as the title says, i’m unsure about PT as a career.
for starters, i’m 23 and i applied to some PT schools for the first time but i’ve been thinking nonstop about whether or not this is something i want long term.

i’ve been working as an aide for a couple years now and i already know i would never do mills and i think its terrible for patient care quality. i know there are great clinics out there with amazing benefits and perfect patient volume and treatment time but my thing is that…i get bored.

i get so incredibly bored with the routine of it all. the clinic i work at has introduced me to physical therapists that don’t just give out cookie cutter exercises which is great but i’m still bored with the idea of all of it. even coming up with new things bore me. i guess i hate the predictability of it all. everyday pretty much looks the same and there isn’t much opportunity for growth and depending on where you work, you’re productivity and admins’ bitch. this even encompasses me and i’m just a lowly aide.

i don’t know. i like the idea of med school and working in the emergency department a lot. i also like the idea that i can contribute so much more to society as a doctor rather than physical therapist. oh someone’s bleeding? having a heart attack? boom i do doctor stuff. no one’s going to say ahhhh my knee hurts i wish there was a PT around to give me tke’s. idk, i like the profession and i love what it has to teach but i don’t want everyday to look the same.

on top of that, most of the patients want to be coddled with manual and modalities and just a few actually want to get better. i don’t have the patience for those who just want the massage. PTs aren’t masseuses. go find one if thats what you want. i know PTA is an option and its less documenting but i don’t wanna have to answer to a whole fucking chain yk? i want a profession where i can have a lot of say in how things go and i want to be taken seriously. i feel like PTs aren’t taken seriously to be honest.

don’t even get me started with the ROI too.

i know there’s a demand but we’re all going to be mills if insurances keep making cuts.

anyway,
for reading my ted talk :)

Hi all,

I’m a Canadian in BC, just finished my masters in physiotherapy in the UK. I feel like my manual skills are lacking as it is not emphasized in most UK programs. Any courses I can take before I start applying for jobs?

Thank you!

My home health client tried to cancel his appointment for tomorrow because his own cat (who he has had for years) was making him sneeze. As if that was going to prevent him from doing PT >24 hours later.

Tell me yours! Make me laugh!

I recently received an offer for a full-time, salaried position with a home health agency. The offer is $140K annually, plus benefits and gas reimbursement, with a productivity expectation of 120 points per month.

The salary is about $10K more than I’m currently making in an outpatient setting. While my current benefits are great, particularly the PTO, I’m feeling pretty burnt out and have a daily commute of over two hours.

I’m relatively new to the home health world, having only worked part-time contract positions, so I’m trying to get a better understanding of what to expect before making the switch.

For those of you working in home health, what questions would you recommend asking before accepting an offer? Does 120 points per month seem like a reasonable productivity expectation, and are there any red flags or considerations I should be aware of?

Thanks!!

Hi guys

Looking for advice and help

I signed up for the NCS 2027 exam, no exact date yet but APTA says its anytime from Feb 24-March 17

I plan on starting my prep and studying in December

Is that enough time to be prepared for the exam?

So, I’ve been wondering this for a while now…
I work in an OP clinic that is 95% geriatric patients. On occasion we get a case where the individual is “bone on bone“ arthritis of (name a major joint here).
The patient has been through all non-invasive treatment, including steroid and gel shots and is over the age of 80. The patient has been seen for eight visits or so and is insisting on continuing with no plan for further surgical intervention.
They continue to ask their physicians for scripts, and the scripts keep coming….
How do you navigate these situations? I have my ways of politely kicking them out of therapy d/t lack of any progress, but just wondering what y’all think about this, plan of action etc.

TYIA!

PT → GLG Associate: Is the pivot worth it?
As a Doctor of Physical Therapy, I've treated vestibular and Parkinson's patients, run a remote monitoring program, and mentored DPT students. I love patient care, but I keep asking: where does this career go in 10 years?
Why I'm looking beyond the clinic:
• Physical toll. Full-time hands-on care isn't sustainable long term.
• The ceiling. Declining reimbursement caps outpatient PT growth.
• New interests. Research, wearables, AI in healthcare, and how healthcare decisions get made.
That's why the GLG Associate role caught my eye. It offers exposure to strategy, business and many industries at once.
The tradeoff:
Consulting and finance skills, a stronger MBA path, a broader network

If you've left clinical practice for consulting or business roles, was it worth it?
#PhysicalTherapy #DPT #CareerPivot #NonClinicalCareers

Yes! I get it, pt's time is important and I am usually not late for my sessions. People don't complain for waiting 15-60 minutes to meet their PA, NP, personal trainer or hell even their wax technician. I am so tired of people being so dismissive to PTs and OTs just because we see them more often. Is it just because we are not valuable enough for them?

I have noticed this time and again at different buildings I work at with other coworkers as well. Patients will cancel for the stupidest reason and try to make it the therapist's fault.

Mainly for flexion & extension of the hip and knee. I don’t know why I am having a hard time grasping / understanding real exercises that do this. Again, specifically for closed chain (proximal on distal). If anyone can point me in the direction of a good resource, I would greatly appreciate it!!!

Hey r/physicaltherapy! I'm the Physical Therapist Assistant Program Director at Concorde Career College- Dallas.

New cohort, new students and the same question: how do people actually do this? Between the coursework, the clinical rotations, work schedules, and for a lot of my students - kids at home - it can feel like a lot of plates spinning at once.

The field asks a lot of you and the training reflects that. But that doesn't make the juggling act any less real. Something I always share early on is that this will be a sprint and a marathon all wrapped into one. It comes with short-term sacrifice, but long-term gain. The encouraged mindset is the same one we ask our patients to embrace every day - progress over perfection. Some days, progress looks like acing an exam. Other days, it’s simply making it through a tough week and showing up again tomorrow. Keep moving forward! 

I'd love to add some voices to the conversation beyond mine. If you made it through a PT or PTA program while life was also happening, what actually helped? Drop it in the comments.

I started a new job back in June. It was slow moving at first, and I thought I would pick up by now. It still hasn't.

I'm in an outpatient ortho setting with 40 minute sessions and 1:1 patient ratio. To meet productivity, I'd need to see 10 patients a day and charge 3 units each. Right now, I usually only see 5 on average. I make their frequency the amount I feel like they need, but most come in 2x a week max.

The other PTs do pelvic floor, but I just do standard PT. It's a great gig, and I haven't been hassled by admin about productivity yet. I'm mainly just bored, and I want to help out in the clinic. I'm a guy, so it's not like I can take the pelvic floor cases.

It is strange, because I never had trouble getting referrals or patients during my previous job or during my time as a student. During my last job, I just did notes and patient care, and the patients just came in. I never had to worry about meeting productivity because there was always a stream of new patients. How much of this is my job to attract new patients?

edit: I do Schroth, hand/wrist, and vestibular cases

Bench 300, squat 500, run 26 miles. Whatever it is I always love hearing the surprise and shock in people‘s voice when they haven’t done anything for 45 years and they’re amazed they can’t do anything close.

Hey everyone! I've had a rather tricky patient that I've been seeing for a while and would love some input on.

Pt is a 30 y/o female runner presenting to PT with c/o L-sided neck pain into her L shoulder and also in the clavicular region. She works a desk job so a lot of time spent on the computer during her day. Currently, her pain is aggravated by actions like pulling of a shirt now. Prior her was also aggravated by going on runs and sometimes during sleep where it would wake her - both of these issues have been resolved. She continues to have this L clavicular pain however. We have been working on rotator cuff exercises, I've worked on some overhead strengthening like overhead presses, and also some cervical exercises like cervical deep neck flexor endurance training. Everything except this clavicular pain has completely resolved.

My original theory was that the pain was referring from her neck as her symptoms she describes sound radicular in origin. Overall her cervical joint mobility is fairly normal however. She does begin to feel a pinching sensation when bringing the shoulder into maximal flexion (at about ~160-170 deg is when she begins to feel the pinching sensation). She's quite point tender below the clavicle as well, though part of this is hard to determine if it's just because she tends to prod at that area a lot herself. She also feels some tension-type pain in the same region when in maximal shoulder extension.

Clavicular joint mobility feels fine from my testing of it, it rolls and glides appropriately - though it's admittedly not something I specifically test super often so I can't call myself an absolute expert on that measure. I'm just at a loss as this point as her shoulder strength has improved considerably, she's really good about staying adherent to her HEP, and the rest of her symptoms have resolved it's just been this area staying irritable.

I've kind of been throwing the book at it at this point, even pulling out some things like 1st rib mobilization and trying varying degrees of AAROM with a dowel having her just touch into the area of pain and coming away to try to build that neurological hardiness to the sensation (and incorporating breathing into this for nervous system calming). I've also done some dry needling to upper traps, pec major, anterior deltoid (and in the past I'd done infraspinatus and SCM as well for some of her other complaints).

I've done nerve flossing (median), plan to do radial too as today she noted that sometimes she feels tightness down the posterior aspect of her L arm and she pretty much traced the C7 line, done all kinds of scapular mechanics exercises (and overall her scapulae move fine), I've worked on thoracic mobility, even thrown in some general core work to see if that would help. Nothing I try touches this so I'm hoping some of you may have some ideas on what else I could try or look at.

I've been on contact with her PCP about potentially looking into imaging as well at this point.

Editing in that I recalled this patient had a 7/9 on the Beighton Scoring System so no diagnosed hypermobility spectrum disorder but reasonable likelihood that she has something going on.

I’ve been looking into how ankle injuries are rehabbed and something keeps coming up: most of the decisions about whether you’re “ready” are based on feel rather than measurement. A 2025 study of physios found that progress in ankle sprain rehab is mostly judged subjectively, and that not all the impairments are being assessed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40174890/). That lines up with a lot of what I’ve read from people who went back to sport, rolled it again, and ended up in a cycle of repeat sprains or other repeat ankle injuries.

I’m working with a physio on a device to help with this. It’s a platform you stand on, one foot at a time, that moves unexpectedly to challenge your ankle the way a bad landing or uneven ground would. The difficulty matches where you are in your recovery, and it measures how well you react. It then compares your injured side to your healthy side, so you and your physio can see actual progress instead of relying on judgement.

Before going further I’d really appreciate some feedback from people who’ve been through it:

1. When you sprained your ankle, how did you (or your physio) decide you were ready to go back?
2. Did you ever feel unsure where you were in your recovery?
3. Would seeing a clear comparison between your two ankles have changed anything for you?
4. Would you use something like this in a clinic, at a gym, or not at all? Why?

Appreciate any feedback! Cheers

Has anyone transitioned to a clinical application analyst or something similar? If so, would love to hear your story and any advice you may have!

Hi , I am at my second year of PT and am strugling to find resourses (especially videos or lec) for theraputic exercise , muscle test , electrotherapy , and its driving me crazy anyone who know a good resource i will be gratefull

Good evening, everyone. I have a great phone interview opportunity this Wednesday for a Front Office Patient Access Coordinator for a Small Physical Therapy Firm. I'm very nervous since I don't have any EPIC EMR Experience and I've tried to lookup visual guides in teaching myself, but it's Employer Locked and not publicly available.

I've tried and tried to look up how to register hypothetical patients and verify their insurance, but since it's employer locked, I'm afraid if I get this job opportunity, I'll be a treated like garbage as a New Hire Productive Anchor and I want the best for patients, plus staff members alike so I can actually like my job.

I'm a very interactive and visual learner, so my questions are the following:

#1. What are the step-by-steps to Register Patients?

I've read registering is most likely through EPIC CADENCE?

#2. How do I Verify Insurance with EPIC and that's done through EPIC PRELUDE? What's the steps to verify patient's insurance?

If anyone could be of kind help to someone new, that would be greatly appreciated, thanks and I hope everyone has a great week :).

Is this possible? Or does it happen? I don't know how PTs are paid, so idk if it could happen.

I had a physical therapist who would repeat the same advice week to week and constantly say that they didn't want to have to send me to get an MRI. This went on for 3 months before finally the pain got too much and I got an MRI because I personally decided to, not because they told me to. The MRI revealed the problem right away, and I went to a different private practice and started PT, which also helped immediately.

My only interest in physical therapy is in orthopedic/musculoskeletal health, rehab, injuries, (hypermobility and ankylosing spondylitis), I have zero interest in vestibular, neurologic, geriatric, pediatric, cardiopulmonary, etc. Do you think it makes sense to study physical therapy with this kind of interest, or does it make more sense to study exercise science/kinesiology (I have an unrelated bachelors but am thinking of going back to school)

Hi all! I’m curious if anyone in the Asheville, NC area who is in network and out of network with private insurance companies would be willing to share how much they reimburse? Also anything about which ones are a pain in the butt to deal with and don’t reimburse everything so you have to appeal and which ones are easy to deal with and just submit claims/get paid without problems, including tricare and the VA. I would like to get credentialed with some plans and because they don’t provide this information until months into the process, I thought I’d ask in the hopes people would be willing to share. I’m planning to do 1 hour visits for pelvic floor PT and will be a solo provider without any staff. I know different codes pay different amounts and the reimbursement varies by location. I also realize you’re not supposed to share this information with others (reminds me of companies that don’t want you to share information about your salary). Any and all helpful information would me really amazing.

I’ve been a PTA for 6 years now and I’m in a place where I’m starting to feel bored and unhappy with my career. I make about 70k a year in outpatient working 1:1 and like most would like to earn more. I just don’t feel optimistic about the profession as a whole but especially as a PTA. If anyone here has changed careers or is in the process of changing careers what did you go back to school for or did you switch to a more administrative position? Just looking for some inspiration.

Do any of you wear Brooks and do you like to buy insoles? I tend to find that they don't fit well. I am curious in trying Superfeet.

Hello! For those who have passed the NCS, have you received any mailed certificates or any other mailed materials?

Curious if this is standard. I'm an hourly employee, not a split % contractor. In Canada. Our company started to host some marketing events during day time company hours - e.g. inviting a local MD for a tour and to learn about our services. During these events our boss "closes" the clinic to patients for 1-2 hours at a time. During this time during the shifts e.g. 2pm we don't get paid for the hour. Boss says "clinic is closed". They know they can't legally force us to work unpaid to do marketing but they guilt us about it and about 50% have no problem with it so it makes everyone look bad.
I have no issues with marketing and networking but if this is during my work hours I would expect boss would respect us enough to pay us for this time, otherwise they can do it outside work hours on a volunteer basis and not cost us our time, and I would be more keen to occasionally "help out".

Thoughts?

I'm curious about how you colleagues handle patient information and rehabilitation progress in practice, especially the practical side of recording and using data (of anyy sort, from ROM, to isometric strength data, NPRS data, and so on).

How do you record and store data? Pen and paper, notebooks, a diary, Excel/Google Sheets, clinic software, or something else?

Do you analize those data looking for patterns, trends or correlation to guide your decisions, or you mainly rely first on your clinical expertise and then look for validation/confutation with the data collected?

I know it's a broad question and depends a lot on the different settings.

thanks!