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PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine
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PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine - April 30, 2002 4:31:00 PM
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PTstud
Posts: 86
Joined: March 8, 2002
From: Texas
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PT among the "hottest jobs in the future" list in the JOB BOOM article, due to increasing elderly population. Congratulations to everyone!!!
Mike
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Re: PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine - May 1, 2002 3:24:00 AM
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Rose
Posts: 122
Joined: September 19, 1999
From: Ohio
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PT is ALWAYS listed as one of the hottest jobs...even by the goverment...it never stopped even when PPS hit and the job market "fell". I have NEVER stopped being contacted online by high school students in YEARS for an "interview" for class because they were told what a good prospect PT was.....
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Re: PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine - May 1, 2002 5:39:00 AM
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Andrew M. Ball MS MBA PT
Posts: 271
Joined: September 30, 2001
From: Chapel Hill
Status: offline
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PTStud,
Thanks for the post, it's rare that I get the chance to respond to RehabEdge posts as not a PT, but an MBA in HealthCare Management/Health Economics, that I jumped at the chance to respond. Hope you like it:
Dude, you've been sold the Brooklyn Bridge, worthless swampland in Florida. From a healthcare economics perspective, public demand for our services sounds good, but is irrelevant.
The growth of our profession is generally determined not by public demand, but by what insurance will pay for it. That's not the fault of insurance, mind you, that's OUR FAULT for not creating and providing a service that the public would be willing to pay for, in lieu of insurance, out of pocket. I hope that the DPT's will change that. Most that I've met are certainly more creative and driven to be more than just an insurance mitigated staff therapist than PT's with whom I graduated. Better clinical skills or not, the DPT's WILL change PT for the better.
Back to your congratulations though, the "increased projected demand" for services, is created by an impression that older people need PT, there will be more of them in the near future, and an assumption that people will pay out of pocket for our services in the absence of insurance (as they will for eye glasses or to have a cavity filled). This is the concept of "moral hazard. In short, Americans, especially older Americans, seek healthcare beyond to the point of effectiveness, to the point of exhaustion of all medical possibilities. That's a poor premise upon which to base a increase in demand for services, because once someone else is no longer responsible for paying for the patient's care, the patient's demand for services generally evaporates. Furthermore, because the healthcare system is generally abused in this moral hazard respect, and the fact that with managed care, we now try to appropriately restrict people from getting unnecessary or unproven care just because they want it (e.g. that's the source of the increased demand that you speak --- more older people, demanding services that aren't always justified or appropriate --- services that although they may want, aren't going to get).
Unless we begin to market as independent primary care practitioners --- divorced from insurance, the third criteria for true increased demand for PT in the absence of consumer price insulation and moral hazard generally doesn't exist.
This demand that you've pointed to, therefore, isn't real --- or at the very least doesn't translate into more jobs. For "demand" for PT to truly rise, and for demand to truly translate into increased jobs, we'd have to start using the same marketing tactics that are used by chiropractors and despised by just about every other self-respecting healthcare profession, to create demand for unproven theory where none otherwise exists.
As a profession, the general lack of desire among rank and file to ever be anything more than a staff therapist and collecting a payment from insurance is distressing, and if its not changed soon, will be the downfall of our profession. Ask yourself this: What other profession of clinical doctors continues to allow insurance to dictate the way it operates? Optometrists? Veterinarians? Podiatrists? No. None of them. They all offer services that the public values, with or without 3rd party reimbursement. Unless the same can be said for PT, true demand doesn't exist, and it's OUR fault that it doesn't.
Nothing irritates me more than the archaic in -the-box thinkers with small minds in our profession who can't see beyond the next CMS memo, thereby allowing PT to become more and more a technical job of days old, than an emerging doctoring profession.
Drew
[This message has been edited by Andrew M. Ball MS MBA PT (edited May 01, 2002).]
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Re: PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine - May 1, 2002 11:27:00 AM
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PTstud
Posts: 86
Joined: March 8, 2002
From: Texas
Status: offline
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WOW. Thanks for clearing that up Mr. Ball. I hope this next generation of DPTs does just what you said. With all do respect though, you guys can sure rain in on a parade. But thanks for the honesty...
Mike
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Re: PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine - May 1, 2002 11:58:00 AM
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Andrew M. Ball MS MBA PT
Posts: 271
Joined: September 30, 2001
From: Chapel Hill
Status: offline
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PTStud,
Don't get me wrong. PT is a GREAT profession, but we can't count upon great positive change without the blood, sweat, tears, and as my grandfather used to say, "elbow grease" of our colleagues. We must EARN our emerging doctoring profession.
To count on changes of the tide in terms of age distribution to deliver our salvation is a mistake. It is OUR responsibility.
The point of my posting was not to rain on your parade. You will LOVE PT upon graduation . . . provided that you don't enter with unrealistic expectations. You must expect, and accept, to work hard --- very hard --- to help create your own NEW niche markets, fight legislative battles, and assist (through APTA membership AND activity) to establish physical therapy as an undisputed doctoring profession.
The problem in many cases, and it's not your fault, but the fault of many educational intitutions, that the vision of the DPT is muddy. As a result, coursework provided to practice in independent practice, divorced from insurance, is lacking. I've yet to see a DPT program with even a minimal level of training in courses such as, for exmple, arketing of your independent practice, contracts and negotiation, heatlhcare law,
from EIN to LLC - designing and incorporating your practice.
So, very often DPT's come out with lots of ambition and vision, but little tools to immediately act upon it. Fortunately, most DPT students recognize that their entry-level degree is just that, and are already making plans for MPA's and MBA's upon graduation. I suggest you consider the same.
Drew
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Re: PT outlook GREAT on the new issue of TIME magazine - May 22, 2002 8:56:00 AM
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amelia
Posts: 11
Joined: April 3, 2002
Status: offline
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yeah i do tend to agree with you, I feel that most of us, sometimes me included, dont fight for our rights as PT's, we are sometimes afraid to question doctors, about silly things, lots of time just because we dont want to admit we dont know it. We do give up lots of our duties to other heath care professionals, nothing wrong with them , but we shld defend our property somewhere.
A lot of the unawareness of the general public about our profession is mostly our fault.
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