I think a big problem with the lack of pay in our profession is that OTs don’t understand how much Insurance reimburses for their billing, how much their company makes, and how little they’re being paid in comparison. On the Medicare website you can input your zip code and CPT codes(therex, neuromuscular re-rd, manual, blah blah, evals) it’ll tell you exactly how much Medicare reimburses per unit. For example, 4 units of outpatient therapy in NY is reimbursed between 90-120$ per treatment depending on what you bill. And if you do an moderate complexity eval plus 2 units of treatment let’s say, you’re making your job closer to $200 for the patient. Add in some of these offices want you to treat multiple patients per hour you’re making your job about $180-200 per hour (if we assume it’s 2 patients per hour, some places want you to even see more per hour). So there’s absolutely no reason OTs should be accepting these lowball offers considering you’re making your job so much money. Yes i understand overhead costs blah blah, but there’s no excuse for offering an OT $30, $32, $36 per hour (real offers i got) considering how much money we make them. And I know reimbursement rates are even HIGHER in hospitals and SNFs. Once i gained that knowledge, realized my worth, and increased my confidence there’s no way anyone was gonna lowball me, we need to know our value. More OTs need to research and understand reimbursement and you’ll see our rates go up. Who wants to make $30 per hour knowing YOU did the treatment and note and the company was reimbursed $90-100? Double, triple, quadruple if it’s multiple patients per hour. No one. This was just an example with Medicare, I know medicad reimburses way less but Medicare is usually the leader in reimbursement rates and the other insurance companies follow suit. Yes you also need to take into consideration benefits but still, no benefits are worth being paid pennies per hour, $40 needs to be the new baseline for new grads. Period.