MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

ABSTRACT: The Physical Therapy Aide Manual for Complete Physical therapy serves as a training tool for new workers and as a reference guide for current workers. The manual has three main sections – an introduction, an overview of useful background information, and a section listing important procedures. The introduction uses several government websites to define what a PT Aide does and to compare PT Aides to a similar position (PT Assistant). The overview of useful background information also uses several government websites to address HIPAA and health insurance terminology. These first two sections mainly address the needs of incoming workers to acquaint them to the position. Lastly, the final section uses communication between myself, my boss, and our IT support to define certain procedures that are used on a daily basis. These procedures include taking a phone intake, registering a new patient, entering that patient’s visit information into our billing system, and how to set up the patient’s room and collect payments from them. This last section is aimed equally at teaching new workers the procedures they need to use in their daily work and at serving as a reference guide for current workers to use as they go about their work.
Word count – 200

READER PROFILE: I imagine a current employee who had trouble learning all of the steps to the various complicated procedures we perform and who is worried about what will happen when we need to change parts of those procedures

READER RESPONSE: Thank you so much for this manual! I wish this manual had been available when I first started working here because I had trouble figuring out the duties of this position and the background material on the job! Also, having all of these procedures written down will really help me to improve the speed and accuracy of my work. However, some procedures that you referenced contain pieces of information that will quickly go out of date – like the password to our online BCBS account or the list of steps for checking Medicare benefits (because they are always changing the order of the prompts we hear on the phone). Won't the procedures become useless when one of those pieces of information changes?

RESPONSE TO READER: Don’t worry! Because the manual is available online, the manual can be updated at any time by any worker at Complete Physical Therapy. If you ever need to change a password for one of our accounts, or if Medicare ever changes the order of their prompts in the telephone benefit check, please update the procedures section of this manual accordingly.

NOTE TO MARYBETH: I will not include real passwords, etc in the printed version of the manual I give to you! The real version will have real passwords and will only be available online through my workplace.

T -- good plan!!!!! And, yes, take care with the names and passwords. I trust you to place them in the "real" version.