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?
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.
3 Comments
Leave a Reply Cancel Reply
More To Read
Effects of different stretching techniques for improving joint range of motion.
Reference: Oba, K., Samukawa, M., Abe, Y., Suzuki, Y., Komatsuzaki, M., Kasahara, S., Ishida, T., & Tohyama, H. (2021). Effects of Intermittent and Continuous Static Stretching on Range of Motion and Musculotendinous Viscoelastic Properties Based on a Duration-Matched Protocol. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(20), 10632. https://doi-org.libproxy.nau.edu/10.3390/ijerph182010632 The Skinny: This study used a cross-over…
Read MoreHow to Improve Fine Motor Translation Skills
By: Josh MacDonald The Basics – I lay a pile of small objects on the table and an open container for the client to put them into. What object I use depends on the client’s level. We’ll get to that later. Then, they use a 2-point pincer grasp to pick up one and shift it…
Read MoreHow much pain should a patient have during and after therapy?
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 MoreSign-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.
Nice blog
Thank you!! There will be more to come!
Simple direct explanation!! I’m adding this to my student handbook for my fieldwork students