Occupational therapy how much they make

Occupational therapists work in a variety of settings. From schools to hospitals, OTs provide essential services to children and adults. These are the top companies for OTs in the U.

While these companies are preferred places for an occupational therapist because of their good salary offerings, they offer many additional benefits to employees, such as:.

Occupational therapists report earnings that are above the national average. According to the U. The demand for occupational therapists depends on the ability of individuals to pay for such services.

Occupational therapy services are typically paid for through health insurance or directly by clients. Likewise, people living with chronic health conditions like diabetes are continuing to seek noninvasive treatment options.

Additionally, as the rates of autism diagnoses grow across the country, the demand for school and home-based occupational therapy interventions will increase in order to help those students improve their social skills and abilities to accomplish everyday tasks of living.

A career in occupational therapy is bound to be a rewarding, challenging, and unique one. OTs are team players who continually consult with other treatment professionals, educators, and parents.

However, the findings reveal that experience is a big factor in how much you can earn as an OT. The BLS does collect data fairly regularly, so you can usually find accurate data from within the last two years or so. So I decided to include it in our calculation. Glassdoor is a reputable career platform where job seekers can learn about various companies, read and write reviews for facilities, research interview questions for specific jobs and organizations, and search for jobs.

This website is a standout because you can sort the data by years of experience, job type, state, education level, etc. The best way to use it is to download the information so you can sort it yourself! According to OTSalary. Personally, I recommend that you pay close attention to the data yielded by PayScale.

This site is one of the earliest salary-oriented websites, and it pioneered the use of big data and unique matching algorithms to clarify the waters in the compensation world. Please note PayScale gives lower median annual salaries for full-time OT practitioners, but the salaries are calculated based on respondents to a PayScale survey, which I assume is a smaller pool.

What is particularly helpful on this page is an overview of salaries from some of the big employers like Rehab Care, Aegis, Fox Rehab, etc. And this is across the board, not just for occupational therapy, so I recommend you take this number with a rather large grain of salt. According to Salary. I do like that the site gives a clear caveat, noting that pay rates can vary widely based on things like education, certifications, additional skills, and years of experience in the profession.

I checked UpDocMedia, a website known in the PT world for having very accurate data about physical therapy salaries in its Pulse publication. The Pulse has a more modest representation of pay for OTs, but its numbers are most definitely in line with the findings of other sites. You can contribute your own salary information to UpDocMedia by using this form.

Keep in mind that your salary as an OT is only part of the big financial picture. What might feel like a lot of money to someone with no debt might feel like very little when you have over k in loans to pay back. Depending on where you work, the setting you choose, the patient population you treat, the hours and days you work, and how much you negotiate, you can make wildly different salaries.

Keep in mind that patient population and their respective payers will also factor in; for example, Medicare reimbursements rates tend to be higher than Medicaid rates. While this data was harder to pin down, I have heard anecdotally that settings such as mental health and adult day care tend to offer the lowest compensation.

We were able to manually extract data from BLS spanning the last 21 years. Incidentally, you can see that the data is a bit all over the map. Salaries initially climbed a bit, then tanked around , then climbed again, had a brief dip, and then continued to climb.

However, if you consider the increase in terms of inflation, there has not been significant growth. As with OT salaries, we created an average of the available data from the following sources:. The APTA is the professional organization for physical therapy practitioners. If you find that you have an interest in a certain aspect of occupational therapy, earning the appropriate board and specialty certifications can pay off in the long run.

Fieldwork is required to obtain licensure, but there are many benefits aside from checking a box off of your to-do list. Level I and Level II fieldwork allows you to gain experience in the occupational therapy field by implementing strategies learned in the classroom to real-world problems in a clinical setting. Throughout your education, take the opportunity to learn from your fieldwork experiences on a deeper level.

Take advantage of these chances to build your skillset and develop your knowledge outside of the classroom throughout your education. If you decide that becoming an occupational therapist is your ultimate career goal, the next step is finding a program that is the right fit for you. A combination of challenging academics and experienced faculty instructors lay the foundational knowledge needed for success in the classroom, while community-based experiences and fieldwork opportunities apply these skills directly to the clinical setting.

Our hands-on fieldwork and curriculum will prepare you for a fulfilling OT career. Wondering how to become a registered occupational therapist? There are four steps to licensure that you must complete in order to work as an OT. Earning an advanced specialty certification can be a powerful way of boosting your OT career.

Here, we explore nine widely-recognized OT specializations. An occupational therapist advocates for his profession as one of the few successful treatments without side effects. You could move into related roles such as care manager within primary care, industry or business.

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View all healthcare vacancies. Add to favourites. Occupational therapists provide practical support to help people overcome barriers caused by illness, ageing or accidents that are preventing them from having an independent life As an occupational therapist, you'll empower people to carry out everyday tasks or occupations with more confidence and independence in order to improve their health, quality of life and wellbeing.

You'll work with: babies, children and young people people with physical disabilities people with learning disabilities people with mental health issues older people.

Responsibilities As you'll be working with a range of people who will all have different requirements, you'll need to understand each client's lifestyle so that you can create the best treatment plan for them. You may need to: develop a rehabilitation programme to help rebuild lost skills and restore confidence advise on home and workplace environmental alterations, such as adjustments for wheelchair access teach anxiety management techniques help people to return to work advise on specialist equipment to help with daily activities coach people with learning difficulties or poor social skills, e.

Income figures are intended as a guide only. Working hours In the NHS you'll typically work a Part-time and other flexible working arrangements are possible. What to expect You will need to be flexible about the geographical area in which you're willing to work when applying for entry-level positions. You can work in a variety of settings, including hospitals, community facilities, schools, businesses, prisons and clients' own homes.