do physical therapists make more money than RNs?

[nurse~ashley]

I was just curious...thanks!

[jtanga]

Hmm in texas only 23-26 per hour?...thats too low i think.I think it depends on the state.Here in los angeles cal rn salary is usually 30-40 per hour.

[Ophelia78]

The home care agency I worked for that ended up closing was owned by a physical therapy assistant. He had an associates in PT. He and the other PTA's made $50-60/hr working contract. The LTC facility's they worked for were desperate for PT and OT. The PT's we hired had bachelor's degrees. They made just as much. The base rate we paid for PT and PTA was much higher than an RN, 30-40 compared to 20-25.

[purple1953reading]

I live in rural Missouri, and just encountered my first DPT, when I went n for therapy after a tkr revision. He introduced himself as dr. so and so but said you can call me by my first name. There is also a specialized DPT in orthopedics. The others are PTA. I don't know their salary. Primary and secondary evals are done by DPT and the therapy sessions are often supervised by PTAs. Here I see both at sessions, it just is who is available, when they book your sessions. I know my insurance is charged over $350 hourly for each session. That could be the therapist plus the use of the facility. Nursing care is assessed as part of the bed and room charge. SAD.

My OS assistant said that DPT is what is now available, but there is a PTA program at all the junior colleges, that only require a GED to get in. Go figure. RNs here only start at about $14 hourly. I was making only $ 28 hourly as house supervisor. But if I drove to the city would make three times that.

[steelcityrn, RN]

Here, physical therapist make MUCH MORE than nurses. They bill high, depending upon the patients insurance they can make up to 60 dollars a hour. They also seem to see many patients in one day, if they are paid per patient. I feel some of the visits they do can be done by a physical therapy asst., why should medicare or any private hmo pay someone 60 dollars an hour to walk a patient up and down a hall with a walker? And I do feel that most r.n.'s are not making no where near 60.00 a hour, these amounts are quoted on here often, and I work and know many nurses who don't even make 30.00 a hour.

[KimTheRN]

I don't give a damn whether you have an ADN, a BSN, an MD, or you're the freaking housecleaning lady. What I do care about is that when our patient is crashing and needs you, that you know what the hell is going on, and you aren't looking to me to save your ass until you can look up the correct answers in your PDA. Screw the pay, and focus on your job. I've known plenty of medics and lvns that I'd much rather have by my side than some "more educated" nurses (and docs). I'll take someone with hardcore on-the-job training any day over a damn piece of paper.

[Argo]

Adn here. I make $40/HR. Not one of my staff nurses make under$30/hr. In TX, myth busted?

[KimTheRN]

I second that. Have worked as a nurse in Texas for the last 5 years. If you work for the government or in the bigger cities, it's not hard to clear $32-$34/hr....and increase that to $45-$50/hr if you're doing agency work. BSN maybe pays a dollar or two extra, but how much do you have to work to pay off the loans for the extra years of education??

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

OK, let's 'imagine' it.

After that happens, 'technical' RNs (by that I mean BSNs) will hold back the professional growth of 'REAL NURSES' (by that I mean APN and MSN):

You BSNs, you see, YOU are holding back the 'profession'.

http://www.nursingworld.org/ojin/topic18/tpc18_3.htm

"Doors to future educational changes should be kept open, but moving education to the BSN level is the first step. Noting the increasing complexity of health care, some nurse leaders are concerned that a baccalaureate degree is no longer sufficient preparation for practice. They advocate master's or even doctoral level education and abandonment of the Registered Nurse title in favor of an advanced practice role that is clearly distinguished from entry into practice at the associate degree level. While raising the educational bar even higher can possibly be justified in terms of the knowledge base needed for advancing professional practice, we need to pay attention to past lessons and view with caution any proposed solution that would further split the profession and separate nurses with college degrees from the ranks of bedside caregivers."

You see, all you undereducated RNs, BSN and ADN alike, YOU hold back nursing with your 'inferior' education. Enough so, that nursing is better served by abandoning the RN title, what with all its negative educational connotations. . .

This is where the pathway of academic superiority leads. . .

Ah, but they urge caution. Why? To avoid 'further splitting the profession'. Indeed? At what level is academic arrogance 'splitting the profession'? Indeed.

~faith,

Timothy.

Imagine a world where pills pass themselves and butts don't need wiped. Imagine Doctors of Nursing finally able to spend entire shifts educating patients and being proactive about their documentation. Or, how about imagining a nursing profession whose leaders actually wanted to be nurses.

Hey, maybe if we all had Master's degrees, we could make as much as social workers!

Okay, okay, I'll admit I don't have anything really insightful to add, but if my eyes don't deceive me, for the first time since I joined this forum, five years ago, I agree with Timothy. And that needed to be marked.

[cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP]

Maybe we shouldn't be comparing an RN (with an education ranging from a Diploma up to a Bachelor's degree) to a Physical Therapist (with a minimum of a Master's degree) in terms of salary and maybe try comparing it to a NP (with a minimum of a Master's degree) instead? I donno, just a thought.

!Chris