What to Expect

At Specialized Physical Therapy, our mission is to treat our patients as we would want to be treated by:

• Prioritizing Effective and Efficient care

• Providing one-on-one appointments

• Submitting insurance claims with integrity

• Maintaining Financial Transparency

• Scheduling with respect for our patients

Effective and Efficient Care is provided through proper utilization of Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy as explained on our Method page.  As explained there, we emphasize performance of self-care rather than dependence on your providers.  This provides rapid recovery while using significantly fewer visits and allowing for prevention of recurrence.

One-on-one appointments are an important aspect of treating our patients well. Your 40 minute session is always with a licensed physical therapy provider.  You will not find a large gym filled with patients while your provider is trying to supervise multiple patients, and we do not use unlicensed providers although it is a common practice in Chattanooga.  (Unlicensed providers are commonly referred to as a physical therapy tech or aide.)

Insurance claims are submitted primarily for Therapeutic Exercise and Manual Therapy.  These terms are legally defined by the American Medical Association as being one-on-one.  According to industry leaders on ethical and legal billing practices it is fraudulent to bill for these services to more than one individual at a time, although it is also a common practice in Chattanooga.

Financial Transparency is maintained by providing patients with a clear understanding of their cost for each visit as well as how their health insurance will process claims.  Billing for physical therapy services is very simple and all clinics should be able to provide accurate costs up front.  It is rare that this information is incorrect when provided by a health insurance company, although it does happen occasionally.  The patient’s financial responsibility is collected at each visit, to allow an accurate understanding of costs associated with treatment, and to prevent anyone from unknowingly accumulating a large balance.

Scheduling with respect for our patients is achieved as we set aside 40 minutes for each visit, work hard to stay on time, and never overbook.  There are instances when we do fall behind, but it is rare that we are more than 5-10 minutes late starting an appointment.  If a patient arrives late we make every reasonable effort to shorten their session out of respect for the next scheduled patient.  We ask that this respect is reciprocated by patients arriving at least 5 minutes early for their appointment so they are ready at the appointment time.  Because of the extensive time set aside for each visit, we do require 24 hour notice when cancelling or rescheduling an appointment.