At every Workers’ Comp or Physical Therapy Conference I attend, “outcomes” is always a word thrown around without much explanation. Any organization can take their internal data and massage it to meet the needs of a prospective client, payer group or referral source. Average Physical Therapy visits per case or cost of Physical Therapy per claim are common benchmarks that many groups use, almost as if these are the gold standard for determining the success of a Physical Therapy program. But this only tells part of the story. What should be a more important question is did the Physical Therapy intervention bring value to the claim, was it instrumental in helping to close the claim, prevent a surgery and get the patient back to work sooner? Looking at the visits or cost per claim only tells part of the story. We wouldn’t buy a new car if we only knew what the cost of the car was – we want to know what the fuel efficiency is, what the resale value is and how it performs on the road. The same should go for Physical Therapy.
There must be an ability to demonstrate value beyond cost alone in Physical Therapy. It is more important to understand the impact Physical Therapy had on the total cost per claim. This is difficult as organizing claim data is often arduous and usually unavailable. Physical Therapy groups must do a better job at collecting relevant data that demonstrates value. I am happy to see that the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is making a push for Physical Therapy groups to participate in their Outcomes Registry.
Results Physiotherapy has been participating in the Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes (FOTO) registry since 2013. It is a registry with over 16.9 million patient assessments used in 4200 Physical Therapy practices. FOTO risk adjusts patient demographics to predict outcomes based on patients with similar characteristics. It allows us to receive not only utilization data, but change in the patient’s functional abilities throughout the course of care.
Results is proud that we are in the top 10% nationally in treatment effectiveness, which averages functional change in patients per visit. Specific to Workers’ Comp: our case duration is 11 days shorter than the national average and our patients have a statistically significant higher functional change score than the national avaerge. And yes,our visit per claim average is right on the mark as well. But getting the case closed faster and getting the patient better is what demonstrates value in Physical Therapy. This is much more indicative of cost savings versus cutting a few visits off or saving a few bucks per visit. Physical Therapy groups need to continue to demonstrate the importance of these types of outcomes measures or we will face further commodization of the profession, where the highest quality providers suffer and the business goes to the cheapest bidder.
To learn more about FOTO visit https://www.fotoinc.com/. To learn more about Results Physiotherapy’s Workers’ Compensation programs contact us at https://resultspt.com/request-info.
