A typical day for me includes 5-6 clients that I see for 1 hour each and then 1-2 hours of administrative time (documentation, website maintenance, blog posts, social media, etc.).

I see patients with more chronic than acute problems–less post-surgical and sprained ankles and more long-term low back or neck pain, difficulty walking, pain with desk work, scoliosis, and athletes who are having pain during their activities.

I use manual techniques like dry needling, cupping, myofascial release, and active release to improve joint and tissue mobility to help people get out of dysfunctional patterns or poor posture. Then to help people create better movement patterns I use specific exercises to retrain posture, functional movements, and sport-specific tasks. I also use breathwork as a tool to get people out of an overstimulated sympathetic nervous system response or “fight or flight” and educate people on how poor diet, lack of sleep, and stress can impact their pain and inflammation.

The goal is always to help people do their daily activities with less pain and/or improve their performance with recreation or sport.

Pros

• I’m my own boss so I control my schedule, time off, and how I want to treat each patient
• I spend 60 min with each patient instead of the typical 30 minutes at a traditional physical therapy clinic
• Since I don’t work with insurance, I don’t have to spend time getting insurance approval or spend as much time doing extensive documentation (so there is more time to spend with patients)
• I can treat each patient holistically and take the time to address their sleep, stress, and nutrition in addition to a typical musculoskeletal care plan

Cons

• I have to find my own health insurance coverage which is often more expensive than benefits from an employer
• Less collaborative setting since I don’t work with other therapists, although I started a couple of networking groups where we talk about patient care and different topics of interest for solo practitioners

Physical Therapist Aide – Jasmine Marcus

I was a physical therapist aide for over a year before going to PT school. Now I am a physical therapist. As an aide, each day was slightly different. … Read More