Are physical therapy businesses profitable? Here are the numbers

Physical therapy businesses can be profitable. In fact, they have to be, at least to a certain extent. Being profitable means that you can pay your business’s bills, your employees and yourself as the owner of the physical therapy business. It’s also worth noting that physical therapy is an industry that is forecast to have a net worth of $45.7 billion by 2023. 

Things are looking pretty profitable from the perspective of individual PT clinics, too. On average, U.S. PT clinics have a net profit margin of 14.6%. These encouraging statistics are due to a wide range of factors.

What are some of the factors that help make physical therapy businesses profitable?

• Location — Prime location spots can significantly boost your potential for profit.

• Employees — Satisfied employees can bolster your revenue by improving workflow productivity.

• Competition — Keeping up with the local competition can be a big driver of revenue growth for the physical therapy business.

• Available services — A wider variety of services that are offered to patients are more likely to draw in a variety of clientele to your practice.

• Involvement of the owner — Involved owners are more likely to have successful practices. Strong communication between the staff and the owner can drive up revenue.

• EMR/practice management system usage — Having a system in place that allows your practice to seamlessly manage electronic medical records (EMR) and other important practice data can help make your practice more profitable.

How can an EMR system increase your physical therapy business’s profitability?

Integrating an EMR system into your physical therapy practice can significantly bolster your potential for increased revenue. Here are some of the ways these systems can boost PT practice profits:

• Measuring the effectiveness of implemented treatment plans — Some EMR systems feature capabilities to track and measure the effectiveness of treatment plans as they’re prescribed to patients. They allow clinicians to input data relevant to the success of their patients’ treatment. This allows clinicians to see which treatment methods may be most effective. This maximizes efficiency in your practice and increases your chances of greater revenue.

• Boosting workflow efficiency and staff productivity — An EMR system can increase your physical therapy business’s profitability by boosting workflow. EMR systems streamline workflow efficiency and staff productivity in a few different ways. They decrease many inefficiencies that result from human error (e.g., inputting incorrect information or neglecting to input updated information into a records system).

• Saving the need for physical storage — When you use an EMR system for your physical therapy clinic, you eliminate the need for physical storage of documents. Your documentation can be stored electronically for increased security.

• Increasing reliability of updated patient information — Your physical therapy business can become more profitable when you keep your patient information updated and reliable. EMR systems remind your staff to collect patient information before each visit. This can improve information accuracy.

• Improving medical billing and coding accuracy — Another reason your physical therapy business may experience increased profitability from an EMR system is that it can make medical billing and coding more accurate. It may prompt users to input specific information and remind them when inputting such information is necessary. It can also streamline sending insurance codes to insurance companies for faster approvals.

• Improving medical billing and payment information access — Your administrative staff will have easier access to organized medical billing information. Billing info can be pulled up with the click of a button, and your staff will be able to access your patients’ payment information. EMR systems regularly prompt staff and patients to verify payment information. This minimizes insurance and credit card denials.

AgileEMR has the capabilities necessary to make increased profitability a reality

One issue with run-of-the-mill EMR systems is that they aren’t created and optimized specifically for physical therapy practices. As a result, physical therapy practices may find it harder to get all the profitability benefits discussed above from them.

However, that’s not true of AgileEMR. The AgileEMR system is a physical therapy practice management and EMR software solution designed with input from physical therapists. As such, it’s fully optimized to the needs of physical therapy practices, and this fact helps boost its ability to help you increase profitability in all the ways discussed in the previous section. Not surprisingly, this potential is one reason why clinicians choose our AgileEMR system. In addition, our system has helped our partners manage the information and billing for more than 1 million cases since it was launched in 2013.

Discover even more about AgileEMR and how it can benefit your PT practice

If you’re a practice owner and you’re looking for more information about how the features of our AgileEMR system can benefit your practice, we’re ready to help you get it. 

Contact our team today for more information. You can also schedule a demo to see how AgileEMR can be put to work in ways that benefit your practice and team.