Anyone who reads my blog with regularity knows the last year has been a struggle for me. I lost my beloved job. I was fired for being ethical. I encountered more than my share of unethical and self-serving people. During all of that, I hung on and kept going to work. Every so often I made a difference to someone, which kept me going. For the ...

I'm a peer reviewer for the Texas continuing education program. I review submissions for neuro, geriatric, acute and general so I get to see a lot what is being proposed for continuing education. Texas has a specific form that must be completed for each course submitted for review. It includes speaker qualifications, specific goals, a statement of ...

I've been noticing a disturbing trend lately. More and more facilities are considering the need for supervision as a need for skilled therapy. Back in the day, patients referred to SNFs and outpatient had an obvious need. They had trouble walking. They couldn't transfer. They'd recently undergone total joint replacement. The knowledge and skill of ...

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 ...

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 ...

Last week, I wrote about my experiences teaching my first CEU course. I mentioned how much work it was but didn't go into details. It took me nearly four months to finish, including two months of working at least an hour or two every night. Now I'm going back and revising the content. I'm beginning to think that is an ongoing process. In the ...

This morning I had a conversation with an OT who has as much experience or more than I do. I mentioned my frustration with employers desiring low pay over experienced therapists. I don't think my tDPT and geriatric specialization have made me more attractive to employers. If anything, they have made me less attractive. Having them makes me more ...

Jason Marketti made an excellent point last week when he responded to my post. He pointed out that in all but one state, reimbursement is the same for treatments provided by a PT or a PTA. On the surface, that makes sense. Our charges are treatment-based. If I perform gait training, I charge a gait. If Jason performs gait training, he also charges ...

Recently I've found myself looking at the available positions in Houston. I never thought I would be doing this again but here I am. Things have changed since I last looked. There are more jobs posted than previously. Salaries are higher. No one seems to be looking for anyone with experience. While there are more job listings, there don't seem ...

Last week I ran across something I'd never seen or heard of before -- a therapist who doesn't write notes. I had 12 of his patients. All 12 were lacking daily notes. The papers were there where the notes would have been written. Times in and out were documented. There just wasn't anything else written down. All of the charts had evaluations and a ...