Physical Apathy
This is not medical advice.
Imagine going to your car mechanic, being charged $150-400, and being told that they won’t fix your car at the first visit, they will do it “at future visits.” They are only going to “take measurements.”
I’m guessing most people wouldn’t agree to that.
I was recently reading another social media post on a physical therapy forum. The poster was a patient. She was asking if it was customary to give out some home exercises at the first visit. She hadn’t received any. The only thing that happened during the evaluation was that some measurements were taken. I’m assuming she probably spent 15 minutes filling out some paperwork. She was also very pleasant and polite with her question.
There were a myriad of “explanations” (excuses) that she received from our young Doctors of Physical Therapy, ranging from “we only have 40 minutes”, to “we just take measurements during the first visit” to “we’ll explain what’s going on next time…” to “Medicare only allows us to bill ___________.”
I frequently have to see multiple patients for the first time, 3 in a row, 40 minutes each, and very little background. Most assessments just say “low back pain,” followed by 3 paragraphs of nauseating Medicare rhetoric that means nothing about your diagnosis. It takes 5-10 minutes to listen to a history, and 5 minutes for measurements.
So I am essentially trying to figure out what’s going on in that time, and handing out some kind of exercises or direction. Home exercises are critical to getting better. Two to three hours per week with us is not going to accomplish much.
Part of the reason for this newsletter is to give people links to the exercises (the other is rants and a valve to blow off steam and entertain). Most patients have a smart phone, and it takes 2 minutes to give them a link.
I will admit that we frequently get a better picture after multiple visits. Sometimes new details arise over time.
Low expectations
A big part of the problem is that the general public doesn’t know what to expect. The other issue is insurance. The false notion that it’s being paid for by “someone else”, leads us to expect less for the visit.
I guarantee that if you had to pay $150 cash across that counter, expectations would be a lot higher.
If you feel that your care is lackadaisical, or that you are being blown off, you probably are. Go somewhere else.
