How Precise is Your Prognosis?

In our latest episode of the Future Proof PT Podcast, we cover a few interconnected themes: the benefits of defined treatment episodes based on accurate therapy prognoses, the importance of long-term patient relationships, and the need for objective measures of outcomes that demonstrate the profession’s value to payers, patients, and other providers.

We are challenging conventional thinking and practice about variable and often non-specific treatment plans that are the bedrock of fee-for-service reimbursement. We have to! The profession won’t survive in a scramble to hold onto unacceptable payment levels on a per unit basis, for starters. Therapists all feel that squeeze, especially practice owners.

Payment structures that reward therapists for preventing costly interventions and maintaining patients’ health over time are long overdue. Our expert care is worth FAR more than we are paid now. But that’s the crux of the issue itself.

We must:

• Standardize excellence in developing accurate and specific prognoses

• Establish treatment plans whose cadence and duration can be specifically defended based on therapists’ skilled care and medical necessity

• Communicate effectively with patients, other providers, and payers about prognoses, treatment plans, and the impacts and interplay between our care and patients’ healthcare journeys writ large

• Hold ourselves accountable for everything our treatment impacts—and make sure it meets that expectation. Think BIG about what you do and what you can impact!

These ingredients are needed if the profession is to survive and thrive in “version two” of physical therapy—one where culture and reimbursement are transformed and the PT profession is seen by physicians and the public as the “first stop” for a slew of patient conditions and impairments. Where most believe it’s better to go to an urgent care or their PCP instead of a PT when they have MSK pain, movement and functional impairments, and more. But PTs have to have the confidence and capability to practice at this top of scope, also.

Physical therapy is mainstream medicine! We have a chance to embrace that in a new way and share it widely and generously. But we also owe it to the profession and the medical community to hold ourselves to higher standards of clinical care, providing care and establishing care plans in a way that only we can. When other providers and the public have THAT experience interacting with PTs time and time again, it will pave the way for a future we all want to see.

Here’s why this is so important: those who resist adapting contribute to the risk that our profession is irrelevant in a healthcare system and economy that increasing demands demonstration of value. These aren’t threats; for forward-thinking therapists, they can shape how value is defined in our profession.

By participating in the development of meaningful metrics and payment models, we can ensure that what we truly value most in terms of our impact—patient-centered care—remains at the core of our practice.

Because without adaptation, PT risks being commoditized, with decisions about who receives care, how much, and from whom being made by others in the healthcare economy and delivery system, and by algorithms that don’t accurately incorporate the clinical expertise we know must be accounted for.

The profession’s true autonomy depends on our ability to articulate and demonstrate our unique value proposition in the evolution—or revolution—of healthcare. A big measure of success will be when therapists embrace their role as long-term health partners for patients, using predictive tools and data to optimize care while maintaining trusted, meaningful, therapeutic relationships with our patients over time.

The question is—are we up for the challenge?