physical therapist

office coordinator

rehabilitation aide

physical therapy aide

patient experience manager

Revive-Physical-Therapy-&amp

I was initially very excited to work at Athletico, but that very quickly faded away. I completely agree that the on-boarding process is terrible here. At the interview, and upon my hiring, I was promised two weeks of one-on-one training. Instead, I only got 5 days. Another employee began at a different location the week after me, so the regional trainer had to go and train there. I was promised that one of the floating receptionists would complete my second week of training. But, a series of "crises" seemed to crop up at other locations, and as a result, no one came to complete my training. The new employee that began a week after me received the full two weeks, however. But with me, the can kept being kicked down the road. Instead, I was instructed to "just call one of the other clinics for help." I tried this, but when you don't get called back with an answer until 10 minutes before your shift ends, this is a huge problem. "Winging it" is not professional, and it is a terrible feeling when you realize that you received no training on very important things. It is very embarrassing when you have to contact a patient to correct problems that occurred due to lack of training.
As for the rest of training, it consisted of Microsoft Teams meetings, and very long modules over the computer. The modules have a due date, and you are constantly reminded via email that you have just so many days left to complete them. That only adds to the mounting pressure.  I had to go into another room to get these done, which meant that the front desk was unoccupied. During that time, I discovered that no one else in the clinic knew how to collect co-pays or balances. Somehow, you have to magically still do this at the time of service, even if you are at lunch, done for the day, or trying desperately to complete your online training. There is nothing unprofessional about cross-training, and so I do not understand why all Athletico employees are not trained to take payments.
I also do not agree with a lot of the corporate "rules". If a patient has to cancel, it is on you to get them rescheduled within 3 days of their cancellation, regardless of their reasons. This includes if the patient has had Covid. I don't think corporate understands how long recovering from Covid can take. Nor do they care if a patient cannot come in due to work or personal tragedy. You absolutely MUST schedule them three weeks out into the future. This has nothing to do with helping the patient. It has everything to do with "making the numbers look good" at your clinic, and in your region. It is what will get your clinic and your region a bonus, but you will not get a personal bonus.
Communication with my clinic manager was an absolute zero. No matter how I tried, the manager was completely unapproachable. I tried numerous times to get clarification about procedures, but was left completely in the lurch and to try to figure things out on my own.  I constantly felt like I was trying to keep my head above water. And with a wildly inconsistent schedule, there was no finding a workflow. On certain days, I did not begin until 11:30am. Reports MUST be completed by noon. That does not work. And, I was absolutely told that under no circumstances was I allowed to have any overtime.
This company is expanding way too fast, and upper management is spread far too thin. I thought it was supposed to be a clinic to help people, but instead, it is nothing more than a mill to bring in bonuses for the higher-ups. 


A typical day at work involved independently assisting patients, often without direct supervision, even in situations where additional guidance would have been beneficial. My responsibilities included supporting patients with their treatment plans, handling equipment, and ensuring their needs were met, all while adapting to a fast-paced and sometimes unpredictable environment.
Throughout this experience, I developed valuable skills in patience, resilience, and self-advocacy. Much of what I learned stemmed from navigating challenging situations rather than receiving structured training or support.
Management, however, was often disengaged. There were instances where leadership was not as present or responsive as it could have been, which sometimes left staff members without the guidance they needed. Constructive feedback was limited, and concerns were not always addressed in a meaningful way. While occasional gestures, such as offering lunch, were intended to boost morale, they did not always resolve the underlying issues the staff faced.
The workplace culture presented additional challenges. Professionalism was not always upheld, and communication among staff could sometimes be inappropriate. These factors contributed to a work environment that felt discouraging at times, making it difficult to foster a strong sense of teamwork and support.
One of the most difficult aspects of the job was balancing the demands of patient care with the lack of consistent support and leadership. It was frustrating to witness miscommunication and unaddressed concerns, yet my priority remained providing the best possible care to patients. Despite the challenges, the most rewarding part of the job was working with the patients themselves. Helping and supporting them was incredibly fulfilling, and the hands-on experience I gained was invaluable.
A key concern within the clinic was the overwhelming workload placed on the Patient Experience Coordinator. She carried a significant portion of the clinic’s responsibilities, managing scheduling, documentation, and essential administrative tasks that kept operations running smoothly. Without her efforts, many critical aspects of patient care and clinic management would have been severely impacted. Recognizing and addressing workload imbalances is crucial for ensuring a sustainable and supportive work environment. Overall, while this experience provided important lessons and meaningful patient interactions, it also underscored the value of working in an environment where respect, accountability, and effective leadership are prioritized.

Overall I enjoyed my time working in the Billing Center with Athletico however there was a big cultural change towards the end of my tenure. When I started, Athletico had a very strong, inclusive environment however as they grew in size it became more focused on expanding the company rather than investing in their employees. While I was fortunate of having great managers and being promoted through the company, not all employees were as lucky. There are a handful of departments that are too micromanaged and less flexible than other departments.  During my exit interview, my biggest pieces of criticism were the low wages, the lack of remote work, and a corroding culture. It became apparent that the new leadership in the company was 100% focused on expanding and was willing to sacrifice good workers. They opted for a business model where there expand quickly while saving on wages that would result in a high turnover. The raises were around 2-3% a year with modest bonuses. As a hiring manager, it was difficult to give my best, overworked employees a $0.50-0.75 raise and a $1k bonus knowing that the company has acquired multiple PT companies and have built 40+ new locations. I do feel I learned a lot about medical billing and I had a great relationship with my manager so it was a bit disappointing that I had to leave the company to earn a competitive wage. I am essentially in the same role with similar responsibilities as I was at Athletico however it came with around a 40% increase in pay along with the ability to work from home 3 days a month (typically - we have been working remotely full time since the beginning of the Covid pandemic). Athletico was also disappointing with their work/home balance. As a salaried employee I was at times pressured to work longer hours with the implication that it would help boost my raise and/or bonus. My new company actually discourages me from working late or on weekends as they feel that you are more efficient at work when you are happy at home.

I have heard from my friends who still work there how Athletico continues to have people come into work once a week. They are fully capable of having all finance positions work from home 4 days a week yet for some reason they can't do 5 days a week. I feel that is irresponsible and puts everyone at risk during the Covid pandemic.

Ultimately it's a good place to gain experience before moving on to more fruitful positions. I enjoyed the vast majority of my time with the company however I am very concerned with the direction of the company. 

Your typical day at work as an office coordinator is answering the phone, organizing paperwork and managing a patient's time throughout their therapy (obtaining their authorization by their insurance, explaining their benefits, helping with their discharge communications.) You will also be responsible for training rehab aides on admit tasks.

I've learned how to strategize to get our desired metrics through our reports system but also how to navigate a medical environment. I came from a esthetic/cosmetic background so this learning curve took a full year for me to feel fully comfortable in my role. Well suited for someone with experience managing schedules and client relationship building and looking to expand industries. 

You mainly report to your clinic manager and specialist for everything. More so the specialist for HR related things, who would then escalate as needed. But your trainer tends to be readily available and everyone else in your position is incredibly helpful for questions about the day to day. The management team was supportive during a mental health leave I took for a couple of months as well. They do not micro manage nor are they excessive with meetings. Overall feeling that they trust their employee's judgement. Also, a majority of the upper management that I've seen has come from the clinic background themselves, and have realistic expectations of their staff. 

The hardest part of the job I would say is to manage your time effectively. There are periods where the clinic is slow or so busy that things get missed, theres no real in between. The tasks are tedious as any office admin work, and many are time sensitive. Also, rehab aides are difficult to train because they are paid minimum wage, so often lack the motivation to take on additional responsibility. 

The most rewarding part of the job is knowing that you're helping people manage their care for their pain. Patients are incredibly grateful and often express their appreciation in many ways. (Showing us important parts of their lives and travels, cards, reviews, at one location a patient even wrote them a poem about how their condition improved) Our elderly patients are the most fun to work with! It is a very wholesome environment in that way. 

Also - Appreciate that the bonus structure offered also factors in your productivity measured through your metrics. 

Athletico has shown multiple times over, that it will put profits over your quality of life and perhaps more importantly, quality of patient care. At Athletico you are a number expected to provide more numbers.
Athletico will make you visit MD’s, put on webinars, put on community events off work hours and not pay you for it.  This is “expected of you.”
Athletico sacrifices patient care by constant overlap of patients and zoom MD visits during patient treatment sessions.  Let me repeat that last part. While treating a patient, we were told to attend virtual physician appointments with other patients of ours.  To do this we had to step away from the patient sometimes for up to 30 min.  Policies like this encourage poor quality care to our patients if we can’t even be present for the patient in front of us.
Athletico will make you work Saturdays and not pay you any weekend differential.  Salary increases per year are based on “how the company does” but doesn’t come close to keeping up with inflation.  Some years raises are not even offered.
Athletico will make you take your notes home and your salary feels even less when you realize how much you work at home.
My honest advice: avoid if you can. And if you can’t avoid, stay no longer than a year.  Managers make ungodly bonuses while you scrape by with loads of debt. There is a reason employee turnover is high here. If you work here, be prepared to respectfully say “no” for your own sanity and quality of life. Stick up for you and your patients. Know how much your license bills out and demand a fair salary.   
Otherwise these insultingly low salaries will be perpetuated through these mill companies.  
The Athleticos of the PT world epitomize exactly what patient care shouldn’t be. With therapists pulled many different directions, juggling newly trained aides, juggling multiple patients, doing company marketing off hours without pay, struggling to pay off student loans it is no wonder this is the lowest desired PT job on the totem pole.  How can this provide the best quality care when therapists experience such high stress?
Find a 1:1 clinic where truly good, quality care is provided. Where post operative patients are not left to the mercy of rehab aides with little to no medical experience or understanding of surgeries for the matter.  Find a company that values you, invests in you, and respects you.  If you can’t find a 1:1 clinic, start your own business and begin to love the reason you became a PT in the first place.

Just to preface, this is mostly my problem with corporate and how they run things like a business rather than a healthcare facility.. they don't even hide their own lack of care to workers who out their best work output only to be judged for not having enough patients. Ipersonally enjoy keeping myself busy, but when it gets busy it gets BUSY. For example if you're handling two patients and you're the only aide in the clinic, you're screwed if one of the patient is in the treatment area and one patient is on the gym. You're even more screwed if you have to time this patient. It sounds manageable, but add on the task of having to clean and clean yourselves. I find it unsanitary especially in this climate. Add on the task on having to help patients when having to give one ice or heat.

The hours are constantly fluctuating. You don't know if you're going to have to come into the clinic or not. Its really hard to plan things around work when you don't even know your own schedule until three days before you have to work and the work life balance doesn't even exist anymore. Take into the fact that some of my colleagues have gotten the virus and you have to be called into work. There are no sick days nor PTO for us if we get sick even though we are the ones most exposed. However, from my experience managers tend to be lax and understanding with scheduling, but it would be so much more beneficial for workers who have to go to school to have a schedule that isn't going to change ever so constantly 

You don't get any breaks. No lunch either. Pretty much you work all day, and little to no appreciation for working through the day both front and back duties. You get judged for doing it even though its just absolutely insane how thats even a bad thing. Ive worked retail jobs, and they force you to take a break.

Depending on your clinic, you could have either a good experience, or a negative one. I work for an excellent clinic, so, I'm worried about that. The pay is low, and I don't see that improving this any time soon. They encourage merit reviews, however, this doesn't seem to guarantee a raise; even though they want you to give full-effort (with very little incentive). It can get tedious, especially if you're new to a clinic or new to the front desk, in general. 

If you're looking for advancement, please, do not bank on that. Front-desk people are separated from PT staff in terms of that, because that primarily depends on if you wish to be a physical therapist. That is the only growth you'll really experience. There are no lead roles anymore as a Patient Experience Coordinator. 

This is a money-based company, and while they claim to care about the patient experience, this has proven to be the opposite on multiple occasions. From overbooking the PTs, to asking for unrealistic numbers of new patients to the point where it will affect their level of care: it's been proven that it's mainly about how much money will be brought in, as opposed to how these patients will feel after they leave. So you'll know what to expect from certain clinics in how they treat their patients. 

Overall, the experience isn't horrible, partly due to the clinic I work at. But this company leaves much to be desired in terms of pay, and workload. 

I enjoyed my time working at Athletico, especially the wide variety of patients you will interact with. Direct management and fellow therapists were also a blast to work with. Decent benefits and PTO as well as a big selection of continuing education to choose from. That being said, this is not a company that you will want to make a life-long career choice.

Athletico is beginning a trend of only allowing PTA's to see the first and last half of any patient you will see as a way of cheating the system to get more units for direct contact in Medicare patients. This translates you to not having your own caseload and piggy backing off every therapist you work with which is frustrating. You will not be learning much especially if you are a new grad and will have to accept basically being an over glorified aide.

The pay was an absolute insult as well as the paltry raise that was given to me after working my butt off for seven months. Units and patient visits are constantly being pushed down your throat to reach "the numbers" and you are also stressed every month to meet relationship building goals at doctors offices when you barely have time during the day to try and fit in 12-14 patients as well as documentation. 

In short, this is not a bad place to build up your skills and networking as a new PTA, but in no way would I recommend staying with this company for any longer than 1-2 years.

Good continuing ed and insurance benefits. I’ve helped at many clinics, most of which were positive experiences with good clinic and regional managers. However, some managers are toxic and hostile, and reporting this behavior through the appropriate channels ultimately results in HR acknowledging “coaching opportunities” to correct said behavior…but unclear if they actually follow up and provide said training since said poor behavior never substantially improved. Worse than that, future reporting and attempts at remediating the toxic hostile work environment were pointless and met with strong suggestions that the reporter is either making everything up or exaggerating. Most clinics support a work life balance, but not all. Some managers will force you to cancel plans with little to no notice, especially if you’re a salaried employee, with the justification being that salaried employees are obligated to work whenever needed outside of their usual shift (most often without additional pay) because that’s the nature of salaried positions. Some clinics are flexible with clickable schedules when it works with the clinic’s needs, but others won’t even consider it even when it would likely be beneficial for the clinic. Upper management been micromanaging kite and more over the past few years, and many our out of touch with day to day clinic operations, such that require a lot of redundant tedious activities (much of which is focused on metrics) that it’s very burdensome on the already overworked clinic staff.

During my time of employment we were under the name Pivot, not quite yet Athletico. A typical day for me involved seeing patients, providing care/treatment as needed, conducting job risk assessments and communicating findings with supervisors and managers to discuss. The job itself had potential to be almost whatever the employee wanted because there was a healthy amount of freedom to operate how the clinician saw fit. You had agency over how the day went and where you spent your time - the flexibility in the day was nice. The 5d/week schedule was not healthy for a work-life balance and upper management was not interested in discussing alternatives. The account manager was one I didn't get a good feeling from. I felt he never had the athletic trainers best interest in mind and he played favorites - which was apparent by how he talked to individuals and how much he paid attention to them. The job itself felt dead because there was high turnover, no other AT coworker to collaborate with or even talk with during the work day. Upper management would ask the AT's what could be done to bring in more candidates, but any option or idea brought up was shot down quickly without discussion or was brushed aside. Not a good placement for an AT - unless management is hurting to hire. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Physical therapist 93 salaries reported	$88,056 per year
Office coordinator 1 salary reported	$19.25 per hour
Rehabilitation aide 5 salaries reported	$15.80 per hour
Physical therapy aide 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour
Patient experience manager 4 salaries reported	$19.75 per hour

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