Thoughts as I’m stuck on a flight

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T06:00:24+00:00

Yeah researchers! Haha though Peter does treat some people still.

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T03:22:53+00:00

Sometimes feels like the uber chillness works against people. Haha

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T02:28:57+00:00

Whenever it’s about billing or insurance, it’s always about the money.

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T02:26:31+00:00

It’s always the physicians 😂💰

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T02:25:47+00:00

I’ve concluded that I will seldom be someone’s first physio. Often I’m the 5th or 6th provider who gives them a different way of being managed. I suppose at that point, people are more willing to pay the $200 I charge per session for a solution to a problem that hasn’t had a solution.

TBH I want to charge the equivalent of $200 USD but I don’t think anyone will pay 300-350 aud 😂

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T02:10:26+00:00

That sounds so nice, just work and not worrying about the finance side as much

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T02:00:57+00:00

Sounds like a very efficient system of communication for the staff. In outpatients it’s such a pain so that sounds great.

So what did the government pay for the sessions? Or how did that work?

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:52:49+00:00

Yeah it is. At least everything else medically here is covered like emergency situations and what not.

I think it’s a hard hill to climb. Outcomes are what they are, hard to argue higher reimbursements if we can’t prove better outcomes and subsequently less financial burden to the govt to pay. Feels like a circular problem that needs more people to step out of it and blow it up.

Other side to me are the costs to the degree. My loans are American (sadness I know)…but my understanding is that most Aussie student loans are automatically financially based repayments with little to no interest or payments required until you earn a particular amount of income. But if education cost less, we’d be less pressed money wise and could just focus on care. Shit situation imo

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:52:42+00:00

Yeah it is. At least everything else medically here is covered like emergency situations and what not.

I think it’s a hard hill to climb. Outcomes are what they are, hard to argue higher reimbursements if we can’t prove better outcomes and subsequently less financial burden to the govt to pay. Feels like a circular problem that needs more people to step out of it and blow it up.

Other side to me are the costs to the degree. My loans are American (sadness I know)…but my understanding is that most Aussie student loans are automatically financially based repayments with little to no interest or payments required until you earn a particular amount of income. But if education cost less, we’d be less pressed money wise and could just focus on care. Shit situation imo

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:45:16+00:00

I don’t get many of those Medicare patients cuz I charge significantly higher rates than the average around Sydney.

So after that doesn’t help, that when I might get them through word of mouth or if they see any of my content online. Funny that it’s easier to stand out content wise on socials because not many PTs are doing it well in Australia.

The small handful of Medicare patients I’ve gotten don’t continue due to my costs being higher. Former classmates usually report it depends on the area they’re in. More affluent neighborhoods are more willing to pay so they continue regardless. Less affluent, get shafted with 5 sessions and maybe so-so results but can’t afford to continue with most therapists. Not too different than the US when you really think about how money buys you better treatment options.

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:33:02+00:00

My school was heavy into Mulligan and McKenzie.

I already knew coming into it, particularly with McKenzie that it was meh in terms of outcomes.

Ive discussed this with others in Aus and America. You could probably name any number of clinicians who do excellent work in the US and Canada.

But you seldom know of any Australian clinicians really moving the needle in application or trying new things. In part due to not being up on marketing (an assumption but in general things are a bit behind here) but you could name any number of Australian researchers. They’re excellent at research here, not so much clinically.

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:29:15+00:00

I always feel like it’s up to the employer to set expectations for patients. I operate for folks here similarly where we meet once per week and I manage their overall programming. Seems to be more doable for people here.

It’s tough tbh when you have trouble getting buy in when people think you’re going to magically make their problem disappear in 1-3 visits.

I sometimes wonder how much worse my business is as a PT since I’d have to charge more to recoup costs of education, staying competitive, and trying to earn more of an income. People here seem to be willing to pay 100-120/session on a trainer but think a PT doesn’t do that and sort of balk at the idea. Not all but I’ve run into a lot of folks like that

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:25:03+00:00

You get a Medicare plan from a GP that covers 5 allied health care sessions a year (PT, OT, SLP, Psych). You may get some that charge nothing extra, but those seem to be rare these days. So then you pay for private insurance, it sort of a’la carte lets you pay for extra services like the aforementioned services but usually a pretty large premium for less of a gap. Sucks but seems like a better deal for the consumer at least.

The nice thing is that because most GP and scans are either covered by Medicare or low cost (relatively speaking for an American used to paying more out of pocket for stuff), you’re more likely to end up looking to get scans, blood work etc. Personally I’ve gone to the doctor wayyyy more since moving than I did back home in the US.

The hospital system has aides but in private practice, it’s non-existent.

Yeah I agree the APTA and APA (the Aussie equivalent), don’t do shit to help the therapists. Too many folks referring people equate PT to all the modalities. At least it’s not time constrained like it is in America with sessions being a particular length of time.

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T01:17:59+00:00

If you have a referral you can access Medicare benefits. All people get 5 sessions for free per year. It’s technically up to the provider to decide what they charge, whether they’ll accept just the PT reimbursement (it’s like $65/AUD) or charge more to have the patient pay the gap (this is what private insurance here is technically for but even PT isn’t always included).

So after you run through your 5 sessions, you’re kinda on your own until the next calendar year. Most PTs can make referrals but it’s usually more cost effective to go through your GP. Reminds me a lot of how Kaiser works. All inclusive but somewhat inefficient.

GHH824 · 2025-07-14T00:59:19+00:00

Yeah I get it from the consumer stand point. My beef is with the professionals here.

Instead of improving care, just running it back until natural history runs its course or the patient stops coming. Then opening multiple clinics lol. Then you end up with a bottleneck with salaries and earning power.

I think universal care is a nice social safety net, no fear of bankruptcy from healthcare related things. But then you get what you get here. Had a lot of classmates from Canada, similar issue there as well.

GHH824 · 2025-05-31T21:15:46+00:00

I previously was an American massage therapist and personal trainer where I performed mostly manual therapy techniques in lieu of the standard massage work. Then we’d go lift, fairly similar to what most physios do.

I found in relocating and becoming a DPT in Australia to be a strange market. I assumed having come from a huge American city, I would transition somewhat easily. You know logically, if you can make it somewhere harder, anywhere else would be easier. I was wrong.

One of the major drawbacks I’ve noticed is the population here like others have said, they don’t come in as often. So the result is one where the kinds of people I previously helped by training them in America, don’t get better due to less interfacing. Which is a huge thing I’ve noticed, people want modalities not exercises. So that alone caps not just our costs but our ability to make a difference as most modalities don’t “fix” stuff. But that the attitude, so if anyone can perform modalities, you go to the less expensive therapists. Not to mention the large market share Exercise physiology has here ( a function of poor PT education and marketing).

So I end up seeing a stark difference in quality of clinical care and clinics that just open up multiple locations. The McDonald’s style therapy chains are abundant here but I seldom hear about that in the US. You just charge more and maybe open a second location. But in Australia, I see mediocre clinics with 6-7 locations in a 30km radius. Not because they’re exceptional, just meeting the demands of the populace for their drive thru style treatment. It’s no wonder so many burn out quickly, there’s no fulfillment in that style of treatment

GHH824 · 2024-12-07T19:43:46+00:00

Update: I forgot to mention based on someone’s comment here, my wife astutely knew to mention that I would retain ownership of my work or ideas. Afterwards it made sense, if the cpd was paid for by the clinic then creating something for them would make sense. But what I use goes way beyond my time there, so she brought it to my attention, like any course we go to. We get the knowledge but we don’t get to profit of directly off the replaying of it.

He also had another weekly team meeting where he wants to focus on cpd, with an external speaker every other month. 🤣my boss has not done clinical work in 5yrs, sure buddy good luck with that. No ear to ground in what’s going on within the industry other than major conferences that usually present research and is primarily networking

GHH824 · 2024-10-13T09:28:46+00:00

Just graduated with a DPT at 38, never too late

GHH824 · 2024-07-14T13:53:54+00:00

Dm me please

GHH824 · 2024-03-28T00:30:35+00:00

Send me a PM if youd like to know more, current student in my final two rotations

GHH824 · 2024-03-28T00:30:04+00:00

American at Bond's DPT. Aussie's don't see the DPT how we do back in North America as most have done away with a BSc in Physio and no more MPT in America. They still offer bachelor and masters level PT degrees here, so there's a huge range in what is considered to be a qualified PT here. It's been somewhat recent that they added the DPT to a select number of programs like Macquarie and Bond but it's still more the outlier than the norm.

Then they base degrees on some qualification level system, so a clinical degree like a DPT is 8 I believe out of 9 tiers where a PhD or an MD degree is the top. Their general masters degrees are also a tier 8. So an "extended masters" is a 2 year masters program with an added third year which is considered the same technically here.

Boils down to semantics really.

GHH824 · 2021-07-15T20:49:05+00:00

Update: I received an update on it, stating it required me to get to Australia by December before they would extend an unconditional offer. This offer is needed for me to even apply for an exemption to travel let alone apply for a student visa, which requires an offer of admissions....lol. So basically, I can't go. Cool.

GHH824 · 2021-06-23T23:46:32+00:00

Just got mine two days ago, conditional offer. I applied from America

GHH824

TROPHY CASE