aquatic therapy scheduling

[Guest guest]

Dear Group,

A question to those of you providing aquatic therapy with a pool on site. How

are you scheduling patients and staff to accomodate aquatic visits? Do you have

the patient in the pool each visit or opt for 1-2 treatments per week? How do

you " book " the appointment on your schedule? On days you provide pool are you

also performing land intervention (manual, modalities, ther ex, ther act)? Do

you limit pool appointment offerings to specific days and or times?

We currently operate a pool on site and are interested in exploring different

scheduling options. Our current procedure is to schedule one on one with PT or

PTA in the pool for 1 hour clearing the 1/2 prior to the pool patient's

schedule time. As you can imagine our demand for pool appointments exceeds the

availibility in the schedule (we allow appts q 1/2 hour and 1 hour for evals

with 1/2 hour prior to eval cleared).

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Jill O. Sedmak, PT, MSPT, ATC

Director of Therapy Services

Clinton Twp, MI

[Guest guest]

Jill,

I staff 5 PT's and 1 PTA. Everyone gets in on the act and treats their

patients one on one with about 10% of the time double ups. We max out our pool

at 5 patients per hour thus we never have more than 5 FTE's working in a day. We

schedule our treatments for one hour and evals are an hour and we rarely get

them in the pool during eval day. 35 min water/20 min land (including manual

care) with a 5 min change time alloted before land. Our philosophy of care is

water and land same day based on certain inclusion, progression and graduation

criteria we have developed. We are amazed how nearly everyone can receive

aquatics and get amazing outcomes. We always keep it objective and document our

reasons why they need water.

When our patients meet the graduation criteria for water, they are scheduled

for land only for an hour or half hour based on their progress. We always treat

manual with our patients after the water. The water dramatically enhances their

respective manual therapy interventions.

Hope this helps,

Hankins, PT

President

Synergy Therapies, LLC

AOD Physical Therapy wrote:

Dear Group,

A question to those of you providing aquatic therapy with a pool on site. How

are you scheduling patients and staff to accomodate aquatic visits? Do you have

the patient in the pool each visit or opt for 1-2 treatments per week? How do

you " book " the appointment on your schedule? On days you provide pool are you

also performing land intervention (manual, modalities, ther ex, ther act)? Do

you limit pool appointment offerings to specific days and or times?

We currently operate a pool on site and are interested in exploring different

scheduling options. Our current procedure is to schedule one on one with PT or

PTA in the pool for 1 hour clearing the 1/2 prior to the pool patient's schedule

time. As you can imagine our demand for pool appointments exceeds the

availibility in the schedule (we allow appts q 1/2 hour and 1 hour for evals

with 1/2 hour prior to eval cleared).

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Jill O. Sedmak, PT, MSPT, ATC

Director of Therapy Services

Clinton Twp, MI

[Guest guest]

I don't know the answer but this kind of information will be included in the

Aquatic Therapy Symposium Management Track. Topics in the Management Track

are therapy related but the track is applicable to all pools. Go to

http://www.atri.org/Symposium08.htm for full descriptions. Management Track

courses include:

Profitable and Professional Pool Programming

Policy and Procedures Manual Writing

Risk Awareness in Therapy Pools

Patient Orientation

Grant Writing

Marketing

Documentation and Reimbursement

Planning and Building (or renovating) a Pool

Liability / Insurance

Lifeguard (or water watcher) Staffing

Plus there's a lot of research, optional networking, and time in the

Gathering Place.

I can probably get you a conference discount if you're interested. Email me

directly.

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf

Of AOD Physical Therapy

Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 10:36 AM

To: ptmanager

Subject: aquatic therapy scheduling

Dear Group,

A question to those of you providing aquatic therapy with a pool on site.

How are you scheduling patients and staff to accomodate aquatic visits? Do

you have the patient in the pool each visit or opt for 1-2 treatments per

week? How do you " book " the appointment on your schedule? On days you

provide pool are you also performing land intervention (manual, modalities,

ther ex, ther act)? Do you limit pool appointment offerings to specific days

and or times?

We currently operate a pool on site and are interested in exploring

different scheduling options. Our current procedure is to schedule one on

one with PT or PTA in the pool for 1 hour clearing the 1/2 prior to the pool

patient's schedule time. As you can imagine our demand for pool appointments

exceeds the availibility in the schedule (we allow appts q 1/2 hour and 1

hour for evals with 1/2 hour prior to eval cleared).

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Jill O. Sedmak, PT, MSPT, ATC

Director of Therapy Services

Clinton Twp, MI