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.
New grad therapy productivity has no formula of its own. It is billable treatment minutes divided by paid minutes, times 100, compared with the department's target like every other therapist's. What differs in a first job is how far below that target you start, and how quickly the gap closes.
This guide covers the number, from the first week to the first year.
How the number is worked out
Your productivity is the minutes you spent in billable treatment, divided by the minutes you were paid for, times 100. As an example, 383 treatment minutes in an 8-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid break is 383 ÷ 450 = 85.1%. Employers differ on the details, such as whether the unpaid break is removed and whether they count minutes or billed units. The guide to how therapy productivity is calculated covers the methods, and the therapist productivity calculator works out your own day.
Find out which method your department uses in your first week. Every later conversation about your number depends on it.
New grad therapy productivity: one example of a first year
The stages below are an example of how a first year can go. They are not a standard. Each department sets its own onboarding ramp, and your pace depends on the setting, the caseload and the support you get.
Months one to three. You will be below target, and that is expected. You are learning the EMR, the building, the caseload and the way this department does everything. Your documentation will take longer than an experienced colleague's, partly because you may still be deciding what to write.
A department that expects this builds a reduced target into onboarding. Ask on day one whether there is one and how long it lasts.
Months four to six. In this example, documentation speed is where the gain comes from. Treatment time changes far less. You aren't going to need less time with a patient, and you shouldn't try to.
Months seven to twelve. In this example, the gap to the department's average closes in the second half of the year. What remains is usually scheduling, using the gaps in the day, and knowing which parts of the day suit which tasks.
Four things to know about the number
The time around sessions is where you have room. Shortening sessions to fit in more patients compromises care. The non-billable minutes between sessions are the better place to look. On a 450-minute paid day, saving 10 minutes of on-the-clock documentation frees 10 minutes for treatment, worth 2.2 points (10 ÷ 450 = 2.2%).
Everyone's number is affected by things they don't control. Cancellations, a patient going off the unit and a medical hold all cost minutes. Experienced colleagues still have these. They have learned what to do with the gap when it appears.
The number measures billable time only. Take a therapist who spends fifteen minutes calming a frightened patient, then gets them to stand for the first time in a week. That therapist has had a better day than the number will show.
Documenting at home doesn't fix the number. It moves the work into unpaid time. Before you make it your default, read what therapy documentation costs over a year, and treat it as a choice you make knowingly. How to raise it with your employer is in the guide to unpaid documentation time.
What to ask before you sign
These are reasonable interview questions for a first job, and asking them shows that you understand how the job is measured.
- What is the productivity target, and what is the department's actual average?
- How is it calculated? Is the unpaid break removed, and is it minutes or units?
- Is it measured daily, weekly or per pay period?
- Is there a reduced target during onboarding, and for how long?
- Does documentation happen on the clock?
- What happens if someone is consistently below target?
A manager who knows the department average without looking it up is paying attention to it. One who is vague about the calculation may have inherited it without examining it. The guide to therapy productivity targets by setting has more on what targets look like in different settings.
If you're struggling at month six
Track two weeks of documentation minutes, non-billable time by category, and the number of slots you lost to cancellations. Then look for the category that is largest. The documentation time calculator shows what your daily documentation minutes cost in points and in hours over a year.
If documentation is the largest category, ask a colleague whose numbers are good whether you can watch how they document. Watch their notes, not their treatment. Part of the difference between a fast and a slow documenter can be templating and knowing what doesn't need writing. Another part can be capturing data in the room during the session.
The comparison trap
It is tempting to compare yourself with the fastest person in the department. Suppose that colleague is at 92% and has worked in that building for six years. They know which patients decline on a Monday and which nurse to ask about a transfer. They also know which three sentences of the evaluation template can be reused. That is local knowledge, and it takes time to build in any new building.
Compare yourself with your own figures from a month ago instead. If your documentation time is falling and your treatment quality is holding, you are moving in the right direction, wherever the number sits today.
A word about the first year in general
A hard first year doesn't mean you chose the wrong profession. In a 2024 UK survey of speech and language therapists, 55% said they had experienced burnout in the past 12 months. A US survey of physical therapists, run in 2020 and 2021, found that 49.3% reported burnout. In a survey of occupational therapists in Ireland published in 2022, over two thirds had experienced burnout in the past 12 months.
Those surveys cover the whole workforce, not only new graduates. If the first year feels harder than you expected, you share that with a large number of colleagues. It is not a measure of your clinical ability.
What to do in your first week
A travel contract has its own version of this ramp, set out in the guide to travel therapy productivity.
- Ask how productivity is calculated, and write the answer down.
- Ask whether there is a reduced target during onboarding, and when it ends.
- Find out who documents fastest and ask if you can watch them write a note.
- Start tracking your own documentation time from day one, so you have a trend to show when someone asks about it in month six.
The last item takes about two minutes a day. When the month-six conversation comes, you can show the trend instead of describing it. The guide to tracking your own minutes sets out a way to do it.