SO this is the follow up blog to the insurance blog last week. As a therapy clinic, we can decide what path our clinic takes. Whether we do insurance or just do cash only practice. Some Miami occupational/physical therapy clinics focus their clinic even more with workers compensation patients only. We can even focus on a particular specialty such as certified hand therapy such as what we do here at Hands on Therapy Services. There are a lot of different styles and each business owner gets to decide what they want their business to be like. Regardless of the type of clinic or insurance aspects, I want you to know your rights as our client i.e. a patient.
In occupational and physical therapy, you have rights on what happens to you and how you proceed with your care. That being said, you also have responsibilities. Today I want to highlight some important ones.
Your rights:
- You have the right to pick where you want to go for your therapy. Your doctor can make suggestions or recommendations for you, but you get to decide. If you don’t want to go to where your doctor suggests, ask for other options or do you own research. If you have insurance, call them to see what clinics may be in-network to see if that’s where you want to go. Sometimes it’s about convenience of location, hours that you need, or specialty that you are looking for. It’s your right to pick out of network as well.
- You have the right to great service. I hope the therapist that works with you is respectful, kind, and considerate of your needs and goals. They should discuss with you your issues and goals so that together you can achieve what you want from therapy. This helps you make a more informed decision.
- You have the right to express your grievances. You should feel that you can discuss your concerns with your therapist without fear of getting kicked out of therapy or retribution for speaking up. As long as there is a line of communication in both directions regarding your therapy and expectations, hopefully there will be no grievances.
Your responsibilities:
- It is your responsibility be involved in your care. You need to know the history about your injury, the name of your injury if you are under the direction of a doctor, if you had surgery, when you had injury/surgery. The more details you know about your injury, the better you can discus with your occupational or physical therapist the protocols and realistic goals to set for therapy.
- It is your responsibility to come to therapy. If you set an appointment for the evaluation, keep it. Come to the 1st session and find out as much as you can about what you need to do to get better. It’s always in the 1st session that I make my recommendations based on the evaluation how often I think you need to come in. It does not always need to be 2-3 times a week, especially if you are finically responsible and just can’t afford it. Discuss with your therapist the realistic frequency of therapy. But at the end of the day, your therapist cannot help you if you don’t come in.
- It is your responsibility to follow through with the home program. The second most important is doing the home exercise program. Therapy can be once, twice, even three times a week. But there’s 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week. Therapy is only great if you follow through with the home program. That way your therapist can advance you as you continue. Now, I know sometimes we are busy and don’t make time, sometimes it just hurts too much to do it alone. But that may slow your progress. Even if you can’t do the program a lot, talk to your therapist about REALISTIC exercise or stretches. I can always tell when my patients are not following through with my program, so I discuss with them what are the issues, how can I change it so it can be easier for them, or what is THE MOST important that I just really NEED them to do and the others are icing on the cake. I know it’s hard, I too am a patient and know what it is like on the other side.
Those are the highlights of some of your rights and responsibilities that I think are key ones to remember when looking for a therapy services or therapy clinic anywhere, not just in Miami.
I hope this has been helpful! Thank you!
Hoang Tran OT/L, CHT, CFCE
Hands on Therapy Services in Miami is one of the best hand therapy and occupational therapy clinics in the Miami area. Hands on Therapy Services is centrally located by the Miami International Airport, For more contact info please click here or call us at (786) 615-9879.
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Disclaimer: As with all our pages, this is NOT a substitute for formal medical treatment or occupational therapy. It is intended to inform only. Hands on Therapy Services disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information.
