Physical Therapy Near Me – Part 1 of 3
by Dr. Erin Carr, September 7, 2015
Many people ask “How Can I Find The Best Physical Therapy Near Me” (Part 1 of 3)
The “PT near me” topic is very common. People always seem to need help answering this question… Not only in the Los Angeles areas that my clinic provides home physical therapy treatments. But across the USA this topic comes up over and over again.
Many people ask:
How can I find good physical therapists near me?
What should I look for when researching a physical therapist near me?
Who provides the best physical therapy near me?
Are there any expert physical therapists that provide home care physical therapy near me at my own home?
At Dr. Carr Integrative Physical Therapy we are always here to help. Helping patients find the best path on their road to recovery from injury is something we are always focused on.
Whether you are near my Santa Monica, CA clinic… Or if you live anywhere in the world and have found this blog on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc… The following suggestions can help you discover some of the best physical therapists in your immediate area and answer your question of “how can I find physical therapy near me”. Knowing where to look, what to look for, and what questions to ask will allow you to be better prepared for this important decision in your recovery process:
(Special note: I know some of the below may seem like common knowledge, but please read on as I am sure there are some things that will be of new use to you)
1) “Physical Therapy Near Me” – Where to Look
Best places online to find unbiased ratings and reviews for physical therapists near you, in my opinion, are Yelp, Google Maps, and Health Grades.
And in that order… Yelp by far is still the most valuable, most diverse, and is firmly holding it’s place as “The Champ” of providing quality research reviews on just about any area of medical practitioner. Medial practitioners who are trying to get known, as the best in town, usually sign up for a yelp account. And the Yelp programming team is very good at filtering out fake reviews. They have a fairly good system of making sure that the individual, who is typing the review, is an actual real person with only one real yelp account. The Yelp medical practitioner member company who is being reviewed by Yelpers also has the option to respond to each review if needed. We have found that individual reviews on Yelp’s website, especially for physical therapists, are very detailed. You can easily discover what may be the good or bad in the reviewers’ detailed stories of physical therapy options near you.
You can either go directly to yelp.com to search their main page for physical therapists in your area. Or an easier way is to simply Google your area of town, and add on the tail end of that search, “physical therapy”. Yelp usually will come up near the top of the 1st page with a direct link to the best-rated physical therapists in your area. For example, you can see how my (Dr. Carr Integrative Physical Therapy) ranks in “Santa Monica Physical Therapy” and can you click our name on that yelp ranking page to see individual patient reviews of our services. Of course, you can search your area + physical therapy in other search engines as well. However Yelp usually ranks better in Google over others such as Yahoo, Bing, etc. For the most part any clinic that is ranking in the top 20 physical therapists on Yelp may be worth considering.
One note this: When searching for “best physical therapy near me” in search engines. It is usually better to enter into the search text instead the area you live, and the then the term physical therapy. Because usually most of the search results you will get, just by entering the text “physical therapy near me”, will either be paid ads or natural search results of individual clinics who have done some search in engine optimization (SEO). In order to show up when people search the “physical therapists near me” term. As a result you will be farther from finding unbiased reviews and rankings that can help better your understanding of the choices in your area.
Google Maps is the 2nd most valuable tool. That we have found to use. When you’re trying to answer the question “how can I find physical therapy near me”. Their interactive map makes it easy to see where exactly the physical therapists near you are located. (Yelp also has a map feature, but Google maps seem more user friendly and more diverse in the mapping department). Similar to above simply Google your area and add the words “physical therapy” to the end of your geographic search term.
In the search results the Google map should show up on the right and you can click on it. One thing many people don’t realize when looking on the Google Map. Is it can be important to zoom in and scroll around to truly see how many physical therapist offices are near you. Because when zoomed out Google only shows a few of the possible PT clinic options that are listed. When you zoom in many more physical therapy clinics may appear on the map. This is mostly important for people living in big cities or densely populated areas.
You will also be able to find some reviews in Google maps of the particular physical therapists near you. However we have found that Google reviewers are far a few between. Yelp usually dwarfs Google in number of actual independent real reviews that will give a better understanding a specific practitioner.
Healthgrades.com is another site that many people go to when trying to answer the question “Who is the best physical therapist near me”. Health grades has a very large number of physical therapists who list their practices on it’s website across the USA. It is similar to yellow pages but with a focus on detailed medical practitioner descriptions and a more diverse 5 star rating system.
If you’re in a metropolitan area. You will be able to browse through usually hundreds of physical therapists near you on the health grades website. However the reason Healthgrades ranks 3rd in “physical therapy near me” research. Is mainly because they do not seem to offer hand typed reviews by users who are reviewing the physical therapists. The user is only able to rank with a 1 to 5 star review in different categories. (Or if people can write actual reviews on the Healthgrades website, we couldn’t find them) Either way it is still a valuable resource. You can easily find a large list of physical therapists near you. Along with what they specialize in. With that list, you can research PT options further on other sites such as Yelp.
Continue Reading Part 2 of “Physical Therapy Near Me” by clicking here>
Dr. Erin Carr is owner and head practitioner of Dr. Carr Integrative Physical Therapy. She has been featured in Malibu Times Magazine as a “Local Specialist”. Dr. Carr Integrative Physical Therapy’s therapists offer in office visits from our clinic in Santa Monica. As well as off site home physical therapy for patients throughout many areas of Los Angeles, CA.
