Hello Everyone: What follows is a forwarded message (with the author's permission) regarding differences between OT and PT. The message is in response to my original message requesting clarification on OT/PT issues.
I think the author of the message make MANY interesting and sound arguments. And, I've never had a PT make such arguments about the similarity between OT and PT. I am hoping readers will give me lots of feedback on the PT's message Thanks, Ron ~~~~~ This is a forwarded message From: [Name Withheld by Request] To: Ron Carson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thursday, March 07, 2002, 3:32:49 PM Subject: Gerontology =================Original message text=============== Ron, I am referring to both PT and OT. I was a manager of a large rehab dept in a skilled nursing home and a Home health agency. PT and OT cannot get reimbursed for psycho social interactions based on a holistic perspective. We(PT and OT) get paid for functional training towards goals in these settings. I do not know what CPT code will get reimbursed by Medicare for psycho social activities. OT's where I worked: worked on dressing, bathing, standing balance and endurance. Rom and Strength, home assessments, cooking, etc. The only patients referred to OT in Home health were the ones that could not dress or cook their dinner. Actually the criteria was if they asked for a home health aid they got an OT instead to work on function. I also work at an acute care hospital and the only patients the OT sees are the strokes in the stroke pathway, that is it. The OT's I know do so much stuff that is similar to what I do that sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. We even bill the same CPT codes. 97530 as an example. The psycho social aspect is in every patient that we see but we cannot bill anyone for it. Psych hospitals may be different. But that is a very small portion of what OT's in the present health care system do. Funding for psych was divested a couple of years ago and psych hospitals closed right and left hence our sitting in their rooms even as I type. In my mind PT and OT, in the settings I am talking about do very similar things but with different goals. So last Sunday when I worked and Julie the OT walked the patient down the hall to the bathroom she was working on the goal of independently bathing and when I walked the same patient to the gym I was working on endurance to be able to walk home. I did the shoulder replacement patient in the AM and walked her and did Codman's and she did the exact same thing in the PM, because we had decided that was best for the patient. We have all been forced by reimbursement to become more functional in our approaches. I seldom think of PT and OT as being remarkably different, in the settings that I am familiar with. Sometimes if we got a referral for positioning for example we would say well who ever is not busy PT or OT can do it. It is absolutely seamless in my mind. In 1973, when I took over as rehab manager of a school system that had issues who does what. I made it clear then and I will make it clear now, we are not on different teams, we are the same team. Generally speaking at that time one class got a PT and the next one got an OT and we did what needed done and did not bother about the credentials. Today the only caveat I throw in, is we have to get paid. Thanks *********��*********** Unsubscribe? Send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message's *body*, put the following text: unsubscribe OTlist ** List messages are archived at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] *********��***********
