No of patients treated per day

[physiobob]

Hi all,
I just want to know how many patients does a physio treat in a Musculoskeletal outpatient clinic in different countries?
Is there any limit for treating a specific no of cases per day in Government setups in any country??
cheers,
Ark

Well I have treated in a few countries. When in Australia it depended on the clinic. In a standard private practice I was seeing one patient every 30mins, with perhaps 45mins for an initial appointment. In the larger sports practices I might see someone every 15-20 minutes however the client in some cases stayed up to 2 hours using various exercise and rehab. equipment.

In Canada I saw one patient every 15mins but had an army of PT assistants and Athletic trainers to assist carry out my protocols and so the 15 mins was review assessment and any specific manual techniques I needed to do.

Now in the UK I am enjoying life and enjoying the relationships I build with my clients. Nearly all my sessions are 60 minutes. All of course include a large component of rehabilitative exercises such as pilates, ball work and gyrotonic. I find clinically that the client gets more out of a one hour session than they would benefit from 3-4 half hour sessions. For this reason very few of my clients require more than one session a week. This is important when considering long-term cost and gain. To many practices offer shorter duration reactive treatments that use up an individuals insurance leaving them perhaps unable to continue into a phase where they actually get some preventative benefit.

So there are pros and cons. Shorter sessions are great if the client actually stays longer under supervisions and carries out appropriate exercise etc. Longer individual sessions are awesome however they of course come at an increased cost.

Perhaps the biggest mistake is when statistics are collected by our associations about the average treatment time. People forget to consider the time the client is in you clinic, not just the time allocated to their appointment slot in the diary. Many 15 mins statistics might in fact be 2 hr appointments. Unfortunately this inaccurate reporting distorts the stats the insurance companies feel is a standard consultation and therefore the cost they will consider appropriate for reimbursement!

[emad]

Absouletely it is an individual pradigm according to client needs . The first assessment usually takes longer .

Emad

[arkesh_physio]

as rightly said by physiobob,the mean treatment time differs from country to country and also on the type of setup u r workin' with..
Cheers
ark.

[asha]

It all also depends on how much space you have, in which you can take on patients at a time. i normally take 4-5 patients at a time. Assessments take 45 minutes. Treatment normally take 30-40 minutes, sometimes longer. Iam into private practice in Mumbai, India,& in order to reduce the waiting period for an initial appointment, I prefer to have physios at various levels. The juniormost starts with assessments. Conclusion to the assessment is normally done by myself or the physios at the top of the hirarchy. Those who have been with me for some years normally would only review or give specific manual therapy techniques.This gives me the time to review every patient's progress, build relations, get maximum results in minimum sittings. i also tend to keep one physio extra so that the running is smooth even if some one reports sick. Hence although the number of patients you see in a day would differ due to various factors, to do a good job, anywhere in the world it would take you 45 min for assessment & minimum 30 min for the followup's. Neurodevelopmental treatment normally take about 45min's-1 hour. Hospitals here private as well as government, tend to have a huge load of patients & they are always complaining of being understaffed.

[charlize29]

In an outpatient rehab here in Malaysia, i get to see 14-17 patients a day.Acute cases will be in the afternoon and the advanced cases will be in the morning, new case assessments take about 20-30mins. and I have another staff who would deal with the rest of the group. You are definitely right asha, they complain that we are understaffed as well. hahaha!!!