How can cash-based physical therapy save me money?

A 1-hour evaluation will be billed to your insurance company anywhere between $250 to nearly $300.00. Then, any subsequent visits will cost somewhere between $179 – $220 per visit.

Insurance – Based Clinics:

1 evaluation x 45 – 60 minutes + 3 physical therapy visits (45 minutes – 60 minutes) = 180 – 240 minutes.

1 evaluation = $250 – $300 + 3 PT visits @ $179 – $220 per visit = $787 – $960 billed to insurance.

If discounts are applied on the patient’s Explanation of Benefits (EOB), the clinician’s bottom line is impacted. Ultimately, the client’s overall treatment is impacted as the clinician is now subject to choose which insurance company’s reimbursement has a less impactful effect on their bottom line.

In this scenario, that comes out to be about $3.28 per minute in the clinic. If your time is shared with another patient and is being delivered by a support staff or technician, then you’re spending only a fraction of that cost with your therapist.

Also, deductibles are probably well over $1000 per year, which means you’ll be responsible for the entire bill, not to include copays and any other additional costs accrued from attending therapy sessions.

Cash – Based Clinic: 

1 evaluation (90 minutes) + 4 physical therapy visits (4 x 90 minutes) = 450 minutes. No deductibles, no copays, and no out-of-pocket maxes to meet. We don’t work for insurance; we work for our clients. The client and the therapist determine what’s best. After a total body diagnostic is performed, we offer packages to our clients which reveal a substantial decrease in cost compared to the insurance model. We believe the cash-based model avoids drowning in paperwork, drowning in seeing multiple clients at the same time, avoids “playing the game” of insurance authorization, and contemplating which codes to use for better reimbursement.