Comment submitted by Brett Johnson, Cal Rehab & Sports Therapy

To whom it may concern: This note documents the negative effects of physician owned physical therapy practices. First of all, the best comparison to this scenario is why physicians do not own pharmacies. There is a history of over utilization and over prescribing of medications. There is an analogous track record of physician owned physical therapy i.e. the Florida Blue Cross studies. Specifically, I have been in physical therapy business since 1987. I have had numerous former patients that have been evaluated and referred to the physician owned physical therapy and the patient was not given a choice of where they could receive these services. After attending the physician owned physical therapy, these patients expressed their dissatisfaction with the quality and level of care, prompting the physician to allow the patient to go to their choice of physical therapist. The most effective scenario is that physical therapy and physicians should be free of any monetary gain for utilization of services which has proven to drive up the cost and lower the quality of care. Let’s shift the paradigm shall we. If it is so important for the physician’s to “own a physical therapy office” and their primary reason is to help control the quality and increase communication let the physician not reap any profits from their own physical therapy practice. Let’s see how motivated they are if there are no monetary gains to maintaining practices without monetary gain.