All We Want for Christmas: The #Physicaltherapy Wish List for Santa
Ah, the holiday season. Time for twinkly lights, merry carols, and every physical therapist’s annual attempt to coax Santa into sliding down the clinic’s chimney with a bag full of therapy goodies and maybe a handful of candy canes. While the rest of the world is off mailing letters to the North Pole asking for the latest gadget or a deluxe coffee subscription, we PTs have a slightly more, shall we say, “specialized” list. So let’s break out the tinsel and share a few items we’re quietly whispering into our cupped hands, hoping the big guy in the red suit is all ears.
1. A Pair of Magic Scissors for Medicare Red Tape
We’ve made our peace with paperwork (sort of), but Santa, if there’s anything that’ll shoot us straight onto your “Nice” list, it’s fewer hoops to jump through. Physical therapists are basically the gymnasts of healthcare — except, you know, we’d prefer not doing a backflip over regulatory guidelines. Can we get a pair of your holiday-grade scissors to snip through Medicare red tape? Maybe something green and red, festively bedazzled, that magically eliminates plans of care, enables PT’s to work within their practice act rather than superimposed rules, and permanently sends the 8 minute rule to outer limits? We promise we’ll leave an extra cookie by the fireplace in return.
2. A Shrinking Machine for Documentation Time-Practical Use of AI
Picture this: a handheld device that records digitally and instantly trims down all the lengthy documentation to a neat little summary producing all necessary documentation through AI, easy-peasy. The dream, right?! Since the elves are experts at making things smaller (dollhouses, tiny wooden trains, real-life miniature horses), maybe they can accelerate the use of a device or technology that zaps that time-sucking documentation into a quick click and done. Less hours typing, more hours actually treating. Win-win, Santa!
3. The Golden Ticket of Autonomy-Direct Access in Medicare
We love being part of a patient’s healthcare team, but just like Charlie Bucket dreamed of a chocolate factory run by an eccentric man in a purple suit, we dream of a practice environment where physical therapists have the freedom to use our full scope without someone yelling “Wait for that referral!” from the rooftops. Give us that golden ticket, Santa! We want to stride through the clinic halls knowing we can flex our clinical muscles within our state’s practice act, making decisions for our patients that keep them moving, grooving, and ready to slide down a chimney if needed.
4. Specialty Benefit Managers: Time to Go, Folks
Here’s where we’re adding a special request — and possibly a lump of coal. Specialty Benefit Managers (SBMs) like eviCore and OrthoNet have long claimed to be making healthcare more “efficient,” but spoiler alert: They’re just slicing the pie and serving themselves the biggest piece. There’s no Christmas cheer in slashing reimbursement rates and forcing PTs to jump through more hoops than a circus cat.(click HERE and HERE for a good summary of SBM’s in physical therapy).
Legislators are finally catching on to their PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) cousins, announcing this week that they’re pushing insurers to ditch these middlemen who skim off the top. Fantastic news — except physical therapy’s Specialty Benefit Managers aren’t on lawmakers’ radars yet. These SBMs do the same thing PBMs do: take from the middle, leaving PT practices with low rates, all while patients pay the price and the SBM’s draw major dollars from the middle. Think of them as the office Scrooge who takes the Christmas cookies from the break room and leaves you stale crackers.
This is where we need Santa’s naughty list at full blast. These SBMs need a direct-to-coal delivery. No more nibbling at the financial gingerbread house we’ve built through years of hard work. We want our rightful slice, and we want it without some benefit manager lifting it right off our plates.
5. Jingle Bells That Actually Call Patients in On Time
Who needs a fancy waiting room announcement system? Not us, if Santa’s workshop can produce Jingle Bells that automatically summon patients at their exact appointment time. No more running behind schedule, no more frantic attempts to reorder the day’s chaos. Just a cheerful chime and — voila — your 10 AM is on the table, no motivational speech needed.
So, Santa, If You’re Listening…
Sure, we’ll leave out cookies and a carrot or two for Rudolph — he probably needs some Vitamin A after all that GPS-like navigation — but we’re asking for something even sweeter: less regulatory acrobatics, less doc time, real direct access, and more autonomy within the structure of our state practice acts. Let’s turn that “treatment cage” into a “treatment stage” where PTs can do what we’re best at: helping patients move better, feel better, and celebrate life’s big and small wins.
Oh, and if you happen to have an extra foam roller or two, we wouldn’t say no. Just saying, Santa, just saying…
@physicaltherapy
