Where's The Human Touch

In light of the recent post on choosing from American Chronicle Article, we have a concerned patient who wonders “Where’s the care, the concern, the human touch during my evaluation?”

At least it’s nice to know that a “hi-tech” maching mimicking massage of the human hands was used.  At least she wasn’t forced to play a Wii. 

We do 3 things in PT:

1.  We spend time with patients listening to their spoken and unspoken needs.

2. We touch patients.

3.  We educate or counsel them on their condition and ways to prevent it in the future.

This is our brand.  No medical profession has the ingredients that do all 3 of these. When we violate it like we did for this poor patient in Kennebec, we marginalize the whole profession.

Larry@physicaltherapist.com

Comments

[John Ware]

Larry,
I don't know....I'm a little bit skeptical of the source of this information. The patient in question is a reflexologist (why did she tell us that, I wonder?) complaining about the expected cost of a 1 1/2 hour initial evaluation visit in PT, which she admits included a lot of testing/examination and appparently or possibly e-stim just for good measure after the eval. I've done this after a rigorous eval just to make pts feel better. After all, we are in the customer service business, too.

She said she expects the bill to "floor" her. Does she have any idea how much that facility is actually going to get paid for that 1 1/2 hour visit? Certainly a fraction of what the EOB charges will show. Chances are, she already paid a $20-30 co-pay, and that's all she'll owe anyway.

I think she's awfully quick to judge before she's even been back for her second visit. I wonder how much 90 minutes of reflexology costs?

I smell an agenda.

[Larry Benz]

You might be right-but the concern is still instructive and perhaps representative.

[John Ware]

Larry,
Just of word of caution. I think there are stealth attempts out there by some of our competitors in the "alternative therapies" realm to jump at the chance to discredit PT. In fact, I wonder if this whole encounter was a set up from the get go.

I'm all for holding PTs accountable, and you'll find no more vociferous critic of lame PT than me, but when we have a chance, I think we should give our own the benefit of the doubt.

[Selena Horner]

Way to go, John! You said what you thought, it got published AND I see (according to Childs) you found your identity!

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/view/letters/4760287.html