the Price of Physical Therapy

I had had knee surgery. I have severe arthritis, and my surgeon operated on both knees at the same time. He scraped the frayed cartilage in each knee.

After the surgery I was extremely disabled for a while. I went to this facility in order to receive physical therapy. The goal was to recover from the surgery, and as much as possible, strengthen my muscles so that the continuing arthritis would have less of an impact. I was 46 at the time, and the goal was to put off full replacement knee surgery until I was at least fifty.

The therapists seemed to me to be competent. They taught me stretching exercises, and we gradually worked our way up to weight bearing strength exercises. By the time that the therapy was completed I was able to go up and down stairs without taking it one stair at a time.

At a certain point near the end of my therapy, when I was still having significant pain, the therapist kind of shrugged and told me that since I was a candidate for full replacement knee surgery, I would always have some pain. It was the nature of my condition.

My out-of-pocket payment for the therapy was a $20 copayment per session for 20 sessions. After the physical therapy was over, I received an unexpected bill for $800 in additional patient contribution. Since I had not been informed of this, it was a big hardship. I had relied on the provider to let me know what I would be paying. It would have helped a lot if I had called the insurance company myself and been absolutely positive as to the full cost of the treatment.