Healthcare is now a consumer directed service. You can choose were you go and who you see for your healthcare needs. Physical therapists in Washington DC operate as direct access providers. This means you may directly access a PT without a physician referral (Medicare is excluded, I’m sorry. Take it up with the Government).
A cornerstone in the education of a physical therapist is learning medical screening. This empowers a PT to be able to screen clients for non musculoskeletal sources of their symptoms; therefore, ensures PTs are seeing clients within their scope of knowledge.
There is no statistical difference in the clinical diagnostic accuracy of PTs and orthopedic surgeons on patients with musculoskeletal injuries. Compared to an MRI, PTs were 75% accurate on their diagnosis, where as orthopedists hit their mark 80% of the time. Non orthopedic physicians were only 34% accurate. (https://www.jospt.org/doi/abs/10.2519/jospt.2005.35.2.67)
Early PT leads to less medication, imaging and costs. Unfortunately, only 2% of people with back pain start with PT, and only 7% get to PT within 90 days. Physical therapists will help diagnose the issue and provide movement or posture based treatments to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
Although I used back pain in the title above, you can feel free to insert any body part in its place. Physical therapists specialize in movement; therefore we are prepared to treat painful movement related conditions. If you are having pain which limits the ability to participate in activities you love and you want to change your situation, then contact me!
References:
https://www.jospt.org/doi/abs/10.2519/jospt.2005.35.2.67
https://ppsapta.org/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1475-6773.12984