The American Physical Therapy Association, Alexandria, VA, put out a press release yesterday detailing the role that therapy professionals and students played in helping victims of the tragic bombing at the Boston Marathon. The release stated: ''A team of 70 members of APTA's Massachusetts Chapter, stationed at the Boston Marathon finish line on ...

It has been just over three years since ''Treat Me, but No Tricks Please''  appeared in The New York Times. In this scathing piece about inconsistency in physical therapy, Gina Kolata roiled emotions and got a lot of people thinking about whether what we do actually works or not. It was of little help that the president of the orthopedic ...

Now that I'm home from CSM, I've had an opportunity to process all of the information. Most of the presentations were excellent. Those that weren't purely theoretical had a common theme. We have to maximize what we do because we're spending less and less time with patients. We have less time to spend because there isn't money to pay for our ...

The following post was written by ADVANCE guest blogger Brian Knutsen, OTR/L, CHT, president of Buzzards Bay Hand Therapy LLC, located in Marion and Lexington, MA. SAN DIEGO -- In the CSM session, ''Practice, Coding, Documentation and Reimbursement,'' Nancy Beckley, MS, MBA, CHC, shared a quick Medicare update to start. The audience then launched ...

As I typed away my blog from last week, I wasn't very happy with my professional goals for 2013. In 2012, my professional goal was to transition from acute care practice into outpatient orthopedics, and I'm both happy and proud that I was able to make that change, even somewhat successfully. However, in 2013 I wish I had something more substantial ...

This year I want to hear from fellow PTAs. I want to know your thoughts on healthcare changes, working relationships with PTs, and your ideas about increasing the PTA education to a bachelor's level as well as your feelings towards the APTA and the PTA profession. I would ask that you do a bit of research on reimbursement rates in Kansas for PTA ...

Reading Jason Marketti's blog last week reminded me of a discussion we're having here in Texas. It's called RC-3 and is an amendment to the Texas Physical Therapy Practice Act. It proposes unlicensed individuals such as athletic trainers and massage therapists be used as PT extenders. These extenders are to provide care as directed by the physical ...

Physical therapists who haven't been paying attention to the legislative battle raging in California might want to start. As the APTA detailed in its Aug. 30 press release, ''In California, a Rough Ride for Senate Bill 924,'' the latest salvo was just fired: ''California physical therapists have been infuriated by the legislative wrangling that ...

I recently received quite a few heartfelt responses to a blog I wrote last year on the subject of the dreaded PTA ''state board licensure exam.'' I feel your pain, people. I vividly remember the pre/post anxiety and panic of preparing and actually taking the test. Many readers asked about the timeliness of receiving the test results. My ...

I have been following along with the reports from Danielle Bullen, Rebecca Mayer and Lisa Lombardo on the goings-on in Tampa last week. I find the outcomes interesting and validating. One of my contentions with Vision 2020 is that it seemed too isolating. That seems to be holding up now. As a profession, we are finally starting to realize that no ...