By business type
Where an assistant helps a physiotherapy clinic, and where it stops
Physiotherapy sits closer to the line than most people expect. The questions look administrative, but a large share of them are really asking whether a particular body will get better, and answering that in writing is treatment, not information.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- how much is a session
- do i need a referral
- do you take my insurance
- how many sessions will i need
- how long is an appointment
- what should i wear
- do you do home visits
- can you treat sports injuries
- do you have parking
- can i claim this back on insurance
- do you offer sports massage
- how soon can i be seen
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| Session prices and block booking terms | Initial assessment versus follow up, any block discount, and whether the assessment includes treatment. The last one is asked constantly and answered rarely. |
|---|---|
| Referral and self referral rules | Whether a doctor's referral is needed, whether an insurer requires one, and what the clinic needs before a first appointment. |
| Insurer arrangements | Which insurers you are registered with, whether you invoice them directly, and what a patient has to do first. This is the question that decides whether somebody books. |
| What each service actually is | Manual therapy, rehabilitation programmes, sports massage, acupuncture where offered. Patients use these terms loosely, so your own definitions are what let the assistant answer in their language. |
| Practical appointment information | What to wear, how long to allow, whether to bring scan results, whether somebody can come with you. |
| Cancellation terms | Physiotherapy runs on booked one to one time, so a late cancellation costs real money. Index the exact notice period and charge. |
What has to reach a person
How many sessions somebody will need
This is the most asked question in the trade and the least answerable in writing. It depends on the injury, the person, and what an assessment finds. A published typical range is fine as material; presenting it as an answer for the person asking is not.
The right handling is to give the published range, say clearly that it follows an assessment, and offer to arrange one.
Any exercise or self treatment suggestion
Even a generic stretch is a prescription when it is given in response to a described problem. If the clinic publishes exercise material, index it for reference by name, and make sure the assistant does not select one in response to a symptom.
Whether a described injury is serious
Numbness, loss of function, pain after a fall, anything neurological. These need to be seen, and some need to be seen somewhere other than a physiotherapy clinic.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot advise on an injury or suggest exercises, because that needs an assessment with a physiotherapist. I can tell you about prices, insurers we work with, what to expect at a first appointment and how to book one. Would you like the team to call you?
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Regulated title, regulated advice
Physiotherapist is a protected title in many countries, and the advice that goes with it is regulated accordingly. Anything published in the clinic's name that reads as individual treatment advice sits inside that regulation.
Insurance claims depend on precise wording
Insurers reimburse against specific service descriptions and session limits. An assistant that improvises a description of what a session includes can leave a patient with a rejected claim, which becomes the clinic's problem rather than the insurer's.
Index the exact wording you use on invoices, and let the assistant quote it rather than paraphrase it.
The outcome claim problem
Advertising rules in most markets restrict claims about recovery. Testimonials and outcome claims in indexed material become answers the assistant repeats, so index the material you would be happy to defend.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- How many sessions a particular person will need.
- Which exercise or stretch to do for a described problem.
- Whether an injury needs a scan, or a doctor rather than a physiotherapist.
- Whether a specific claim will be reimbursed by an insurer.
- How long a recovery will take.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a physiotherapy clinic rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- Insurance questions before a first physiotherapy appointmentRegistration, authorisation codes and session limits. The insurance answer that decides whether a physio books.
- Quoting a physiotherapy session price without predicting a recoverySomebody asking what a physio session costs is really asking what getting better costs. Answering both honestly.
- Answering the practical questions before a first physio sessionClothing, scan reports, chaperones and whether treatment happens on day one. The practical half of a physio first visit.
- Moving a physiotherapy appointment, and what a late notice costsA physio appointment is booked one to one time, so a late cancellation costs the hour. Explaining the charge well.
- Handing over when somebody asks a physio to predict a recoveryHow long will this take, will it heal, do I need a scan. The physio handover is about a prediction, not an emergency.
- What the assistant can settle before a physio appointment is bookedSelf referral, assessment versus follow up, and picking between physio and another discipline on the same site.
- Why there is no single answer to how long the physio wait isThe wait for a named physio, the wait for insurer authorisation, and a course that needs the same slot every week.
- Open does not mean your physiotherapist is inEarly and late clinics, rehab gym hours, and the practitioner who is only in on a Tuesday. Answering hours honestly.
- Directions for a physio clinic, written for somebody in painStairs above a shop, a rehab gym at another address, and parking distance for somebody with a back injury.
- When a physio complaint arrives with a symptom inside itHandling a complaint about physiotherapy when the message also reports a symptom, and naming the regulator route.
- What a physio clinic is actually holding when it takes money up frontMoney taken before treatment at a physio clinic, and why an insurer will not pay the fee for a missed session.
- Putting a figure on rehab when nobody has assessed the patient yetCase managers, solicitors and employers want a rehab cost in writing. What can be estimated before an assessment.
- Two different documents, and the physio question that decides whichThe document an insurer needs, the receipt that must carry a registration number, and moving from insured to self pay.
- Access questions from patients whose difficulty is brand newStairs on crutches, a treatment couch that will not lower, and arranging a chaperone before a physio appointment.
- What can actually be deleted from a physiotherapy recordWhy most of a physiotherapy file cannot be erased on request, and what happens to a report already sent to an insurer.
- When a physio patient wants to stop rather than rescheduleEnding a prepaid block or a recurring rehab membership at a physio clinic, which is not the same as moving one session.
- One word, two requests, and only one of them is arithmeticTwo very different physio refund requests: sessions left in a prepaid block, and a course somebody says did not work.
- The Saturday night message a physio widget must not try to answerPain after a session arriving out of hours is clinical, and physiotherapy has no emergency service to hand it to.
Questions
- Can it answer how many sessions somebody needs if our site says a typical range?
- It can quote the range as a published typical figure and say the answer for them follows an assessment. What it must not do is turn the range into a prediction about the person asking, which is the difference between quoting your page and giving advice.
- Is the insurance question worth automating?
- It is the one most worth automating. Which insurers you work with is a fixed fact, it is asked before nearly every booking, and getting it wrong wastes an appointment slot as well as the patient's time.
- What about a clinic that also sells classes or memberships?
- Those are commercial rather than clinical, so they are safe ground: timetables, prices, what a class involves, whether it suits a beginner. Keep them in the same indexed material and the assistant will handle them alongside the clinical refusals.
Keep reading
- For a dental clinicThe questions a dental practice actually gets, the ones that must reach a clinician, and the documents worth indexing first.
- For a medical practiceAdministrative questions a practice can safely automate, the symptom questions it must never touch, and how to word the refusal.
- For a veterinary clinicOwners ask about price, hours and emergencies at once. Here is what a vet practice can automate and where it must hand over fast.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.