RE: Should therapy admin staff must carry % patientload ?

[Guest guest]

Excellent point, Carol!

An awful lot hinges on the aggregate responsibilities of the leader in

question. Administration, intermediate VPs, finance staff, HR support

personnel, Medical records (HIM) staff, and clinicians all seem to have

their own perspective on what " somebody else " should be doing all day.

There is such variety in the venues of PT that it would be hard to set a

single rule for every environment. I've seen a " Director " position which

consisted of two Assisted Living Facilities (ALF), one therapist, and two

LPTAs. Then, I've also seen a beleaguered staff looking for relief by

assuming that their director was automatically available to come handle some

of the clinial burden.

A SNF Supervisor reported that he was expected to carry a patient load in

addition to over-long " stand-up meetings " , patient family conversations,

admin team meetings, et.cetera. He was working until 8:30 or 9:30 in the

evening.

While a clinic's core business is treating patients, it has other mandatory

activities within whichever size organization it functions which also must

be performed. Expectations of production of visits and billed charges are

often not realistically set to include all tasks which the group must

perform. The same goes for individuals, such as leaders.

Any leader needs to work out their realistic job responsibilities with their

own boss, then be prepared to communicate them to the other internal and

external constituencies, including the clinical staff.

WARM regards to all,

Dr. Dick Hillyer

Dr. Hillyer, PT,DPT,MBA,MSM

Hillyer Consulting

Cape Coral, FL 33914

_____

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf

Of Carol Rehder

Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 10:12 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: RE: Should therapy admin staff must carry % patientload

?

I respect the opinions of those who feel that to be a good manager one must

be out there carrying a patient load with the rest of their staff, but I

also think that managers can be in touch with what's going on without

necessarily needing to be consistently carrying a patient load. Depending

upon the organizational structure and expectations, I would go so far as to

say it is unrealistic to expect that be the case when managing a large

number of staff at multiple clinics and cost centers.. We are expected to be

out on the floors every day " rounding " with staff, patients, and their

families to gain feedback for decision making. Then there are the safety

initiatives in which we are expected to be doing data submission of

observations of hand hygiene and other infection control practices

compliance. Financially, in addition to budget development and monitoring,

we are doing daily productivity data submission for comparison with our

Premier Group Peers. Then there is the Information piece and participation

in efforts to continually improve our electronic documentation tools, to

hopefully increase staff efficiencies and documentation quality. More

recently we have started doing our staff annual reviews all to be completed

within a 2 month period, with " differential conversations " to occur again

with all staff 6 months later in addition to the daily rounding. We all take

on additional committee and task force responsibilities that require our

involvement not only within our main medical center but others throughout

the health system, many of which require a significant time commitment. Also

we are expected to participate in Leadership Development training and

presentations that are held on a regular basis for all staff at manager

level on up. Add to that program development in addition to the normal

budget, hiring, staff scheduling oversight, and everything else that is

involved with effectively managing a department as we strive to be a top

decile performer.

Carol Rehder, PT

Manager, Physical Therapy

Genesis Medical Center

rehder@... <mailto:rehder%40genesishealth.com>

A J.D. Power and Associates

Distinguished Hospital for providing

" An Outstanding Patient Experience "

>>> " Matt Dvorak " <mdvorak@... <mailto:mdvorak%40SDLCSH.COM> >

7/18/2011 1:30 PM >>>

Nat,

I am talking from experience only, but feel that in order to properly

understand the needs of your staff, you ought to be one. That includes

weekends, holidays, cleaning the equipments, etc. as needed. I wouldn't

expect anyone to respect a director or administrator if they wouldn't do the

same for the organization that they expect a staff member to do. I like

making decisions as to the direction my department goes in, but want to be a

part of it as well.

Matt Dvorak, PT

Yankton, SD

________________________________

From: PTManager <mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com> on

behalf of nits_physio

Sent: Sun 7/17/2011 10:46 AM

To: PTManager <mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>

Subject: Should therapy admin staff must carry % patient load ?

A small facility. We planing to have two therapy teams and two

administrators overseeing these teams. Both therapy teams have staff

strength around 9-12 including PTs, OTs, STs and assistants.

My questions to the group...

In these days of decreasing reimbursements and " do more with less "

Is it justified to have full time administrative staff with no patient care

responsibilities ?

Is it a reasonable expectation for administrative/supervisory staff to carry

a 25-50% patient care load ? Specially if the teams are relatively small.

More importantly, is there an Industry standard or statistic that can be

referred to, to justify that administrative staff must carry a compulsory

patient load ..

and

what is the average percentage of case load that administrative/supervisory

staff must carry ?

Thanks

Nat

MI