Long Term Results from Patient treatment

I always say that the hardest aspect of therapy is achieving carry over in our patients.

The challenge as see it are the following:

1. We have been taught to evaluate and treat a diagnosis and not patient functioning.
2. Virtually any person off of the street is going to present with many areas of hypertonic tissue, restrictions, decreased range of motion and neuromuscular dysfunction. We have not been how to know which of these factors are in fact causing a particular person's problem.
3. We are taught to look at the body part as isolated structures when in fact the dysfunction is not anatomically close to it.

Great results are achieved knowing exactly what is causing your patient's limitation.

Our classes are designed to teach you how to it. Here is the proof.

A few weeks ago, Targeted Evaluation and Treatment of the Pelvis, Pelvic Floor and Coccyx was hosted in NYC.

This class format involves the students evaluating and treating real patients during the final hour.

I had the opportunity to follow up with our patients 2 weeks later and here is what I learned:

100% of them reported that they continue to experience the benefits from their treatment.

72% of our patients have not required additional therapy after their visit. Of the other 28% one patient continues to receive therapy but on a different body part.

Some of the patient's reports include:

1. The ability to ascend and descend step over step rather than using only 1 foot.
2. They are without buttock and back pain.
3. Improved walking distance by double.
4. D/C of pain meds.
5. Decreased need to get up at night to urinate and improved flow of urine.

As an educator it is thrilling for me to see my student's achieve such great results!

If you are not getting carry over or great results in your patients you are probably treating the wrong thing.

Help Save Our Profession

I recently met an entrepreneur who told me that he had just purchased a PT practice. 

Sadly, my advice to him was not to have a well trained staff, but a good billing agency.

Our conversation continued about the reimbursement changes to insurance and Medicare, prospective payment in some states, and penalty for billing multiple codes.

If you are fed up and saddened by the current state of our profession, here a quick way to help to change it in less than 3 minutes. (it took me 2 minutes 37 seconds)

You and your; patients, family and friends can write your Senators and State Representative regarding the Medicare cap using the APTA legislative action portion of their web site. 

Below is the link for APTA members:

https://www.apta.org/aptalogin.aspx?redirectto=http://www.apta.org/apta/advocacy/lac.aspx?navID=10737423155

Non members of APTA and people from the community can the link to this address and advocate. 

http://capwiz.com/amerpta/issues/alert/?alertid=62327476

Our future as well as the future of every American citizen is impacted by this legislature. 

Please put these links on your facebook page and send out emails to everyone you know.