Therapy productivity guides
Guides on how therapy productivity is measured, what it leaves out, and what to do about it. Written for clinicians, with one section for managers.
Productivity basics
- Does your lunch break count against your productivity?
The same day's work reads 85.1% or 79.8% depending on where thirty minutes of unpaid break goes.
- How to calculate productivity for therapists, and why yours never matches
There is one formula and five common ways of applying it.
- Productivity targets by setting: what is normal and what is not
The figures here are ASHA’s, for US speech-language pathologists in health care. Employers set the rest, so the method matters more than the number.
- How to recover a bad productivity week without staying late every night
Work out what the rest of the week requires before you decide to skip lunch.
Documentation
- What therapy documentation costs you, in hours and in money
Turn your daily note minutes into hours, money and productivity points you can take to a manager.
- Point-of-service documentation: does it work?
A common suggestion for therapists behind on notes, and where it holds up.
- How to track therapy minutes yourself in two minutes a day
Two weeks of your own figures to set beside your employer's report, in about two minutes a day.
Billing
- The 8-minute rule, explained without the jargon
The unit table, how units are shared between timed codes, and four worked examples.
- Group and concurrent therapy under PDPM: what counts and what it costs you
The limit is 25% per resident, per discipline, across the stay, and your employer's counting method decides what it does to your number.
- CQ and CO modifiers: assistant services and the payment difference
Which services carry the CQ or CO modifier, what the 10% exception covers, and the arithmetic of a payment at 85%.
At work
- What to say in supervision when your productivity is below target
Your own figures, calculated your employer's way, turn a performance conversation into a workload conversation.
- COTA and PTA productivity targets: why assistants can get the higher number, and when that stops being fair
The reasoning holds only if assistants are protected from the non-billable work the therapist's lower target allows for.
- Cancellations and no-shows: planning your productivity day around empty slots
Your ceiling for the day, how much to book for your no-show rate, and a plan for an empty 45-minute slot.
- New grad therapy productivity: a guide to your first job
How the number works, how a first year can go, and what to ask before you accept an offer.
- Travel therapy and productivity: what changes when you are the traveler
A short contract, a new EMR and a target that may not allow for the fact that you arrived on Monday.
- Unpaid documentation time: what to know and who to ask
How to measure unpaid documentation time, how to raise it, and who can advise you.
- CFY productivity expectations: what 85% and 95% offers mean in minutes
Two percentages that measure different things, and the minutes a clinical fellow has left for notes under each offer.
- Therapist burnout and productivity pressure: what the surveys show
Three surveys in three countries found burnout in about half of respondents or more, and their headline figures don't name a cause.
Settings
- Home health productivity points: visits, point systems and windshield time
A points target counts visits, not time, so the hours it takes depend on your territory and your notes.
- School-based therapy productivity: why it's measured differently
Service minutes, workload and a different definition of a productive day.
For managers
- For rehab managers: how to set a productivity target that is fair from both sides
A rehab productivity target that holds up is designed, written down and checked against the day it implies.
Calculations
- The therapy productivity formula, with worked examples
One equation, four worked examples, and five mistakes that break it.
- How to calculate the billable minutes needed to hit target
Multiply your paid minutes by your target, then subtract the treatment minutes you have already delivered.
- Therapy utilization vs productivity: two numbers people mix up
Utilization divides by bookable time and productivity by paid time, so the same day gives two figures.
- How to calculate documentation time as a percentage of your day
Turn notes into a percentage, then into the points it costs you.
- Converting units to minutes and minutes to units
Both directions, plus the single minutes that are worth a whole unit.
- How to calculate a weekly productivity average and a pay-period average
Averaging percentages is not the same as averaging the days behind them.
- How to calculate your clock-out time from your productivity target
Paid minutes keep running after your last patient leaves.
- How to calculate therapy caseload capacity
Capacity is your available minutes divided by what each patient takes from them.
- How to calculate group and concurrent therapy minutes
Per resident, per discipline, across the stay, and what each mode does to your own numbers.
- How to calculate the cost of a cancellation: points, yearly hours and the effective target
One empty slot has a price in percentage points, and a year of them has a price in hours.
- How to calculate part-time therapy productivity on short, split and PRN shifts
The formula is the same on a short day, but fixed tasks take a bigger share of it.
- How to calculate productivity from your schedule before the day starts
Divide tomorrow's booked minutes by your paid minutes.
- How to calculate your real hourly rate with unpaid time
Add your unpaid hours to your contracted hours to see what you earn for each hour you work.
- How to calculate productivity when travel eats your day
Windshield time sets a ceiling before you treat anyone.
- Therapist productivity chart: percentage conversion tables
The billable minutes for each target and shift length, already worked out.
- Labor productivity formula, with worked examples
Output divided by hours worked, and the choices that decide what the answer means.