In home physical therapy is a growing section of the physical therapy profession. It is driven by market forces primarily.
Insurance reimbursement rate declines over the past 20 years is the primary financial force. With inflation increasing as it would over that time, the local physical therapist needs to see more patients to meet business and personal expenses.
There is also a shortage of experienced physical therapists. Schools are pushing out new graduates at a high rate, but more experienced therapists than ever left the profession during the pandemic. This was either through retirement, or changing careers.
With insurances making life harder, and more demand than ever for experienced PTs, most are going out on their own. In home physical therapy is the logical first step. Start up costs are minimal, and you can immediately provide one-on-one care. What’s more, without the administration costs of taking insurance, you can live very happily at $125-$200 per visit. When the average PT would take home $30/visit working at a busy company, this represents a much better financial deal for the provider.
Patients love it too. No driving to and from the local clinic, or the closest one to take your insurance. I’ve heard many stories of a clinic 20 minutes away being the closest clinic that takes a patient’s insurance. What’s more, because everyone is flocking there, the experience is more like a treatment mill than a personalized healthcare appointment. Finally, with deductibles, some patients may be paying only $15-$30 less per session than if they were to have in home therapy.
The product is just better. You have a motivated, experienced Doctor of PT coming to your home on your schedule. He/she is incentivized to provide excellent service because it’s their own business, and likely they are the more motivated practitioners of the bunch anyway. It’s not hard to see why patients and DPTs alike are rushing to this model.
So without further ado, here are the 3 reasons in home therapy saves you money:
Time = Money
- You have a 9am appointment, but the only place that takes your insurance is 20 minutes away. You get in the car at 8:40am, have your appointment, and get back to your desk at 10:20am, one hour and forty minutes later. With in home physical therapy, the therapist shows up right as you sign off of your morning huddle. One hour later you can hop on that sales call at 10am. You only needed to block one hour, not three.
- On top of this, one on one attention to all aspects of your care likely will lead to less time wasted warming up on a bike, or doing almost your whole home program as part of your session. While it doesn’t always happen, typically you can get good results with less visits when the practitioner is paying full attention.
Personalized Recommendations
By having your session in your home or office, you can interact with your exact step, pathway, or car door. You can show the therapist your exact environment that you may be having trouble navigating. Athletes can have their session on a baseball diamond or a soccer pitch, not a commercial carpet and 50 feet of straight-line space.
The whole reason a patient seeks care is to master their environment. What better way than to bring the expert into the environment to help with problem solving?
Your Provider Has Skin In The Game
Most of the out-of-network in home physical therapists are sole proprietors. They started the business and rely on the income. They are singularly invested in providing top notch service and keeping their skills sharp because they are competing against more people. Pain can be addressed by chiropractors, massage therapist, acupuncturist and all sorts of other professionals. A sole proprietor needs to get results every time to remain competitive.
Physical therapy is personal, and a word of mouth recommendation is the best marketing for physical therapy. Every good in home physical therapy practice owners knows this, and will likely go above and beyond to make sure the experience is excellent.
Owen Campbell, PT, DPT, OCS
