Physical Therapist Burnout Statistics: The State of the Workforce

En bref

• Roughly half of US physical therapists reported burnout in the national EIM and UTMB cross-sectional survey cited by APTA.
• About seven in ten physical therapists work at or above capacity, according to APTA’s 2025 Physical Therapy Profile Survey.
• APTA’s 2024 Workforce Survey estimated a national shortage of full-time-equivalent physical therapists.
• PTJ microsimulation research projects that demand will continue to exceed physical therapist supply through 2037.
• APTA data show that retirement and exit intentions rise with age, adding predictable attrition to the existing shortage.
• Published physical therapist turnover rates vary by setting and definition, so clinic directors should distinguish voluntary departures from retirements and total separations.

Why physical therapist burnout is a workforce crisis, not an anecdote

National surveys, workforce models, turnover estimates, and compensation data now quantify physical therapist burnout and its operational effects. This article examines burnout prevalence, staffing shortfalls, patient capacity, wait times, turnover, retirement intentions, wages, and student debt. Clinic directors can use these measures to assess hiring needs and retention risk, while physical therapists can place their own workload within broader workforce trends. The figures also show how vacancies and reduced capacity affect access to care. This article serves as the data companion to Physitrack’s existing documentation-burden editorial, which examines one contributor to burnout in greater depth.

How many PTs report burnout

About half of US physical therapists reported burnout in a national cross-sectional survey conducted by Evidence in Motion and the University of Texas Medical Branch. APTA described the finding as “startling but not surprising.” The survey measured self-reported burnout, so the figure represents clinicians’ reported experience rather than a clinical diagnosis.

Burnout was more common among younger physical therapists and those in the early to middle stages of their careers. Older clinicians and physical therapists with longer tenure generally reported lower levels. Rates also varied across practice settings, which suggests that working conditions influence burnout more than professional title alone.

Workload helped explain much of the variation. Physical therapists facing higher patient volumes, longer working hours, and strict productivity expectations reported greater strain. Administrative work and documentation also ranked among the commonly cited contributors because clinicians often complete those tasks outside scheduled patient time.

These findings matter for retention because younger and midcareer physical therapists represent a large share of the workforce that clinics need to keep. Burnout in those groups can translate into reduced hours, setting changes, or departure from clinical practice. Physitrack’s discussion of the cost of documentation burden examines that specific contributor in more detail.

The workforce shortage and capacity crunch through 2037

The current supply of physical therapists already falls short of patient demand. APTA’s 2024 Workforce Survey estimated a national deficit of 12,070 full-time-equivalent physical therapists. Vacant positions reduce the number of available appointments, and remaining clinicians absorb more patients until their schedules reach capacity.

About 72% of physical therapists reported working at or above capacity in APTA’s 2025 Physical Therapy Profile Survey. The same survey found that new patients commonly wait more than a week for an initial appointment, with longer delays in settings that cannot recruit enough clinicians. Capacity therefore depends on staffing levels as much as treatment space or referral volume.

Retirement and early exits could keep supply below demand. The 2025 survey found that retirement intentions rise among physical therapists aged 55 and older. Younger age brackets also included clinicians planning to leave physical therapy before retirement, which points to retention problems beyond the expected aging of the workforce. Training additional graduates may not close the deficit if practicing clinicians continue to reduce hours or leave the profession.

A microsimulation published in Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal projected that the national shortage would persist through 2037, though its size changes year to year. Under the baseline scenario, the shortfall narrows from 8.2% in 2027 to 3.3% in 2037, or about 9,160 full-time-equivalent physical therapists. Alternative scenarios in the same model show a wide range, from a 7,290-FTE surplus if more graduates enter the workforce to a 25,620-FTE shortfall if fewer do. Forecasts can change with graduation rates, population needs, and clinician participation, but the baseline projection does not show supply catching up by 2037.

The reports describe a connected workforce constraint. An insufficient supply leaves more physical therapists at capacity, and full schedules extend new-patient wait times. Planned retirements and non-retirement exits can then preserve or deepen the shortage even as schools continue graduating new physical therapists.

Turnover rate and the cost of replacing a PT

The physical therapist turnover rate measures the share of employed PTs who leave during a defined period, usually one year. You calculate it by dividing PT departures by the average number of PTs employed during that period. Voluntary resignations belong in this measure, while retirement-driven attrition should be tracked separately because the causes and possible responses differ.

No authoritative national source currently provides one annual turnover rate that represents every US physical therapy setting. APTA workforce surveys focus more directly on vacancies, staffing shortages, capacity, and exit intentions. Published turnover estimates often come from outpatient practice surveys, and their results may not apply to hospitals, home health agencies, or skilled nursing facilities. Clinic directors should compare any benchmark with the source population before using it as a retention target.

Replacement cost also extends beyond recruiting expenses. A clinic may pay for job advertising, interviews, credentialing, onboarding, and temporary coverage. A vacant position can also reduce appointment availability and revenue, particularly when the remaining clinicians already carry full caseloads. EIM and UTMB research treats vacancy-related lost productivity as part of turnover’s financial effect rather than limiting the calculation to hiring costs.

Turnover compounds the capacity pressure described in the previous section. When a PT resigns, the clinic redistributes patients or limits new evaluations until a replacement becomes productive. Tracking voluntary turnover, retirement attrition, vacancy duration, and cost per replacement separately gives clinic directors a more useful picture than one headline percentage.

Compensation, inflation, and student debt strain

Physical therapist pay lost purchasing power between 2019 and 2024. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported median annual pay of $89,440 in May 2019 and $101,020 in May 2024, a nominal increase of about 13 percent. BLS inflation data show that consumer prices rose by roughly 23 percent over the same period. Matching inflation would have required median pay of about $109,700 in 2024, leaving actual median pay approximately 8 percent lower in real terms.

Student debt limits how far that income can stretch. APTA’s 2020 student debt report found average total debt of $142,489 among surveyed recent physical therapist graduates. Debt directly related to physical therapy education averaged $116,183. Those balances can affect housing decisions, retirement saving, and whether a clinician can afford to remain in a lower-paying setting.

The wage and debt figures come from different reporting periods, so they should not be combined into a precise debt-to-income ratio. Together, however, they show how financial pressure can compound the workload and capacity problems covered earlier. For physical therapists already considering a job change or an early exit, declining real pay and six-figure education debt can make another employer or career path more attractive. Compensation therefore affects the physical therapist turnover rate even when workload, documentation demands, or scheduling pressures prompt the initial decision to leave.

The data at a glance

What the profession and employers are doing about it

Clinics are testing staffing models that preserve physical therapists’ time for work requiring clinical judgment. Some clinics distribute appropriate tasks to PTAs and support staff, while others adjust scheduling templates to account for documentation and care coordination. Each model must follow state scope-of-practice requirements, supervision rules, and payer policies.

Delegation can increase capacity when another staff member can complete a task safely and legally. Poorly planned delegation can add supervisory work or create communication gaps, so clinics need to measure workload rather than assume that additional support automatically reduces burnout.

APTA advocacy addresses administrative burden through efforts involving payment policy, prior authorization, and documentation requirements. Software offers one supporting lever. Physitrack can reduce adjacent administrative work through reusable home exercise programs and EHR integrations, but it does not replace a clinical documentation system or solve staffing shortages.

Current responses remain early and uneven across employers. Workforce data documents the scale of burnout, vacancies, and capacity pressure, but available evidence does not yet show that any single staffing model, policy change, or software category has reversed those trends.

FAQ

• No authoritative source publishes one current national physical therapist turnover rate across all settings. APTA workforce research tracks vacancies and exit intentions, but published turnover estimates vary by employer, region, and care setting. Clinic directors should calculate annual voluntary departures as a percentage of average physical therapist headcount and compare results with setting-specific benchmarks.

• Physical therapist burnout commonly reflects heavy workloads, limited staffing, administrative demands, documentation time, and financial strain. A national EIM and UTMB cross-sectional survey found that roughly half of US physical therapists reported burnout, a finding APTA described as “startling but not surprising.” The Real Cost of Documentation Burden in Physical Therapy examines the administrative component in greater detail.

• APTA estimated a national shortfall of about 12,000 full-time-equivalent physical therapists in its 2024 workforce analysis. PTJ microsimulation modeling projects that demand will continue to exceed available supply through 2037, although the estimated deficit changes by year and model assumptions. Forecasts for 2030 and 2037 should therefore be cited with the specific PTJ scenario rather than as one fixed shortage figure.

• Physical therapist salaries have risen in nominal dollars, but those increases have not always produced comparable gains in purchasing power. BLS wage data should be assessed against the Consumer Price Index to separate salary growth from inflation. High education debt can further reduce the practical value of wage increases and contribute to exit decisions reported in APTA workforce surveys.