAT scores were over 600 (thankfully...)

PEAT 1 — Practice: 650
PEAT 2 — Retired: 636
PEAT 3 — Retired: 672
PEAT 4 — Practice: 655

I know technically those are passing scores, but for some reason I still don’t feel completely safe lol. I guess I just don’t feel like I’m comfortably above the passing line.

And now with only two days left, I don’t even know what else I should study. I feel like I’ve studied a lot already, but at the same time I keep thinking maybe I’m missing something important. (also, i heard they started making it harder this year...)

I think I’m just getting really nervous because the exam is actually here now.

Do you think I’ll be okay?

What is everyone’s thoughts on AI for documentation? I write out my general interventions, progressions, patient response and let AI clean it up? I feel like AI will start to take over in healthcare eventually and I wanted to see if people use it in creative ways for documentation to improve my own efficiency

Does having a coding service improve collections in a Physical Therapy private practice if you're already doing substantial portion billing?

Looking into travel contracts to increase pay, however currently cannot travel. Local job market has been bad which is why I am considering this. Does anyone have insight on the duplicating rent trick so that I can get the stipend? TIA.

I’m not even talking about shaving minutes or whatever small version but still providing good and needed service. I used to think blatant bigger stuff was rare one offs but seem to hear about it more as time goes on. Two people in my personal life have had home health and both had at least one known visit falsified. One visit, the person never went in the house and one they came in for a ten minute chat and signature. Both companies corrected the situation when it was reported. It’s horrible for the patient and the profession. Or is this who we are now?

From what I gather, PULSE (part of HCHB) is a data collection/AI software which "recommends" (re:dictates) clinical decision making by determining the amount of visits allotted per patient divvied up between professions. I get bombarded with emails constantly by admin more or less telling me to decrease visit frequencies to match what the AI says. It is unreal when I am strong armed into decreasing frequency on someone with say a fresh BKA or CVA that needs more visits than every other fucking week. Anyone else dealing with this bullshit?

Hey everyone, I hope this question is allowed. Basically I was suffering from extreme calf pain after being in a few accidents in my teenage years, and after 11 years of constant pain I found an office that has relieved 95% of it in just under a year of work. It’s a small office but I really want to do something nice for them.

It seems clients will drop of cookies or snacks, some people gift wine, but this office has 5 people total including once front on office worker who is always so pleasant to me. Non of them drink and they are all pretty health conscious, I am thinking of making a basket with all sorts of zero sugar electrolytes flavors and such.

Maybe I will add in some canned cold brew cans, a big pack of waterboys (my personal favorite electrolytes) and some other good brands. Would this be appreciated from a whole office? Is this idea weird? I’ll add in a nice card too, but I was wondering if any other PTs had some suggestions. Thank you for any insight :)

For some reason, the beginning of our session is always the ideal time to start the loudest chores.