do physical therapists make more money than RNs?

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Aug 9, 2006

OT's also work with ADLs, maximizing the ability to perform them with what they have. Nurses tend to to these things for the patients. They also make splints for the upper when ordered by the MDs.
Their duties go above and beyond what an PT or a nurse does, and it's a highly trained speciality.
Saying a nurse can do OT's job is like saying a CNA can do an RNs job. OT's are in high demand as well. In nursing homes they make a lot more than nurses.

Yes. I have a friend who is an occupational therapist. She has a masters degree in occupational therapy. She works with quite a few stroke patients and brain injury patients. She helps them learn how to function again with specific tasks.

smk1, LPN · Aug 9, 2006

so does it differ that much from PT? I am not trying to put down OT, just get a grip on how their services are truly different from PT. I know they focus on helping a person to regain or maintain ADL functioning, but isn't that also the goal of PT. Fine motor skills vs. gross. Is that an accurate statement of the difference.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Aug 9, 2006

so does it differ that much from PT? I am not trying to put down OT, just get a grip on how their services are truly different from PT. I know they focus on helping a person to regain or maintain ADL functioning, but isn't that also the goal of PT. Fine motor skills vs. gross. Is that an accurate statement of the difference.

I only know what I see where I work, so take with a grain of salt what I know. :)

The goals of PT aren't necessarily ADLs. The goals of PT are ambulation, bed to chair, exercise, cardiopulmonary conditioning, etc.

Sometimes there is a fine line between OT and PT. OT's deal primarily with upper extremities. They rehab and exercise the upper extremities just like a PT. But unlike a PT, they want to see the patient eat, brush their teach, dress,clean themselves, etc. They can offer equipment, splints, utensils,etc.

In ACLS nurses are trained to intubate, and in many places nurses give nebulizer treatments, but does that mean we can do a Respiratory Therapist's job? I can get a patient with a broken leg out of bed and even teach them to use crutches, but does that mean I can do a PT's job?

It gets a little blurry sometimes.

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Aug 9, 2006

Here's a good description of OT.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos078.htm

My OT friend works for Healthsouth. Her common refrain is something like this, "I spent 8 years in college wanting to actually help patients. Now I supervise OT assistants all day and the patients are jam-packed into the schedule like an assembly line." In fact, the patient visits are so tightly packed that she compares herself and the OT assistants to school teachers and nurses in that it's reeeeeally hard to find a spare minute to go to the bathroom.

She is so dissillusioned. She makes about 70k per year. I think she has the patience of saints. Imagine teaching post-stroke patients and brain injury patients how to balance a checkbook and how to prepare a frozen dinner in the microwave. OT's also commonly complain about their own back trouble from lifting patients with out enough help.

lindarn · Aug 9, 2006

Here's a good description of OT.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos078.htm
My OT friend works for Healthsouth. Her common refrain is something like this, "I spent 8 years in college wanting to actually help patients. Now I supervise OT assistants all day and the patients are jam-packed into the schedule like an assembly line." In fact, the patient visits are so tightly packed that she compares herself and the OT assistants to school teachers and nurses in that it's reeeeeally hard to find a spare minute to go to the bathroom.
She is so dissillusioned. She makes about 70k per year. I think she has the patience of saints. Imagine teaching post-stroke patients and brain injury patients how to balance a checkbook and how to prepare a frozen dinner in the microwave. OT's also commonly complain about their own back trouble from lifting patients with out enough help.

Health South is like all of the HMOs. They have no interest in providing quality patient care/service, only making has much money as they can. I do believe that the CEOs of Health South were in court/in the paper, recently due to some kind of Enron-like fraud. That should explain alot.

Also, your friend, if so inclined, can open her own business. My sister in law's, nephew's wife (got that?), graduated from OT school about 15 years ago in New Jersey. She only had a BS on OT. She immediatley did a market survey of the area in New Jersey, which is a heavily industrialized area of the N. East, and opened her own out- patient OT center, with something like 6 employees. She is now making a six figure income +, and has over 100 employees. She runs the business as she sees fit, and is her own boss.

The moral of the story is, PTs and OTs have reasonable options if they are not happy working as employees. The reason that she had the idea to do this, is because, as I have stated may times on this listserve, Pts and OTs learn business principles, how to start businesses, etc, alternative forms of employment, while they are in their undergrad program, which of course is 4 years +. Nursing can do this in four years as well, but it cannot be done in a two year ADN program or a two to three year diploma program.

When I went back for my BSN (I was a diploma grad originally), the college had speakers come to class and talk about starting business as a nurse, and gave us examples of some things that nurses could do out side of the hospital. This was in the 1980's when no one thought about nurses starting their own businesses. They were very future oriented.

Are/were these courses necessary to work as an RN or pass the State Boards? Of course not. I call them "quality of life" courses. However, with the "threat" of nurses having viable options of jumping ship from the hospital, and opening their own businesses, and not being held captive in a hospital to earn a decent wage, (I am speaking about out patient facilities who pay nurses half to three quarters LESS that what they would earn in a hospital), hospitals would think harder, and make more effort to focus on that dirty four-letter word, RETENTION. I would not consider out patient facilities unless, you are willing to take the pay cut due to childcare issues. The pay is too low.

My point is, that she has other options if she is not happy as an OT. She is not caught up in the dime a dozen, "meat market" that is nursing. OTs are much fewer, take six years to get out of school, and into the job market, and, like PTs, control their profession. Do nurses get it yet?

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

mary777 · Sep 4, 2006

Even Physical therapists assistant's make $32.00/hr about 5 years of experience, 52K. PT's make over 60K.

catlady, BSN, RN · Sep 5, 2006

I've worked with a lot of PTs and thought they had to be pretty knowledgeable, but doggone it, today my jaw almost hit the floor. I had a patient who developed chest pain on my tele floor this morning and the doc decided to hold PT and keep her on bedrest today until we ruled her out. So I stopped the therapists as they were getting ready to work with her. The PT actually asked me, "Well, what could cause her chest pain?" to which I looked at her dumbfounded and responded, "Cardiac problems." Then she asked, "What do you mean by cardiac problems?" to which the PTA sitting nearby had to tell her, "An MI." How can you touch these people without any basic knowledge of disease processes? And make more money than we do???

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Sep 5, 2006

I've worked with a lot of PTs and thought they had to be pretty knowledgeable, but doggone it, today my jaw almost hit the floor. I had a patient who developed chest pain on my tele floor this morning and the doc decided to hold PT and keep her on bedrest today until we ruled her out. So I stopped the therapists as they were getting ready to work with her. The PT actually asked me, "Well, what could cause her chest pain?" to which I looked at her dumbfounded and responded, "Cardiac problems." Then she asked, "What do you mean by cardiac problems?" to which the PTA sitting nearby had to tell her, "An MI." How can you touch these people without any basic knowledge of disease processes? And make more money than we do???

Yikes. I think it's safe to say that this was an abheration. Every profession has its duds and flukes.

onaszi · Sep 5, 2006

really??? its just about 4 yrs here in the philippines., and OT's are the same.. 4 years.,

JaxiaKiley · Sep 6, 2006

It is frustrating that they hand signs around the community college saying that PT's make a lot of money compared to RNs when the education requirements are so much different. I think people read those signs and think they are comparing the PT assistants with the RNs!

charebec65 · Sep 6, 2006

I don't know what PT assistants make but PT's definitely make more. However, Physical Therapy is a Master's program. It's probably inline with a nursing Masters (anesthetist, practitioner, etc).

mary777 · Nov 13, 2006

I believe PT's have a master's degree and then internship. I've been told 6 six years to be a PT.

For a better understanding, in the year 2020 every PT must have a "Doctors degree in PT" in order to work as a PT. They will no longer work with a masters. And by the way PT's go to school longer than nurses. Nurses can become RN's in 2 or 4 years. thats nothing. PT's have a strenuous job. Do a research. They have as many options as nurses do, for instance they work in wound care, orthopedics, cardiac centers, aquatic, and 20 other different types of centers. They have as much work as RN's do. They have to exercise with patients, take SOUP notes, evaluate them just like doctors, boy its a handful. They get paid $45-50/hr for a reason. Also PTA's (physical therapist assistants) make as much as nurses; they too have a lot to do. They do what PT's do such as SOUP notes and etc, except evaluating a patient and they need to work under a PT's supervision, just like nurses need a supervising nurse, same deal.