Pre-PT Grind | Physical Therapy School Podcast · Pre-PT Grind

312. PT vs. PTA What's The Difference? | Pre PT Chat Live

·1 hr 16 min·2 clips

The physical therapist evaluates and creates the plan of care; the assistant helps carry it out, and the other 90% is about the same.

1. Pre-PT Grind's Pre-PT Chat Live, recorded January 31, compares physical therapists with physical therapist assistants on pay, degree, admission requirements and job duties. 2. Host Casey Coleman, a physical therapist and Pre-PT Grind co-founder, runs the stream with a live Q&A, and Brianna, a former PTA now in PT school, joins near the end. 3. Casey's central point is that PT and PTA differ mainly in who evaluates and writes the plan of care, while "the other 90%" of daily work looks about the same. 4. On pay, he cites UpDoc Media's average of about $86,000 for PTs, with a standard deviation of $12,000-$16,000, against about $60,000-$65,000 for PTAs, with a deviation of $10,000-$12,000. 5. On education, PTs finish with a clinical doctorate and the NPTE while PTAs finish with an associate's degree and their own board exam, and he says there is "no back door" even for someone who already holds an MD. 6. On admission, PT school needs a bachelor's degree in any major, with a roughly 3.0 minimum GPA and prerequisite GPAs near 3.4-3.5, while PTA school needs a high school diploma or GED and a minimum near 2.5 that varies by school. 7. He defines direct access as patients seeing a PT without a physician's prescription, argues it does not guarantee patients will come, and notes that some states require a prescription after about 10 visits and that insurance may not pay. 8. To a 48-year-old married listener, Casey lays out the math: PTA school takes about 18 months and costs $10,000-$50,000, PT school takes two to three years and costs $40,000-$220,000, and he asks what the listener "selfishly" wants. 9. On opening a clinic as a new grad, he warns that a practice competes with McDonald's, Starbucks and GameStop, and says PT school does not teach business skills. 10. Suited to pre-PT students weighing PT against PTA.

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