Therapeutic Exercise vs Therapeutic Activity

What is the difference between therapeutic exercise vs therapeutic activity?

Therapeutic exercise is billed as 97110 and Therapeutic activity is billed as 97530.  Both are CPT codes that are commonly used in occupational and physical therapy billing. 

 These codes are very similar and are often confused.  So, when and what do you document for each of these codes?

therapeutic exercise vs therapeutic activity

The therapeutic exercise code is not considered a dynamic code.  It typically involves looking only at one parameter being measured such as active range of motion, prom, a/arom, endurance or strength.  All of these are separate activities and therefore billed under therapeutic exercise. 

Therapeutic activity typically is considered a dynamic activity and usually looks at multiple parameters, these could even be functional parameters.  It is typically used when you are looking at range of motion and strength, or range of motion and endurance, etc. 

For example, if you were having a patient use Puttycise tools this would be looking at range of motion as well as strength, therefore would be billed under Therapeutic Activity.   Pushing a cart or cooking would be considered therapeutic activity as well.  Therapeutic activities typically are real life movements or simulated activities of real life. 

 You can often think of Therapeutic Exercise as being the building block for Therapeutic Activity.  For instance, if you are working with a patient with a tendon laceration initially you may be having the patient perform gentle short arc range of motion, once the patient has progressed and can safely perform towel walking with light resistance, now the movement is therapeutic activity, as a second parameter has been added to the first. 

Questions, please shoot us a quick note on ‘therapeutic activity vs exercise‘ topic! Thanks for reading. 

2 Comments

  1. Akram on July 1, 2019 at 3:16 pm

    Nice blog

    • Miranda Materi on July 6, 2019 at 11:59 am

      Thank you!! There will be more to come!

Leave a Comment





More To Read

How much pain should a patient have during and after therapy?

February 9, 2020

How much pain should a patient have during and after therapy? As we all know pain is somewhat subjective.  It can be hard to determine how much pain a patient should experience with the type of injury as well as the type of therapy intervention and hand pain treatment.  The saying of “no pain, no…

Read More

Wound Healing Complications in Diabetic Patients who have undergone a Carpal Tunnel or Trigger Finger Release

September 26, 2021

By: Amalia Garcia Gundlach, B. K., Robbins, C. B., Lawton, J. N., & Lien, J. R. (2021). Wound Healing Complications in Diabetic Patients Undergoing Carpal Tunnel and Trigger Finger Releases: A Retrospective Cohort Study. The Journal of Hand Surgery, S0363502321003014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhsa.2021.05.009 The Skinny – carpal tunnel and diabetes In general, individuals with diabetes are more…

Read More

Pediatric Hand Development as it relates to Hand Therapy

June 14, 2020

Pediatric Hand Therapy and Hand Development by Chelsea Gonzalez It is essential to have an understanding of the major milestones of grasp and upper extremity development when working with younger kiddos so that therapy complements the changes naturally occurring in the brain at each age-level. It is important that babies and toddlers progress through each…

Read More
Envelope_1

Sign-up to Get Updates Straight to Your Inbox!

Sign up with us and we will send you regular blog posts on everything hand therapy, notices every time we upload new videos and tutorials, along with handout, protocols, and other useful information.