Why Rehab Therapy Patients Drop Off

Rehab therapy practices face a persistent challenge: ensuring that patients consistently arrive for their appointments and complete their entire course of care. While this might seem straightforward, it actually requires overcoming several obstacles that directly impact patient outcomes, retention, and practice revenue.

Why Patients Drop Off

Patient drop-offs—when a patient discontinues their therapy before completing their plan of care or achieving their goals—are an ongoing struggle. Clinics frequently focus on individual visits rather than a comprehensive plan of care. Focusing solely on visits neglects the patient's long-term journey, creating "downstream chaos" as appointment schedules become unpredictable, leading to inefficiencies and lost revenue.

Patients often discontinue therapy because they either feel better or fail to see immediate improvement. Both situations indicate a crucial gap: patient expectations were not adequately set or managed. The patient who feels better may not understand that feeling better isn’t the same thing as healing the injury and reaching full recovery, so they assume that feeling better means they are done with therapy. A patient who fails to see immediate improvement may not understand the timeline and work required to reach their goals, so they assume therapy isn’t effective and stop coming before their plan of care has had a chance to deliver results. Without clearly communicated expectations, patients are less likely to understand the importance of completing their therapy, leading to increased drop-offs and diminished patient success.

Jerry Durham, CEO of the Client Experience Company, talks about this frequently with the rehab therapy clinic owners he’s coaching. Jerry says clients frequently ask him to help them manage cancelations, but he challenges them to prevent cancelations in the first place. 

PredictionHealth Co-founder and CEO Dr. Pedro Teixeira shared some data on patient drop-offs recently during a livestream with Durham, sharing a few different ways clinics can look at their drop-off statistics to gain better visibility to where they may have risk. Teixeira also talked about the connection between patient outcomes, business growth, and retention, 

“ When you're thinking about the episode of care, you're trying to do the right thing for the patient, and think about them very holistically. And there's so much that builds on that, because those people, if they were here for multiple visits are much more likely to get results. And if they get results, that person's going to refer other people, or mention how great their experience was. Because, again, they're going to get results, but you can't get results if you don't get the treatment.”

The Critical Role of the Plan of Care

The cornerstone to overcoming these challenges lies in effectively using a comprehensive plan of care. This isn't merely an administrative formality but a strategic tool to set clear expectations and create a shared understanding between patient and therapist.

Durham says, “ The deliverable, the big peak moment, the crescendo, that (the patient) is waiting for is the plan of care.  This is the sell. It can't be your treatments. It can't be your services. Those are called commodities. This plan of care is the value sell.  This plan of care is (the patient’s) journey from today through until his desired outcome. So it is presented as a map or a journey back to, for example, deadlifting in the gym and waking up with no morning pain. That's the plan of care.”

A well-structured plan of care outlines the patient's therapeutic journey—from initial assessment through to their ultimate goal of improved health. By clearly mapping out what the patient should expect at every stage, therapists can proactively manage potential issues, such as patients prematurely feeling "good enough" or becoming discouraged when improvement isn't immediate.

The physical act of providing patients with a tangible, printed plan of care significantly enhances commitment and retention. A clear, easy-to-understand document that patients can reference regularly reinforces their commitment to their recovery journey, increasing their likelihood of consistently attending scheduled appointments.

Two Ways AI Scribing Ensures Consist Delivery of the Plan of Care

AI plays a transformative role in ensuring the consistent application of best practices around patient engagement, documentation, and care planning. AI tools, like ambient listening, smart dictation, and customized patient engagement solutions, free therapists from administrative burdens, allowing them to focus more intensely on patient communication and education.

There are two direct ways AI scribing helps physical and occupational therapists ensure they consistently deliver a plan of care to their patients: 

1. It buys them time for a meaningful conversation. Effectively using the plan of care requires therapists to talk their patients through the plan, including the goals they are working toward and the timeline to get there. But time is scarce for rehab therapists as every minute with a patient typically requires documentation to go with it. AI scribing, like Sidekick, does this documentation for the therapist, creating more time for deliberate, patient-focused care. 
2. It can generate the plan of care in seconds. AI can quickly summarize key aspects of a visit, automatically generating accurate, patient-friendly versions of the plan of care*. This reduces the therapist's workload and ensures patients consistently receive clear guidance on their therapeutic journey. Sidekick AI scribing has a built-in chatbot that can deliver this plan of care within seconds, using patient-specific information from the chart. Therapists can print directly from Sidekick and hand their patients a plan of care to review, sign, and refer back to throughout their episode of care. 

*Never put PHI into a non-HIPAA-compliant solution like ChatGPT. Sidekick is HIPAA compliant and reads the patient chart, so extra copy-and-paste steps aren’t necessary. 

Making Best Practices Sustainable

Achieving consistent patient arrivals and successful outcomes is about embedding best practices seamlessly into daily workflows. Using technology, particularly AI, ensures that critical tasks like expectation-setting, documentation, and patient communication become repeatable rather than sporadic efforts.

When rehab therapists focus strategically on comprehensive plans of care and harness AI to support consistent execution, they not only drive improved patient outcomes but also build stronger, more successful practices. Addressing patient drop-offs by shifting the focus from individual visits to an integrated, patient-centric approach sets clinics up for sustainable success—benefitting patients, providers, and the practice as a whole.