Turn a weekly physical therapy visit plan into a practical clinical staffing estimate. This calculator combines treatment time, documentation time, productive hours per therapist, and a coverage allowance for leave or schedule disruption. It reports workload hours, base FTE, planned FTE, and the next whole-person staffing level so a clinic can compare its demand plan with available therapist capacity.
Workload hours = visits × (treatment + documentation) ÷ 60
Planned FTE = workload hours ÷ productive hours × (1 + coverage rate)
Planned FTE is the clinical capacity implied by the entered visit workload and working assumptions. The rounded result is a scheduling reference; it is not a legal minimum.
Exclude aides or assistants unless their work is represented consistently in both workload and productive-hour inputs.
For 240 visits, 45 treatment minutes and 10 documentation minutes create 220 workload hours. At 30 productive hours per FTE, base demand is 7.33 FTE. Adding 12% coverage produces 8.21 planned FTE, or 9 whole therapists if only full positions are used.
Yes. Include documentation and routine follow-up time when those duties consume therapist capacity.
No. FTE is a workload equivalent; part-time schedules may make headcount higher.
The whole-person figure shows coverage when staffing can only be added in full people. The decimal FTE remains the precise estimate.
Yes, if visits and productive hours are separated or blended consistently with the work each role can perform.
No. It is an operational workload estimate and does not replace clinical judgment, payer rules, or local requirements.
| Item | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Input | Role |
| Visits per week | Demand volume |
| Minutes per visit | Treatment plus documentation effort |
| Productive hours | Weekly capacity of one clinical FTE |
| Coverage allowance | Leave and variability buffer |