How to plan the therapy day in physiotherapy
In physiotherapy two clocks are running: the treatment cycle and the deadline by which a prescription has to be started. The plan has to know both, because an appointment two days too late costs not the appointment but the whole prescription.
As of:September 2026
Step 1: create the cycle as an activity
Treatments run on a cycle, usually 20 minutes, and more for manual therapy or lymphatic drainage. Create the treatment types as separate activities with their own durations instead of laying a uniform cycle over the day.
That makes it visible in the plan how many treatments are actually possible in a day, not just who is present.
Step 2: allocate appointments by urgency, not by order of arrival
Every prescription brings its own deadline, and that determines the order in which appointments are allocated. A prescription from discharge management takes priority over a regular one, even if both arrive on the same day. The three deadlines are set out with their source on the industry page.
So set the urgency when creating the appointment, not just the preferred date. Anyone allocating by order of arrival regularly pushes back precisely the prescription with the shortest deadline.
- Set the urgency when creating it, do not add it later.
- Schedule prescriptions from discharge management first.
- Place the appointment so that a missed session can still be made up within the deadline.
Step 3: plan home visits with their travel time
An afternoon with three home visits looks short in the plan and in fact often takes longer than a day at the practice. The reason is the journeys in between, which appear nowhere in the appointment book.
So plan them as part of the activity, with a realistic duration per journey. And have people clock in in the app on the road instead of entering the times from memory in the evening: what gets reconstructed in the evening is regularly too little.
Knowing the rules is one thing, keeping to them day to day another. MetronHR checks breaks, rest periods and maximum working time automatically as time is recorded.
Step 4: keep working time and therapy time separate
The plan counts cycles, the time account counts minutes. The two belong side by side and not inside each other: anyone booking the cycles as working time ends the month with fewer hours in the system than were actually worked.
That is why time recording in MetronHR runs independently of the plan. At the end of the month both are there, and the difference between the planned cycle and the actual time is the figure that shows whether the cycle is set realistically.
Step 5: handle cancellations and replacements
If somebody cancels, a gap opens in the cycle that wants filling at short notice. In the plan the free slot becomes visible instead of disappearing into an appointment book.
If a therapist drops out, the open treatment goes out as a request to the people allowed to take it on, rather than to management.
Further reading:The Federal Joint Committee's Therapeutic Appliances Directive (start of treatment) · Section 187(1) BGB (start of a period) · Sections 3 and 4 of the Working Hours Act (maximum working time, breaks)
This is not legal advice; for a specific case at your workplace you are better off asking someone qualified to give it.
Published by: AMNAU GmbH
Editorial responsibility: Ugur Aydogan, Product development.
Last reviewed: September 2026
Frequently asked questions
What we are asked about this most often.
By setting the urgency when the appointment is created, instead of noticing it when the deadline gets tight. Which deadline applies to which type of prescription is set out with its source on the industry page for physiotherapy.
On the road in the app, with the same clocking as at the practice. Why the travel time counts is set out on the industry page for physiotherapy. For the planning, what matters most is that it gets room in the day plan, otherwise the appointment after next is scheduled too early.
The allocation runs through project time, which keeps the client, the activity and the budget. MetronHR does not produce billing for the health insurers; the billing software remains responsible for that.
MetronHR plans the deployment of employees, not patient appointments. Anyone needing appointment management with patient master data carries on using it. The day plan shows who is scheduled for which treatment type and when.
Question not answered here? Every step is explained in the help centre.
Knowing the rules is one thing. Keeping to them is another.
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