NCOPE recognizes that time spent doing things like cast modifications or writing letters of medical necessity are part of being a prosthetist orthotist and essential in demonstrating technical competency and the knowledge needed to perform documentation. The NCOPE O&P residency is designed first and foremost to develop clinical competencies tied back to complete episodes of care. A complete episode of care includes evaluation, casting/measuring/scanning, diagnostic fittings, dynamic alignments, deliveries, and follow-ups/maintainance appointments. There are no “Visit Types” inside of NCOPE Tracker that can be selected for activities that occur when the patient is not in the office (such as laminating a socket or ordering parts). The resident should not be logging time spent engaged in fabrication or practice management as an office visit (which implies the patient was present when those tasks were being performed).
The average resident spends approximately 20% of their time engaged in technical activities (including time spent adjusting an orthosis/prosthesis while the patient waits and time spent doing fabrication when the patient is not in the office) and an additional 20% of their time engaged in practice management (doing things such as notes or generating billing statements). It is even acceptable to have the resident spend more than 20% of their time engaged in fabrication so long as the resident is not falling behind in actual patient care volumes. A typical orthotic resident sees 4-6 patients per day and a typical prosthetic resident sees 3-4 patients per day. If the clinic has below average patient volumes, it may be beneficial for the residency site to partner with nearby clinics to enable the resident access to additional patients.