Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a difference in time from onset of condition to access of care for patients who had non-surgical spinal conditions and were satisfied or not satisfied with the physical therapy services they received. Also examined was whether there was a difference in initial health index scores, duration of care and number or physical therapy interventions for patients who are considered to have non-surgical spinal conditions of an acute, sub acute, or chronic stage, at the initial presentation to physical therapy. Patient encounter data for episodes of care involving physical therapy services was extracted for 301 non-surgical spinal cases that met all criteria for review. The encounter data included the time from onset of conditionto access of physical therapy, the patient’s initial SF-12 health index score, the duration of care, the number of visits, and post treatment satisfaction survey obtained following discharge. Mann Whitney-U tests were used to determine if there were significant differences between satisfied and unsatisfied patients and their lapse time from onset of condition and access to care. ANOVA procedures were performed to determine if there were significant differences in initial SF-12 scores, duration of care and number of visits for the three patient groups of acute, sub acute and chronic for the non-surgical spinal conditions. Results: There was a significant difference in the lapse time in days from onset of condition to treatment for those patients who reported being satisfied versus not satisfied with the: outcome of their treatment, overall results of their treatment and level of services received. There was no significant difference in the mean lapse time for those patients who reported being satisfied or not satisfied with the technical skill of their provider. ANOVA results showed a significant difference in the duration of care between groups of acute, sub-acute and chronic lapse time. There were however, no significances between any two groups found with Tukey’s honestly significant difference for pairwise comparisons of duration of care and the three lapse time groups. Conclusions: The less the lapse time between onset of the condition and access to physical therapy the more likely the patient will be satisfied with the results and outcome of their care. They are also more likely to be satisfied with the level of services they receive. However the satisfaction with the technical skill of the provider is not significantly affected by lapse time. There is no difference in initial SF-12 health index scores, the duration of the episode of care or the number of services received based on the patient groups of acute, sub acute, or chronic.
