support staff FTE per therapist FTE

[Guest guest]

Mike,

Wow! 1.5 FTEs sounds unrealistic to adequately handle all the tasks you

mentioned for 12 FTE therapists.

It might be a good idea for you to contact some of the data source facilities

that closely match your practice. You may find they have more support than the

raw numbers indicate. People learn to play " shell games " with ancillary FTE

hours to meet administrative mandated benchmarks.

Jon Mark Pleasant, PT

>

> As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that

there seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to

clinician FTE in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has

a plethora of data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully

realize that it is difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in

support staff roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting,

structure, clientele, etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be

attainable to be used as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based

managers etc. I can find nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

> Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility

who are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

>

> Mike Hampton PT, MPT

> Outpatient Therapy Manager

> PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

> Bellingham, WA

>

>  

>

>

> To: " PTManager " <PTManager >

> Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

> Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

>

>

>  

> Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

> I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

>

> Thanks in advance-

>

> Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

> Director of Rehabilitation Services

> Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

> PO Box 2600

> Boone, NC 28607

> Phone: Fax:

> www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

>

> " Making Life Better "

> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

>

> This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Mike,

Wow! 1.5 FTEs sounds unrealistic to adequately handle all the tasks you

mentioned for 12 FTE therapists.

It might be a good idea for you to contact some of the data source facilities

that closely match your practice. You may find they have more support than the

raw numbers indicate. People learn to play " shell games " with ancillary FTE

hours to meet administrative mandated benchmarks.

Jon Mark Pleasant, PT

>

> As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that

there seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to

clinician FTE in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has

a plethora of data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully

realize that it is difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in

support staff roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting,

structure, clientele, etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be

attainable to be used as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based

managers etc. I can find nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

> Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility

who are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

>

> Mike Hampton PT, MPT

> Outpatient Therapy Manager

> PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

> Bellingham, WA

>

>  

>

>

> To: " PTManager " <PTManager >

> Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

> Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

>

>

>  

> Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

> I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

>

> Thanks in advance-

>

> Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

> Director of Rehabilitation Services

> Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

> PO Box 2600

> Boone, NC 28607

> Phone: Fax:

> www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

>

> " Making Life Better "

> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

>

> This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Mike,

Wow! 1.5 FTEs sounds unrealistic to adequately handle all the tasks you

mentioned for 12 FTE therapists.

It might be a good idea for you to contact some of the data source facilities

that closely match your practice. You may find they have more support than the

raw numbers indicate. People learn to play " shell games " with ancillary FTE

hours to meet administrative mandated benchmarks.

Jon Mark Pleasant, PT

>

> As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that

there seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to

clinician FTE in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has

a plethora of data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully

realize that it is difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in

support staff roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting,

structure, clientele, etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be

attainable to be used as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based

managers etc. I can find nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

> Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility

who are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

>

> Mike Hampton PT, MPT

> Outpatient Therapy Manager

> PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

> Bellingham, WA

>

>  

>

>

> To: " PTManager " <PTManager >

> Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

> Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

>

>

>  

> Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

> I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

>

> Thanks in advance-

>

> Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

> Director of Rehabilitation Services

> Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

> PO Box 2600

> Boone, NC 28607

> Phone: Fax:

> www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

>

> " Making Life Better "

> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

>

> This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

>

>

[Guest guest]

I disagree w your consultants. I've been running rehab for over 40 yrs and am a

consultant. I suggest you ask some other very experienced people who are part of

this group ( like Dick Hillyer, Beckley, Sykes Milliken, JoAnne

Wisely) for their input. From my experience, you need more than 1. 5 along w a

very well built out and organized physical plant you have designed yourselves to

maximize efficiencies. Sally McNamara, MCS, CCC-SLP, CCP,CCE ohio.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

support staff FTE per therapist FTE

 

Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

Thanks in advance-

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

PO Box 2600

Boone, NC 28607

Phone: Fax:

www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

" Making Life Better "

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

[Guest guest]

Actually, I do have the metrics you are looking for. PT Benchmark has been

studying financial & productivity metrics for outpatient clinics for 9 years.

The last two years have had over 300 locations each year from across the

country. While there will be some differences between hospital based &

outpatient, mostly due to centralized admin & AR management functions, the

numbers should give you a solid idea.

Last year’s ratio of Office staff FTE per Licensed FTE was 0.81 for ALL

participants

For those with multiple locations that tend to centralize admin & AR management

services, the Office/Licensed ratio was 0.86

Another way to look at it is how many visits could they process per paid hour.

· 1.512 visits per hour for the office staff for the ALL Group

· 1.445 visits per hour for the MULTI site group

So, I agree, 1.5 FTE for support staff with 17 PTs is way out of line. But it

all depends on their duties. My metrics cannot separate out the duties since so

many outpatient clinics have them do multiple duties like Mike indicated.

If you want to learn more about PT Benchmark please visit my site:

www.HCSconsulting.com

Chuck

R. Felder, PT, SCS, MBA

HCS Consulting, Inc.

2275 S Main St, Ste 102 (New address effective 1/3/2011)

Corona, CA 92882

Mobile: (Pacific Time Zone)

Personal Fax:

Office:

EM: CFelder@...

<http://www.HCSconsulting.com> www.HCSconsulting.com

This message is personal & confidential.

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf Of

M. Howell PT, MPT

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 9:12 PM

To: PTManager

Subject: RE: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Hi Mike,

I do not have nor know of any benchmarking unfortunately but I have always held

to what an article in PT Magazine (now PT in Motion) outlined a while back. The

article cited proof (by clinic profit) that having more support staff, not less,

actually made clinics more profitable because it freed up the professional staff

to concentrate almost solely on activities that produced revenue. My suggestion

is that you would have to closely chart all “non-productive†time by your

therapists now and see if it changes when the support staff is reduced.

Sounds like your consultants are “business-based†and purely looking at how

to cut overhead (ie salaries) without understanding how a PT clinic works

best-ie one in which the professional staff is free’d from as much

non-productive activity as possible. They only way to do that is generally by

making current staff as efficient as possible or increasing support staff. Their

number, by the way, is pretty unrealistic but without the benchmarks, I think

your only choice is to document now (the non-productive time) and after the

change.

Tom Howell, PT , MPT

Meridian, ID

<mailto:thowell@... <mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net> >

thowell@... <mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or

CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient.

If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments,

please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use,

dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or

any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in

error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by

reply email.

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

[mailto:PTManager <mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com> ] On

Behalf Of Mike Hampton

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 3:57 PM

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

Subject: Re: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that there

seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to clinician FTE

in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has a plethora of

data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully realize that it is

difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in support staff

roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting, structure, clientele,

etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be attainable to be used

as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based managers etc. I can find

nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility who

are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

Mike Hampton PT, MPT

Outpatient Therapy Manager

PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

Bellingham, WA

From: Jeanne Bradshaw <jbradshaw@... <mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org>

<mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org> >

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

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

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

Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

Thanks in advance-

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

PO Box 2600

Boone, NC 28607

Phone: Fax:

www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

" Making Life Better "

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

[Guest guest]

Actually, I do have the metrics you are looking for. PT Benchmark has been

studying financial & productivity metrics for outpatient clinics for 9 years.

The last two years have had over 300 locations each year from across the

country. While there will be some differences between hospital based &

outpatient, mostly due to centralized admin & AR management functions, the

numbers should give you a solid idea.

Last year’s ratio of Office staff FTE per Licensed FTE was 0.81 for ALL

participants

For those with multiple locations that tend to centralize admin & AR management

services, the Office/Licensed ratio was 0.86

Another way to look at it is how many visits could they process per paid hour.

· 1.512 visits per hour for the office staff for the ALL Group

· 1.445 visits per hour for the MULTI site group

So, I agree, 1.5 FTE for support staff with 17 PTs is way out of line. But it

all depends on their duties. My metrics cannot separate out the duties since so

many outpatient clinics have them do multiple duties like Mike indicated.

If you want to learn more about PT Benchmark please visit my site:

www.HCSconsulting.com

Chuck

R. Felder, PT, SCS, MBA

HCS Consulting, Inc.

2275 S Main St, Ste 102 (New address effective 1/3/2011)

Corona, CA 92882

Mobile: (Pacific Time Zone)

Personal Fax:

Office:

EM: CFelder@...

<http://www.HCSconsulting.com> www.HCSconsulting.com

This message is personal & confidential.

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf Of

M. Howell PT, MPT

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 9:12 PM

To: PTManager

Subject: RE: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Hi Mike,

I do not have nor know of any benchmarking unfortunately but I have always held

to what an article in PT Magazine (now PT in Motion) outlined a while back. The

article cited proof (by clinic profit) that having more support staff, not less,

actually made clinics more profitable because it freed up the professional staff

to concentrate almost solely on activities that produced revenue. My suggestion

is that you would have to closely chart all “non-productive†time by your

therapists now and see if it changes when the support staff is reduced.

Sounds like your consultants are “business-based†and purely looking at how

to cut overhead (ie salaries) without understanding how a PT clinic works

best-ie one in which the professional staff is free’d from as much

non-productive activity as possible. They only way to do that is generally by

making current staff as efficient as possible or increasing support staff. Their

number, by the way, is pretty unrealistic but without the benchmarks, I think

your only choice is to document now (the non-productive time) and after the

change.

Tom Howell, PT , MPT

Meridian, ID

<mailto:thowell@... <mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net> >

thowell@... <mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or

CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient.

If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments,

please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use,

dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or

any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in

error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by

reply email.

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

[mailto:PTManager <mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com> ] On

Behalf Of Mike Hampton

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 3:57 PM

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

Subject: Re: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that there

seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to clinician FTE

in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has a plethora of

data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully realize that it is

difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in support staff

roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting, structure, clientele,

etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be attainable to be used

as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based managers etc. I can find

nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility who

are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

Mike Hampton PT, MPT

Outpatient Therapy Manager

PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

Bellingham, WA

From: Jeanne Bradshaw <jbradshaw@... <mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org>

<mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org> >

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

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

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

Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

Thanks in advance-

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

PO Box 2600

Boone, NC 28607

Phone: Fax:

www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

" Making Life Better "

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

[Guest guest]

Mike -

I am forwarding an email that I saw years ago (2006), posted on PTManager. This

is not my data, yet I agree with the parameters and our clinic fits within the

projections outlined. I do know the source of the email, yet I will let that

individual identify themselves if they should so choose.

So...here you go:

.................................................................................\

...................................

Subject: RE: Re: Support Staffing

To: PTManager

Date: Saturday, August 12, 2006, 7:13 AM

We've done a few of these projects in the past, and here's a sort of rule of

thumb:

(Office staff FTEs) + (Clinical FTEs) = Total FTEs

Office staff: A " step model " driven by daily patient visits and managed

over each two-week pay period.

(This model is for an OP clinic which handles all telephoning, intake,

authorization, appointments, charge entry, medical records, chart

assembly/disassembly. They don't print, assemble, or mail bills or receive

payments. Obviously, individual cases will call for more detailed

calculations.)

      0-25 visits/day - 2 staff

    26-75 visits/day - 3 staff

    76-100 visits/day - 4 staff

Clinical Staff: In a mainly 1:1 clinic with 45 minute visits (1-hour

evals).

    Based on the premise that clincal staff are there to see

patients,

but that there are evil events, such as no-shows.

    3 billable 15-minute units per paid manhour. 75% of paid time is

billable. 6 hours of patient care per 8-hour day. Tech/aide staff is only

present to enable therapists and clinicians to see paying patients, so their

hours are included, but they, of course, have no billable productivity.

    So, a week with, say, 400 visits would average 80/day. Visits

average 3 units of One-to-One care. (80 visits/day X 3units/visit=240

units/day) That's 80 manhours/day, or 10 clinicians (aggregate

Therapist/Assistant/Tech).

A smaller clinic with half those visits would have 5 clinicians and 3 office

staff.

Hope that helps!

...............................................................................

Mike

Salem, OR

Mike Studer,PT,MHS,NCS, CEEAA

2011 Neurology Section Clinician of the Year

President, Northwest Rehabilitation Associates Inc. Serving You With

Specialist Care and a Personal Touch

Phone:

Fax:

mike@...

www.northwestrehab.com

[Guest guest]

Chuck et al-

Thanks for the input into the discussion. It seems like many of us struggle

with finding the right staffing matrix to support quality care at a reasonable

support staff overhead, especially in this environment where reimbursement is

going down.

Specifically, to Chuck’s findings below…are you saying with a 0.81 ratio

that for a staff of 10 clinicians that there were 8 office staff members? 45%

of total staffing were office staff?

I agree that Mike’s situation of 1.5 support staff per 12 PT FTEs is out of

line, but if the above is correct, then this seems high.

I may be misinterpreting the ratio; so please assist me.

Thanks!

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

phone

fax

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf Of

Felder

Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 5:20 PM

To: PTManager

Subject: RE: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Actually, I do have the metrics you are looking for. PT Benchmark has been

studying financial & productivity metrics for outpatient clinics for 9 years.

The last two years have had over 300 locations each year from across the

country. While there will be some differences between hospital based &

outpatient, mostly due to centralized admin & AR management functions, the

numbers should give you a solid idea.

Last year’s ratio of Office staff FTE per Licensed FTE was 0.81 for ALL

participants

For those with multiple locations that tend to centralize admin & AR management

services, the Office/Licensed ratio was 0.86

Another way to look at it is how many visits could they process per paid hour.

· 1.512 visits per hour for the office staff for the ALL Group

· 1.445 visits per hour for the MULTI site group

So, I agree, 1.5 FTE for support staff with 17 PTs is way out of line. But it

all depends on their duties. My metrics cannot separate out the duties since so

many outpatient clinics have them do multiple duties like Mike indicated.

If you want to learn more about PT Benchmark please visit my site:

www.HCSconsulting.com

Chuck

R. Felder, PT, SCS, MBA

HCS Consulting, Inc.

2275 S Main St, Ste 102 (New address effective 1/3/2011)

Corona, CA 92882

Mobile: (Pacific Time Zone)

Personal Fax:

Office:

EM: <mailto:CFelder@...<mailto:CFelder%40HCSconsulting.com>>

CFelder@...<mailto:CFelder%40HCSconsulting.com>

<http://www.HCSconsulting.com> www.HCSconsulting.com

This message is personal & confidential.

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

[mailto:PTManager <mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>] On Behalf

Of M. Howell PT, MPT

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 9:12 PM

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

Subject: RE: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Hi Mike,

I do not have nor know of any benchmarking unfortunately but I have always held

to what an article in PT Magazine (now PT in Motion) outlined a while back. The

article cited proof (by clinic profit) that having more support staff, not less,

actually made clinics more profitable because it freed up the professional staff

to concentrate almost solely on activities that produced revenue. My suggestion

is that you would have to closely chart all “non-productive†time by your

therapists now and see if it changes when the support staff is reduced.

Sounds like your consultants are “business-based†and purely looking at how

to cut overhead (ie salaries) without understanding how a PT clinic works

best-ie one in which the professional staff is free’d from as much

non-productive activity as possible. They only way to do that is generally by

making current staff as efficient as possible or increasing support staff. Their

number, by the way, is pretty unrealistic but without the benchmarks, I think

your only choice is to document now (the non-productive time) and after the

change.

Tom Howell, PT , MPT

Meridian, ID

<mailto:thowell@...<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net> >

thowell@...<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or

CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient.

If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments,

please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use,

dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or

any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in

error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by

reply email.

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

<mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>

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

<mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Mike Hampton

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 3:57 PM

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

<mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>

Subject: Re: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that there

seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to clinician FTE

in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has a plethora of

data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully realize that it is

difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in support staff

roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting, structure, clientele,

etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be attainable to be used

as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based managers etc. I can find

nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility who

are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

Mike Hampton PT, MPT

Outpatient Therapy Manager

PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

Bellingham, WA

From: Jeanne Bradshaw <jbradshaw@...<mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org>

<mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org> <mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org> >

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

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

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

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

Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

Thanks in advance-

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

PO Box 2600

Boone, NC 28607

Phone: Fax:

www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

" Making Life Better "

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.

[Guest guest]

Chuck et al-

Thanks for the input into the discussion. It seems like many of us struggle

with finding the right staffing matrix to support quality care at a reasonable

support staff overhead, especially in this environment where reimbursement is

going down.

Specifically, to Chuck’s findings below…are you saying with a 0.81 ratio

that for a staff of 10 clinicians that there were 8 office staff members? 45%

of total staffing were office staff?

I agree that Mike’s situation of 1.5 support staff per 12 PT FTEs is out of

line, but if the above is correct, then this seems high.

I may be misinterpreting the ratio; so please assist me.

Thanks!

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

phone

fax

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf Of

Felder

Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 5:20 PM

To: PTManager

Subject: RE: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Actually, I do have the metrics you are looking for. PT Benchmark has been

studying financial & productivity metrics for outpatient clinics for 9 years.

The last two years have had over 300 locations each year from across the

country. While there will be some differences between hospital based &

outpatient, mostly due to centralized admin & AR management functions, the

numbers should give you a solid idea.

Last year’s ratio of Office staff FTE per Licensed FTE was 0.81 for ALL

participants

For those with multiple locations that tend to centralize admin & AR management

services, the Office/Licensed ratio was 0.86

Another way to look at it is how many visits could they process per paid hour.

· 1.512 visits per hour for the office staff for the ALL Group

· 1.445 visits per hour for the MULTI site group

So, I agree, 1.5 FTE for support staff with 17 PTs is way out of line. But it

all depends on their duties. My metrics cannot separate out the duties since so

many outpatient clinics have them do multiple duties like Mike indicated.

If you want to learn more about PT Benchmark please visit my site:

www.HCSconsulting.com

Chuck

R. Felder, PT, SCS, MBA

HCS Consulting, Inc.

2275 S Main St, Ste 102 (New address effective 1/3/2011)

Corona, CA 92882

Mobile: (Pacific Time Zone)

Personal Fax:

Office:

EM: <mailto:CFelder@...<mailto:CFelder%40HCSconsulting.com>>

CFelder@...<mailto:CFelder%40HCSconsulting.com>

<http://www.HCSconsulting.com> www.HCSconsulting.com

This message is personal & confidential.

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

[mailto:PTManager <mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>] On Behalf

Of M. Howell PT, MPT

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 9:12 PM

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

Subject: RE: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Hi Mike,

I do not have nor know of any benchmarking unfortunately but I have always held

to what an article in PT Magazine (now PT in Motion) outlined a while back. The

article cited proof (by clinic profit) that having more support staff, not less,

actually made clinics more profitable because it freed up the professional staff

to concentrate almost solely on activities that produced revenue. My suggestion

is that you would have to closely chart all “non-productive†time by your

therapists now and see if it changes when the support staff is reduced.

Sounds like your consultants are “business-based†and purely looking at how

to cut overhead (ie salaries) without understanding how a PT clinic works

best-ie one in which the professional staff is free’d from as much

non-productive activity as possible. They only way to do that is generally by

making current staff as efficient as possible or increasing support staff. Their

number, by the way, is pretty unrealistic but without the benchmarks, I think

your only choice is to document now (the non-productive time) and after the

change.

Tom Howell, PT , MPT

Meridian, ID

<mailto:thowell@...<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net> >

thowell@...<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

<mailto:thowell%40fiberpipe.net>

This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or

CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient.

If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments,

please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use,

dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or

any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in

error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by

reply email.

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

<mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>

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

<mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Mike Hampton

Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 3:57 PM

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

<mailto:PTManager%40yahoogroups.com>

Subject: Re: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

As a follow up to Jeanne's email, I am surprised and a bit frustrated that there

seems to be no data in regards to benchmarks for support staff to clinician FTE

in our profession. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) has a plethora of

data addressing these issues for medical practices. I fully realize that it is

difficult to compare apples to apples due to differences in support staff

roles/duties from practice to practice based on setting, structure, clientele,

etc. However, a range of current staffing models should be attainable to be used

as a resource for private clinic owners, hospital based managers etc. I can find

nothing on the APTA website related to this topic.

Meanwhile, I am working with consultants who have been hired by my facility who

are stating that we should be able to run our outpatient multidisciplinary

clinic of 17 therapists (12 FTE) that is open 10 hours a day with 1.5 FTE

support staff. This is support staff that schedules new and ongoing patients,

answers multi-line phones, verifies benefits/eligibility, registers

patients/opens accounts, manages therapist's schedules in real time to insure

efficient resource use, performs medical records management duties (for example

Medicare fax's for POC etc.), processes extention requests and more. Yet I have

no benchmarking data that I can counter with. If someone does know where there

is benchmarking data, I would really appreciate it if you could point me (and

Jeanne) in the right direction!

Mike Hampton PT, MPT

Outpatient Therapy Manager

PeaceHealth St. ph Medical Center

Bellingham, WA

From: Jeanne Bradshaw <jbradshaw@...<mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org>

<mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org> <mailto:jbradshaw%40apprhs.org> >

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

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

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

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

Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:49 AM

Subject: support staff FTE per therapist FTE

Does anyone use any specific target of support staff (clerical or techs) per

therapist?

I have been looking around for this type of information but am coming up

short...

Thanks in advance-

Jeanne Bradshaw, PT, OCS

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Appalachian Regional Healthcare System

PO Box 2600

Boone, NC 28607

Phone: Fax:

www.apprhs.org<http://www.apprhs.org>

" Making Life Better "

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

This document may contain information covered under the Privacy Act, 5 USC

552(a), and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (PL

104-191) and its various implementing regulations and must be protected in

accordance with those provisions. Healthcare information is personal and

sensitive and must be treated accordingly. If this correspondence contains

healthcare information it is being provided to you after appropriate

authorization. You, the recipient, are obligated to maintain it in a safe,

secure and confidential manner. Redisclosure without additional patient consent

or without legal basis is prohibited. Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to

maintain confidentiality subjects you to application of appropriate sanctions.

If you have received this correspondence in error, please notify the sender at

once and destroy any copies you have made.