Pt. with back pain has a script for PT evaluate and treat / ultrasound and massage.
The pt. verbalized that US and massage helped during their last episode of LBP.
On the last visit the US machine was not turned on and the therapist performed the "US" for 8 minutes with deep massaging strokes of the sound head and wand.
The therapist billed for manual therapy and documented “STM of the R lumbar paraspinals in prone using an ultrasound sound head/wand”.
Is this ethical? Was this a good way to save billable time that could have potentially been lost? How would you react if you picked up the chart and saw this documented?
nothing unethical was done unless the patient was under the false prestense that they were also receiving US, or if US and manual therapy were both billed.
I would react by discussing the case with the treating clincian and question why they did what they did.
No false pretense and no double billing. The situation was discussed and it was concluded that this was potentially a smart way to perform STM in order to help save the hands.