A Day in the Life of an Outpatient Physical Therapist

Day in the Life of an Outpatient PT Video!

I don't know about you, but this has been a crazy week! Productive, but crazy. These kinds of weeks make me very grateful for my flexible schedule at work as an outpatient PT. I have gotten several questions about what a schedule looks like for me on any given day in this role. Let's dive in:

7:45 am - Arrive to clinic, set up, start laundry

8:00 am - 12:00 pm - Treat patients (usually scheduled on the hour)

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm - Lunch 

1:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Treat patients

5:00 pm - Done!

So on the surface, this is an extremely straightforward schedule. However, no two days are truly the same. In the couple of minutes between treatment sessions, I'm completing my notes from the previous hour with the goal of not having to take home any documentation. Also not shown are the cumulative weekly hours calling patients, email replying to patients, speaking with nurse case managers, coordinating schedules and more, all of which gets done during any time slot available from a patient cancellation or during the lunch hour. Marketing efforts, filming social media and promotional videos are also not included above, as they, too, are squeezed in during any openings throughout the day (some clinics block time for this, at my clinic we're expected to just weave it in when able in order to maximize treatment hours). 

Some employers are very flexible in that if your first patient is not until 30-60 min after your formal start time, you can come in a little later, or if there is a cancellation at the end of the day, you can leave a little earlier; I currently enjoy similar flexibility now and it is a game changer, given that I remain responsible with my time management and get everything done that I need to, help the team out/other therapists as needed, etc.  While it is not necessarily an "interview question" nor a first day of work question, it will be worth it to ask your employer or fellow employees what the expectations are when there are fluctuations in the schedule like that - are the daily start and end times rigid, or do you have a little leeway given that your responsibilities are taken care of and you've helped out the others as able? I will say I have also worked at other places, while PRN, that required salaried employees to remain on-site until their set end time every day, which meant a room full of fairly unhappy, stressed therapists were each sat at their desks for the final several minutes of every day waiting for the clock to tick down to allow them to leave. Utilizing my time as efficiently as possible for myself is one of the higher priorities of mine, and watching the salaried employees sit until 5pm every day when they have done a full day's work and could beat traffic by 10-15 min (or more if it was a slow day!) reinforced my love of PRN, hourly work for several years (but I also didn't have any benefits, so to each their own!). 

Got questions about working in outpatient PT? Leave a note below!