According to survey data collected by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), the job vacancy rate for physical therapists in outpatient settings last year was 17%.
The “Hiring Challenges in Outpatient Physical Therapy Practice” report is based on analysis of survey responses from 133 outpatient physical therapy practices across the U.S. representing 2,615 clinics and nearly 11,000 full-time equivalent employee positions that included PTs, PTAs, and support staff. In terms of practice size, 62% of respondents were practices with between one and four sites; 4.7% reported owning more than 50 sites. The survey was conducted between May 25 and June 16 in collaboration with Vault Consulting.
In broad terms, the report reveals that the coronavirus pandemic ramped up an already-existing shortage of personnel in outpatient clinics, but that relocation and pay – rather than concerns about the pandemic – are the main factors driving employees’ decisions to leave a clinic. The result: vacancy rates that have reached “significant” levels, according to the report.
Among the findings:
– – The total vacancy rate reported by practices averaged 16%. Vacancy rates were highest for PTs, at 17%, followed by 14% for support personnel, and 13% for PTAs. Nearly 80% of respondents reported at least a 5% vacancy rate across all positions.
– – When asked to compare the number of job openings they had before the pandemic with current openings, 60% of respondents said vacancies had increased, with 40% of those estimating that vacancies had grown by 50% or more since 2019.
– – Nearly 41% of practices reported more turnover in the first part of 2022 compared with the same time period in 2019, with 18.5% reporting less turnover in 2022 compared with 2019.
– – When asked to rank why they think employees left their clinics, 37.3% of the business owners cited relocation as the primary reason, with 67.8% placing it in the top three reasons they lost employees. Pay was also a frequently cited reason for leaving, with 25.4% of respondents saying it was the primary reason for employee loss and 63.5% placing it among the top three.
– – Work-life balance figured heavily into the owners’ perceptions of why they lost employees, with 77.1% of respondents placing the issue in the top three reasons, and 22.9% saying it was the primary reason for employee loss.
– – Respondents believe that concerns about COVID-19 did not play a big factor in employee loss, with only 1.7% of owners saying it was the primary reason and 11.9% placing those concerns among the top three reasons for leaving.
Wait times are generally long across the nation, as patients tell of waiting weeks or even months for appoint-ents while dealing with ongoing pain or post-surgical rehab. But the crunch is particularly acute in rural areas and places with a high cost of living, like California, which has a lower ratio of therapists to residents – just 57 per 100,000, compared with the national ratio of 72 per 100,000, according to the association.
A follow up report by California Healthline said that the reasons are multifold. The industry hasn’t recovered from the mass defection of physical therapists who fled as practices closed during the pandemic. In 2021 alone, more than 22,000 PTs – almost a tenth of the workforce – left their jobs, according to a report by the health data analytics firm Definitive Healthcare.
And just as baby boomers age into a period of heavy use of physical therapy, and covid-delayed procedures like knee and hip replacements are finally scheduled, the economics of physical therapy are shifting. Medicare, whose members make up a significant percentage of many PT practices’ clients, has cut reimbursement rates for four years straight, and the encroachment of private equity firms – with their bottom-line orientation – means many practices aren’t staffing adequately.
There’s a shortage of physical therapists in all settings, including hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes, and it’s likely to continue for the foreseeable future, said Justin Moore, chief executive of the physical therapy association. “Not only do we have to catch up on those shortages, but there are great indicators of increasing demand for physical therapy,” he said.