Your First Visit

  • Please arrive 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork.
  • Please bring your insurance card and license.
  • For your first visit, please wear loose-fitting, comfortable clothing that will allow your physical therapist to examine the involved areas.
  • Bring a list of any prescribed or over the counter medications you are currently taking on a regular or as needed basis.
  • Please bring a list of your allergies.
  • Please bring a list of your past surgical procedures or conditions.
  • Please bring in any guardianship documentation.
  • Even though New Hampshire is an open access state for Physical Therapy some insurance carriers require a referral for physical therapy from one of the following: Your Primary Care Physician (PCP) or a specialist health care provider. Referrals can come from: Medical Doctor (MD), Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) Advanced Practitioner Registered Nurse (APRN), Physician’s Assistant (PA). Regardless of open access, after 30 calendar days a referral is required for Physical Therapy with a signed plan of care from your referring provider.

What to Expect

Your first visit with your physical therapist breaks down into a few parts:

Check In:

  • Intake Paperwork:
    • Patient Registration Forms
    • Physical Therapy Outcomes Measure Questionnaire specific to your condition.
  • Give secretary your medical insurance card and driver’s license to copy into your patient chart.
  • Pay your copay/coinsurance based on your medical insurance plan and or payments for services prior to your deductible being met. Payments can be made in with credit/debit card, cash, or check (if a check bounces you will be charged the bounce fee on our end).

Rooming:

  • Take vital signs
    • Pulse
    • Blood Pressure
    • Check oxygen perfusion

Evaluation:

  • The first few minutes will be history gathering on your specific injury, condition, or disease discussing topics such as: When did it start? Have you seen any other healthcare providers for this condition? What does this condition get in the way of in your everyday life from work to home? What are your goals for physical therapy?
  • Next up is the objective part of the evaluation. Your physical therapist might check things like your strength, range of motion, joint mobility, balance, endurance, posture, incisions, wounds, edema and a series of applicable tests and measures. The exam will focus on your condition in which you came to physical therapy for. This may involve joints above and below, such as examining the shoulder we will also check the elbow and neck to rule out differential diagnoses.
  • Your therapist will then make an assessment of your condition and determine if physical therapy is appropriate for you and develop a treatment plan individualized for you and your condition. Some things might be able to be fixed in a few visits, most are 8-12 weeks due to the healing time of muscles, bones, ligaments, and cartilage, while chronic conditions might have intensive physical therapy for a short period and spread your visits out over a long period of time once you’re in the maintenance phase.

Treatment:

  • If there is time after your evaluation your physical therapist will get you started on some exercises specifically tailored to your condition to help you recover faster. Other patients might get manual therapy their first visit, or a pain reducing modality; it really depends on the condition being treated. On most on evaluations there is time for treatment the first session, however sometimes there is not on complex evaluations or if you were running late to your appointment or treatment is put on hold until your Physical Therapist can converse with your PCP or referring Physician.

Home Exercises:

  • Your Physical Therapist will design custom exercises to help you improve your condition, maintain your gains and in a variety of ways such as improving function, motion, improved motor control, cardiovascular performance, pulmonary performance, strength, power, flexibility, agility in order to improve your ability to perform in life during your work and personal activities throughout your day to day.

Check Out:

  • Schedule follow up treatment visits with your physical therapist based on what you and your physical therapist feel is the best fit for you personally with evidence-based research, clinical decision making, and clinical practice guidelines. You can schedule with the secretary based on your availability cross referenced with the provider’s schedule. We have extended hours throughout the day which typically start before most go to work and extend past when most people end work. We also have occasional Saturday hours.
  • If, during evaluation your Physical Therapist determined you needed follow-up care from a different physical therapist or provider, several recommendations will be given and once you make your decision on where you want to go, we are happy to send your evaluation to them, we just need to you fill out a Permission to Share Health Care Information form.

Follow up at home:

  • After your appointment if you were prescribed physical therapy exercises, activities please perform them as directed by your licensed Physical Therapist.
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