by Vince Kame Jr.
PT, MS, ATC | Owner of the South Chandler Location
Over the past 20 years, increasingly states have granted patients uncontrived wangle to physical therapy without a physician referral. Although the state of Arizona has already offered this type of wangle for several years, it was not until recently that insurance companies began paying for physical therapy without a physician referral.
The main reason for this transpiration comes from the mounting data proving that visiting a physical therapist first might reduce financing and modernize the overall outcome of injury rehabilitation. Historically, the process from injury to recovery has been to see a physician, try medication, receive diagnostic imaging, rest, and hope for a resolution. If the problem was not resolved, the next step was to try physical therapy and maybe some sort of medical intervention such as injections or surgery. However, considering of the increasing forfeit of medical care, insurance companies and patients have been looking for methods to lower the forfeit of rehabilitation. One of these methods is to try PT first for musculoskeletal problems.
Top Three Reasons to Seek Physical Therapy First for Pain
1. Reduce or eliminate pain.
Physical therapy provides the opportunity to reduce or eliminate pain through specific therapeutic exercises and transmission therapy techniques, such as joint and soft tissue mobilization, to restore normal joint mechanics to support and help heal injured tissues. Modalities such as ultrasound, electrical stimulation, and taping techniques can moreover reduce pain during recovery.
2. Stave or recover from surgery.
In many cases, if physical therapy can write the reasons contributing to pain, you may be worldly-wise to stave surgery altogether. If you do need surgery, pre-surgery physical therapy can modernize mobility and strength and help get you in largest condition, making it easier to recover from surgery with postoperative physical therapy increasingly quickly and with largest outcomes.
3. Modernize mobility.
If you have difficulty with standing, walking, or transitioning, such as moving from a sitting to a standing position, exercises to modernize flexibility and strength can modernize your worthiness to move with greater ease, making everyday activities increasingly enjoyable. Physical therapists can moreover instruct and fit you for an assistive device such as a cane, crutches, or other assistive devices designed to modernize your mobility.
When looking at patients who went to physical therapy first, there was an stereotype savings of over $250 in one study and over $1,000 in another. Overall, there were substantial savings wideness the workbench with less imaging, less medication, and plane less treatment.
Similarly, a study looking at patients with low when pain reported significant forfeit savings.
Again, these savings came from PT first’s role in reducing emergency room visits, imaging such as X-rays and MRI, and opioid use. This study moreover found a 9% increase in completing functional goals when using PT first.
Physical therapy has evolved profoundly over the past 20 to 25 years, as have the patients it serves. Due to financing and other factors, the goal now is to fix the problem as soon as possible with as little healthcare use as possible. Physical therapy enables the therapist to treat the rationalization of the pain early on and to uncork the rehabilitation by restoring the proper mechanics that may be causing the pain.
We are moreover trained to recognize when physical therapy is not the proper or weightier first undertow of whoopee and can point patients in the weightier direction. The physician-physical therapy team is still the standard when dealing with musculoskeletal problems. This team will unchangingly be present for and hair-trigger to the superintendency of a upper percentage of patients. However, as healthcare evolves, the vestige favoring a physical therapy first tideway continues to grow.
If you have any questions regarding uncontrived wangle to physical therapy or to schedule a pain towage contact your nearest Foothills Sports Medicine Physical Therapy clinic.
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