"Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession and physical therapists are not medical doctors; we are a separate profession that provides a unique service that physicians are unable and untrained to provide."

Letter to the AMA from the APTA, Dec 2009

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Half of Japanese Physical Therapy Practices are Insolvent

Insolvent.

In the red.

More liabilities than assets.

That's where Japanese medical providers (and physical therapists) are financially.

No, it's not due to the current financial crisis.

It's due to Japan's chronic under-spending on health care.

Spending on Health Care...as a per cent of GDP
Japan8%
US16%
Medicare8%
Note: Medicare pays for half of US health care consumption

The take home message is that US health care providers rely too much on Medicare.

Currently, most US health care providers are solvent.

However, a 21% cut in the Physicians' Fee Schedule on Jan 1, 2010 threatens the largest, quickest-paying revenue stream for many physical therapist private practices.

The Obama administration has affirmed its intent to embrace Electronic Medical Records (EMR) as a means of of cutting costs in the Medicare program.

What does that mean for physical therapists?

Medicare is desperately trying to cut costs before the wave of aging Baby Boomers washes over our heads and drowns us in red ink.

Can physical therapist private practices cut costs faster than Medicare cuts theirs?

Will electronic medical records help physical therapists cut costs?

What do you think?

Free Tutorial

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Tim Richardson, PT owns a private practice at Medical Arts Rehabilitation, Inc in Palmetto, Florida. The clinic website is at MedicalArtsRehab.com.

Bulletproof Expert Systems: Clinical Decision Support for Physical Therapists in the Outpatient Setting is a manager's workbook with stories, checklists, charts, graphs, tables, and templates describing how you can use paper-based or computerized tools to improve your clinic's Medicare compliance, process adherence and patient outcomes.

Tim has implemented a computerized Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system in his clinic since 2006 that serves as a Reminder, Alerting, Prompting and Predicting CDS using evidence-based tests and measures.

Tim can be reached at
TimRichPT@BulletproofPT.com .

"Make Decisions like Doctors"


Copyright 2007-2010 by Tim Richardson, PT.
No reproduction without authorization.

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Consistent with the American Physical Therapy Association Vision Statement for Physical Therapy 2020, the American Physical Therapy Association supports exclusive physical therapist ownership and operation of physical therapy services.