No! Alaska is one of the “direct access” states for physical therapy, meaning anyone can refer themselves to a physical therapist without a referral from their physician. Our team is trained in differential diagnosis and will refer to a licensed practitioner/physician if symptoms are present where physical therapy is not appropriate or when symptoms are outside the scope of physical therapy practice.

*If you plan to file a self claim in order to receive reimbursement, your insurance provider may require you to have a referral or a prescription for physical therapy services to be covered. It is the patient’s responsibility to be educated in their insurance based requirements for covered care.

Most NON-Medicare patients are able send in “self claims” to their insurance company for their treatment at our clinic. Upon request, we offer an insurance benefits worksheet along with a superbill to help you successfully file your self claims with your insurance company.

The amount of reimbursement or application towards your deductible is completely dependent on your insurance plan. When discussing this with your insurance company, ask about reimbursement for “out-of-network physical therapy,” services sent in through a self claim.

Medicare patients: Peak Rehab LLC is not a Participating Medicare Provider.  Due to US laws controlling where Medicare beneficiaries spend their healthcare revenue, we are only able to treat Medicare beneficiaries as patients when they do not want Medicare billed for PT services in anyway. This decision to not involve Medicare in their payment must be made up front by the patient and of their own free will.

If you are a Medicare beneficiary adamant about being treated by our therapists even though we are not participating Medicare providers, we can help you.  The only manner that we can provide you with PT services is when you truly do not want Medicare involved and you ask up front that Medicare not be billed or involved in your physical therapy care.

If you wish to have Medicare involved in your physical therapy care, we will happily help you find a provider in our area.

After 5 years in the therapy world one thing became obvious, health insurance companies benefit more from a client’s health care plan than the patient who pays for it. The companies achieve this by manipulating and influencing treatment that patients receive at “in-network” clinics.

In-network clinics require a business model that rarely allows their facilities to survive financially while providing high-level patient care. We chose to be an out-of-network provider in order to put the patient in charge of their health care and to only provide high quality physical therapy services.

In-network clinics are being driven to see 2 or more patients an hour where technicians and assistants are utilized due to decreased reimbursement rates from their insurance providers. Patients are seen 2-3 visits a week with modalities (e-stim, ultrasound, heat/cold packs, etc.) used frequently, and their remaining time involves performing exercises that they could do on their own time.

All of our sessions are one-on-one hour long sessions (unless the patient chooses a 30 minute Tune-up session) with a fully trained physical therapist. Laura is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and has taken over 200 hours of continuing education courses to provide you effective manual techniques that speed up your recovery. We perform hands on treatment with short exercise instruction/review so you get the most out of your health care investment. Most of our patients only book one visit a week to achieve their goals.

This financially saves you time and money (travel costs/loss of time at work) while reducing pain and improving function. Our out-of-network rate is less than most patient copays, co-insurance, or full payment per visit (pre-deductible) at an in-network provider.

How can this be true?

Due to the extreme rise of deductibles in the last few years patients are suffering when they try to utilize their therapy benefits.  Many of our patients have not reached their deductibles yet and have high copays. They pay less for our personalized hour long treatments than they would if they went to a clinic that accepts their insurance (in-network facility).

Before your deductible is reached, the fee schedule charged by a PT clinic versus the rate your insurance has contracted to pay them can be different.  PT clinics charge high rates due to the deductions they take from preferred provider agreements and accepting federal insurance carriers (Medicare/Medicaid/TriCare/etc).  Private insurance carriers pay the most based off this system due to the higher reimbursement rates of their insurance providers. Until your deductible is met, each session in Alaska is on average between $200-$300 (initial evaluations are higher) and this is not including copay costs.

Here is what we suggest you ask your insurance provider in order to educate yourself on your PT health care options.

1. Ask your health insurance provider what the percentage total of your PT bill you will be required to pay at an in-network clinic (pre and post reaching your deductible).
2. Call in-network PT clinics and ask what the average amount they bill to your insurance company so you know what your costs will be until you reach your deductible.
3. Ask the PT clinics what your co-pay will be or look at your co-insurance costs for when you reach your deductible.  Then ask how many times per week the average patient is advised to come in for treatment.
4. Inquire about the duration of treatments and who will be treating you.  One-on-one or multiple patients in the allotted time? Will you work with the PT (masters and doctorate level degrees) or will you be seen by techs and PTAs (tech-high school or PTA-associate’s level education requirements)?
5. Determine how much work you will miss and how much time/money outside of treatment costs you will be investing in your care.

Once you add up the numbers, you may be surprised at how much cheaper and practical our clinic set up is for you. As stated before, we offer an insurance benefits worksheet to help you navigate filing self claims.

*We are an out-of-network clinic so be sure to ask your insurance provider if you have combined deductibles or separate categories for in-network and out-of-network costs.