How Should I Log a Physical Therapy Session?

This article explains how third party providers should log physical therapy sessions that are provided according to students' related services on their IEPs.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of how to create a therapy session log note, please view this Scribe guide.

The Student Log has recently been updated to include a new "Related Services" category.  Going forward, therapists providing physical therapy services should use the new physical therapy options when logging direct related services.  Listed below are the components used to create a log entry to document the provision of physical therapy services on students' IEPs.

  • About: Student
  • System: Student
  • Location: School Location (Default)
  • Contact Date: Date and Time of Contact
  • Contact Type: Select the appropriate contact type used to communicate with the 
    student/caretaker and or deliver services. All successful and attempted contacts and 
    service delivery must be logged. Ensure that you communicate with the school to 
    determine preferred contact types for logging.
    • Phone Call- Successful
    • Phone Call- Left Message
    • Face-to-Face
    • Face-to-Face- Did Not Attend
    • LiveLesson- Individual
    • LiveLesson- Did Not Attend
    • LiveLesson- Group
  • Areas and Categories: Related Services
    • Physical Therapy - 15 Minutes
    • Physical Therapy - 30 Minutes
    • Physical Therapy - 45 Minutes
    • Physical Therapy - 60 Minutes 
  • Contactees: Student, Learning Coach, and/or Caretaker
  • Comments: Use this area to document the provision of related services. Details should 
    include the duration, service type, and goals addressed.

Reminders

  • If the session lasted longer than the options provided, you may select more than one, for example, selecting "Physical Therapy - 15 minutes" and "Physical Therapy - 60 minutes" for a session that lasted 75 minutes.
  • If you were evaluating the student, you should use the separate evaluation options in the Special Education category.  You should not use the related services options for an evaluation unless you provided direct therapy AND conducted an evaluation during the session.
  • If the student was absent from a scheduled session, you should still log the amount of time for which the student was scheduled.  For a virtual session, you should select "LiveLesson - Did Not Attend" and then the type of service and duration scheduled.

Please see below for an example of what a sample log for therapy sessions looks like.

log_PT

 

Special Education Vendor Management Data View Fields:

There are two new fields in the Special Education Vendor Management Data View.  These fields automatically display the first date that physical therapy services were logged this school year and the number of physical therapy minutes offered in the last 30 days.  These fields are calculated/extended fields that cannot be edited in the data view because they are pulled directly from the log.  

minutes_PT

A new field in the Special Education Vendor Management Data View also records the number of physical therapy minutes offered in the last 30 days according to the log.  This field refreshes daily.

start date_PT

Once you have successfully logged a physical therapy session that the student attended, the Special Education Vendor Management Data View will update the successful start date for physical therapy services by pulling in the date of the first physical therapy log for the school year.