Not the best interest of the patients.

There is this one physician at work who I shall call Dr. CP for anonymity. Most of us Physical Therapist hate working with his patients. It is because his orders are so very specific and it negates our clinical judgment. We are to follow his order/protocol to the letter and I feel like I am just a technician devoid of any clinical decision making that is best for the patient. The State of Illinois seems to disagree with that since we are licensed by the State to make clinical decision making within the scope of our practice and education. And the patient are there with us to receive physical therapy and NOT medical/surgical care. But I digress.

So one day I asked my colleague why Dr. CP would not just have all his patients work with the Physical Therapist in his clinic so he can control their Physical Therapy care exactly the way he wants it? My colleague said that he only sends the Medicaid/Public Aid patients to our hospital clinic. And if some of you are not aware, Public Aid/Medicaid insurance are poor payer of Physical Therapy care compared to Medicare and Private Insurance. I know this because I once worked at a Doctor owned clinic who do not accept Medicaid/Public Aid insurance because they hardly or do not make money from them. So Doctor CP keeps the good paying patients and dumps the poor paying patients to us.

What Dr. CP is doing is so wrong. Patient, whatever the insurance, should have the free will to go anywhere for Physical Therapy care. And I do not even agree that it is the patient's best interest to follow the PT protocol of Dr. CP since I have seen his protocols and it is far from similar to the protocols of many other physicians with the same practice. And the protocols of these other physicians are so similar to each other. So does that mean that all those other physicians are wrong and Dr. CP is right? I dare say the reverse.