04/12/2026
This is from th PPS Impact magazine in 2017!
The landscape for insurance reimbursement continues to worsen and challenges the public’s access to high quality PT.
What do I mean by high quality?
Physical therapy that is catered to the patient.
Physical therapy that adjusts the treatment within the session.
Physical therapist that ask the patient questions about their journey towards improvement instead of just “jump on the bike for 20 minutes”
What the public doesn’t understand is that our profession has seen reimbursement reduce by about 30% when adjusted for inflation.
I don’t know about you, but I want to be paid more year over year.
In this environment, we are seeing pay stagnate because the company is being paid less and less per year when adjusted to inflation.
Unfortunately, the government is just as bad as a local street gang in this sense.
We can’t opt out of Medicare.
This means that a patient’s treatment must be billed to Medicare.
Don’t get me wrong, Medicare is a very reliable payer, but reliably getting paid less over the years is still not a good business model.
The business model will have to change in the coming years if this trend continues.
Either:
1. The doctors that spent 7 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the degree will have to accept lower salaries.
2. Patients will have to accept shorter sessions (believe it or not, but the longer your session is, the less the company makes per hour)
3. You will see more group sessions (meaning you will be treated at the same time as others)
A. By the way, Medicare pays for its people to be treated one-one except for specific billing codes. If you are being treated at the same time as others and not seeing “group therapy”, “traction”, “ultrasound” or “electrical stimulation” charged, then this is an issue.
a. If you are seeing “ultrasound”, “electrical stimulation” and “traction” charged, that’s a whole another can of worms
4. More clinics will turn away Medicare as a payer for the higher reimbursing or out of network payment.
This problem in 2017 is an even bigger problem today.