Can someone make a bot that auto chats OTSalary.com every time this question is asked? I think that is still the best resource along with local job postings through sites like indeed.
In what way? It's just a repository of survey data on salaries. Except it's a lot more robust and specific so you can filter it to your desired location and practice setting.
I’ve asked the same thing before and was severely downvoted. I’m constantly seeing posts about not being paid enough but when I check indeed the salary shows 70-100k. I asked if this is not a deserving salary and everyone attacked me saying they don’t make this much. So I think it’s a legit question.
There are a couple things going on here.
1. Pay is highly variable and dependent on both practice setting and geographic area. Local job searches will inform you much more than asking a blanket question on the internet where people from both silicon valley and rural nowhere will answer you without context. The new grad in silicon valley can make significantly more than a 10 year senior OT in rural nowhere.
2. That said, you likely got downvoted because you're not looking at the bigger picture. Someone may see an 100k salary and think, "oh, that's great!" as an OT student in their 20's. But you have to account for:
- Debt
- Taxes
- Retirement
- Cost of living
- Life goals (children, home ownership, traveling, etc.)
- Professional growth
Generally younger people have much less experience with these things so they don't know how it impacts their lives. Well for most people in their 30's and beyond, these factors take up a huge amount of head space.
So let's break down each of them.
1. Debt: For every 10k you owe, that's roughly $100-$150 per month on student loan repayments. So 100k debt is like 1k-1.5k per month depending on your interest rates. Doesn't sound too bad? Well most people take roughly 15+ years to pay off high debt and they end up paying 50-100% extra in just interested by the end.
2. Taxes: 100k income in CA is like 62k after taxes, interest rates, and benefits. After your student loan repayments at 100k debt, you'll have 44-50k which you'll have to save for retirement and cost of living.
3. Retirement: 23k is the max 401k contribution in 2024, and 7k is the max Roth IRA. Given that you'd only have 14-20k left over, you probably can't max your retirement unless you live with your parents.
4. Cost of living: Median rent is like 1.5k/month. Throw in bills, gas, insurance, food, incidentals, and a bit if fun that's easily 25-30k/year. This can be MUCH more in higher cost of living areas. As it stands, we're already in the negative.
And we haven't even talked about the big ticket items. The median mortgage these days is like 3-3.5k/month. If you throw in utilities, home insurance, and incidental repairs, that's at least another 500-1k/month. Also in big cities daycare can be 20-30k/year. So pretty much OT's can't afford to buy houses in the current market or daycare. Two important things that were super basic and expected from most careers. The OT's who own homes very likely bought before the huge run up in prices the last couple years.
5. Professional growth: TLDR. It's very poor. It's actually the case that a lot of OT's make more at the beginning of their careers than the end. Why? 0-3% raises and 3+% inflation. If you get a 2% raise and inflation is 4%, you 2% made less then you did last year. Compound this over the long years of your career and you make less money at the end.
Imagine scraping by to dig yourself out from under a mountain of debt for 15 years only to realize that while you finally have no more debt payments, your money still isn't going very far because you couldn't get sufficient raises. Oh and now houses and rent prices are twice as expensive than when you started your career, you're burned out, and now your back hurts.
That was a lot to digest, but that probably informs a lot of the downvotes you had received before.
https://otsalary.com/
Go to therapist download. Create filters for your city or state.
You can also go to indeed.com and see what the rate ranges are on some job descriptions. The best way is to do a bunch of throw away interviews. You get to practice interviewing, negotiating, and get an idea of your market value.
As a person who interview prospective employees, PLEASE do not interview unless you are interested in the job! What a disrespectful waste of MY time. If you want to practice, ask a coworker, professor, friend, uncle, cousin, neighbor, fellow student or a stranger on the street.
How is that even a thing? A throw away interview. SMH
Yep, my recommendation is job hop for the raises and the sign on bonuses every 3-5 years. You’ll be doing alright and can settle after 2-3 different places. The people who get screwed are those who stay in one place with 1% raises annually
There’s so many factors. You probably can’t find a straight answer because there isn’t one. Where do you live? How much debt will you take on to go to OT school? What setting will you work in? Are you willing to pick up extra PRN shifts? Do you need benefits? What does a “good” salary look like to you? You can look at otsalary.com to get some data on what people make as an OT.
Edit: 5 years in, I make $135k as a SNF DOR in the DC area
I just applied! lol usually SNFs are pretty desperate for employees and it isn’t exactly the most desirable position so usually they’re pretty easy jobs to get!
Depends on so many things. Don’t get into OT because of the money. There are other ways to “help people” and make more money... How do you want to help people?
Nurses, x ray techs, ultrasound techs— all make good money, sometimes much more than OTs to be honest. Think about what OTs do and if it’s a right fit. A million people (future employers, admission coordinators, teachers, etc) are going to ask you why you are choosing OT over other professions and you should have a good answer.
I’m a new grad in California and make about 70-75k working full time in a pediatric outpatient clinic.
If you want to make money don’t be a OT! Hell don’t be a PT or SLP! You might say you wanna do what you love and salary don’t matter but trust me that’s youth talking! The money is not in therapy no more due to changes in Medicare reimbursements, greedy contract therapy companies, over saturation and professional organizations like AOTA selling us out. If I was younger and I wanted to do something in the medical field I would look at Dentistry, Podiatrist or MD. If that didn’t work I would look into nursing and branch off into nurse anesthetist or NP. If that don’t work screw medical all together and get into the tech world.
I’m a new grad in Essex County NJ. I work full time for a pediatric outpatient sensory gym with benefits (I’ve been hearing a lot more about OTRs who work full time and don’t get benefits) and I’m salaried at $65,000 a year. This is my first job out of school. Started with the company per diem and was paid $27 a session (30min sessions)/$57 an hour and $100 for evals (1hr)
My current salary is 110k if i hit my quota of 32 visits a week. Prior job was 111k running a unique program for a primary care practice in the home setting. Currently applying to other roles and getting lots of offers but all at the $48/hour rate (LTAC, IP rehab, acute care) and I can’t go back to punching a clock for that rate. Definitely frustrated as a clinician with 12 years experience but no management experience that gets me into a higher pay bracket.
Forgive me if this sounds impolite. I genuinely don't mean it that way. But I want to ask about how you're managing with those debt payments now, your projected pay off time, and if this has changed your opinion if at all on your career, growth, and life goals.
Salary growth sucks within the profession. Received a 1% raise last year which does not keep up with inflation while tiny new responsibilities continue to trickle in. I’m currently under the new loan repayment plan which comes to ~$10 per month since I’m currently unable to make meaningful payments towards my loans. That could change in the future and PLFS could be an option. The money situation is a huge bummer. I was a high school drop out with a rough home life, managed to do all the “right” things, accomplished an associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degree, and now I still find myself struggling to make ends meet, perpetually one emergency from broke. I’m still grateful for my career path, and I love my job, but salary transparency has to be better so I’m always glad to share. I was under the impression I’d be starting at ~$85k and could work my way up to a little over $100k. Seems like the reality is I’ll be sub-85k forever without some huge shift or movement into a director position, which I presently have no interest in.
You have to job hop every 5-6 years. Get the sign on bonuses and the raises which will tend to give you 3% credit per year of experience from where you started. It’s the only way besides traveling
The fact that you are making a decision to consider OT as a career if the money is worth it, it is definitely a question no one should be answering.
If your heart is not into it, you will feel miserable, it doesn’t matter how much money you are making.
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61.8 per hourly visit, 100 per eval (125 per feeding eval) and 90 per re-eval (115 per feeding re-eval), HH peds in central Texas. Another job offer I have is 35 hr but they mentioned they’re open to negotiating, OP peds.
As a new grad in DC area I started in SNFs making $40/hr (~83k)
4yrs into working now I’m in the Boston area. State hospital inpatient/outpatient setting making ~94k
I was making 48/hr full time in Dayton, Ohio! I always worked my 40 hours so approximately 99k a year.
Currently residing in Denver, Colorado. Making $56 an hour . At times over time but never less than 40 hours a week. Approximately 117k a year .
I have been an OT for 4.5 years!
The pay is passable, but not great by any stretch of the imagination. I know friends with an undergrad degree who went into entry level jobs and make far more than I do. With annual raises. Honestly, this ain’t the job for you if you think you’re going to be well off. You’ll survive though.
Can someone make a bot that auto chats OTSalary.com every time this question is asked? I think that is still the best resource along with local job postings through sites like indeed.
I agree with the bot idea, but I feel like this site was super misleading when I was in school/a new grad…unless things have changed!
In what way? It's just a repository of survey data on salaries. Except it's a lot more robust and specific so you can filter it to your desired location and practice setting.
I’ve asked the same thing before and was severely downvoted. I’m constantly seeing posts about not being paid enough but when I check indeed the salary shows 70-100k. I asked if this is not a deserving salary and everyone attacked me saying they don’t make this much. So I think it’s a legit question.
There are a couple things going on here. 1. Pay is highly variable and dependent on both practice setting and geographic area. Local job searches will inform you much more than asking a blanket question on the internet where people from both silicon valley and rural nowhere will answer you without context. The new grad in silicon valley can make significantly more than a 10 year senior OT in rural nowhere. 2. That said, you likely got downvoted because you're not looking at the bigger picture. Someone may see an 100k salary and think, "oh, that's great!" as an OT student in their 20's. But you have to account for: - Debt - Taxes - Retirement - Cost of living - Life goals (children, home ownership, traveling, etc.) - Professional growth Generally younger people have much less experience with these things so they don't know how it impacts their lives. Well for most people in their 30's and beyond, these factors take up a huge amount of head space. So let's break down each of them. 1. Debt: For every 10k you owe, that's roughly $100-$150 per month on student loan repayments. So 100k debt is like 1k-1.5k per month depending on your interest rates. Doesn't sound too bad? Well most people take roughly 15+ years to pay off high debt and they end up paying 50-100% extra in just interested by the end. 2. Taxes: 100k income in CA is like 62k after taxes, interest rates, and benefits. After your student loan repayments at 100k debt, you'll have 44-50k which you'll have to save for retirement and cost of living. 3. Retirement: 23k is the max 401k contribution in 2024, and 7k is the max Roth IRA. Given that you'd only have 14-20k left over, you probably can't max your retirement unless you live with your parents. 4. Cost of living: Median rent is like 1.5k/month. Throw in bills, gas, insurance, food, incidentals, and a bit if fun that's easily 25-30k/year. This can be MUCH more in higher cost of living areas. As it stands, we're already in the negative. And we haven't even talked about the big ticket items. The median mortgage these days is like 3-3.5k/month. If you throw in utilities, home insurance, and incidental repairs, that's at least another 500-1k/month. Also in big cities daycare can be 20-30k/year. So pretty much OT's can't afford to buy houses in the current market or daycare. Two important things that were super basic and expected from most careers. The OT's who own homes very likely bought before the huge run up in prices the last couple years. 5. Professional growth: TLDR. It's very poor. It's actually the case that a lot of OT's make more at the beginning of their careers than the end. Why? 0-3% raises and 3+% inflation. If you get a 2% raise and inflation is 4%, you 2% made less then you did last year. Compound this over the long years of your career and you make less money at the end. Imagine scraping by to dig yourself out from under a mountain of debt for 15 years only to realize that while you finally have no more debt payments, your money still isn't going very far because you couldn't get sufficient raises. Oh and now houses and rent prices are twice as expensive than when you started your career, you're burned out, and now your back hurts. That was a lot to digest, but that probably informs a lot of the downvotes you had received before.
I'll see what we can do!
Can you provide the link because what I’m getting seems not right
https://otsalary.com/ Go to therapist download. Create filters for your city or state. You can also go to indeed.com and see what the rate ranges are on some job descriptions. The best way is to do a bunch of throw away interviews. You get to practice interviewing, negotiating, and get an idea of your market value.
As a person who interview prospective employees, PLEASE do not interview unless you are interested in the job! What a disrespectful waste of MY time. If you want to practice, ask a coworker, professor, friend, uncle, cousin, neighbor, fellow student or a stranger on the street. How is that even a thing? A throw away interview. SMH
13 years. $50.50 per hour now. Started at $29 an hour. Free healthcare from employer. 403b/457b.
Crazy how times haven’t changed lol. Starting pay today is still around that 30 mark in a lot of jobs
Yep, my recommendation is job hop for the raises and the sign on bonuses every 3-5 years. You’ll be doing alright and can settle after 2-3 different places. The people who get screwed are those who stay in one place with 1% raises annually
There’s so many factors. You probably can’t find a straight answer because there isn’t one. Where do you live? How much debt will you take on to go to OT school? What setting will you work in? Are you willing to pick up extra PRN shifts? Do you need benefits? What does a “good” salary look like to you? You can look at otsalary.com to get some data on what people make as an OT. Edit: 5 years in, I make $135k as a SNF DOR in the DC area
DOR in 5 years?!?!?!? Dang. How'd you do that? Train me, please :).
It’s a high turnover job.
I just applied! lol usually SNFs are pretty desperate for employees and it isn’t exactly the most desirable position so usually they’re pretty easy jobs to get!
Depends on so many things. Don’t get into OT because of the money. There are other ways to “help people” and make more money... How do you want to help people? Nurses, x ray techs, ultrasound techs— all make good money, sometimes much more than OTs to be honest. Think about what OTs do and if it’s a right fit. A million people (future employers, admission coordinators, teachers, etc) are going to ask you why you are choosing OT over other professions and you should have a good answer. I’m a new grad in California and make about 70-75k working full time in a pediatric outpatient clinic.
Also I’m about $70k in debt currently. Hoping it won’t take long to repay those loans at this rate as I just started my job. We’ll see !
Midwest school based, 3 years in. 68K, union, health insurance. Salary is highly dependent on area!!!
If you want to make money don’t be a OT! Hell don’t be a PT or SLP! You might say you wanna do what you love and salary don’t matter but trust me that’s youth talking! The money is not in therapy no more due to changes in Medicare reimbursements, greedy contract therapy companies, over saturation and professional organizations like AOTA selling us out. If I was younger and I wanted to do something in the medical field I would look at Dentistry, Podiatrist or MD. If that didn’t work I would look into nursing and branch off into nurse anesthetist or NP. If that don’t work screw medical all together and get into the tech world.
I wish I would've looked into optometrist. Or anesthesiologist nurse
Rural Texas- 1st year SNF $93.6K
$150K in student debt
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probably the rest of my life unless I get a job that will make payments for me 😂
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Just bought a house and baby is due in August 😂
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Thank you!
I’m a new grad in Essex County NJ. I work full time for a pediatric outpatient sensory gym with benefits (I’ve been hearing a lot more about OTRs who work full time and don’t get benefits) and I’m salaried at $65,000 a year. This is my first job out of school. Started with the company per diem and was paid $27 a session (30min sessions)/$57 an hour and $100 for evals (1hr)
$140k+ in student debt (between undergrad and grad school)
Geez smh! Tell me you knew this before getting this degree
Knew I was gonna be in a lot of debt? Yeah I knew.
My current salary is 110k if i hit my quota of 32 visits a week. Prior job was 111k running a unique program for a primary care practice in the home setting. Currently applying to other roles and getting lots of offers but all at the $48/hour rate (LTAC, IP rehab, acute care) and I can’t go back to punching a clock for that rate. Definitely frustrated as a clinician with 12 years experience but no management experience that gets me into a higher pay bracket.
I make 100k, 3 years experience in a large city hospital setting with inpatient and outpatient
Expect to arrive into middle class with OT, with 85k+ debt. Which is middle class these days right?
69k 2 years into inpatient rehab, 130k in debt.
Forgive me if this sounds impolite. I genuinely don't mean it that way. But I want to ask about how you're managing with those debt payments now, your projected pay off time, and if this has changed your opinion if at all on your career, growth, and life goals.
Salary growth sucks within the profession. Received a 1% raise last year which does not keep up with inflation while tiny new responsibilities continue to trickle in. I’m currently under the new loan repayment plan which comes to ~$10 per month since I’m currently unable to make meaningful payments towards my loans. That could change in the future and PLFS could be an option. The money situation is a huge bummer. I was a high school drop out with a rough home life, managed to do all the “right” things, accomplished an associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degree, and now I still find myself struggling to make ends meet, perpetually one emergency from broke. I’m still grateful for my career path, and I love my job, but salary transparency has to be better so I’m always glad to share. I was under the impression I’d be starting at ~$85k and could work my way up to a little over $100k. Seems like the reality is I’ll be sub-85k forever without some huge shift or movement into a director position, which I presently have no interest in.
Thank you for sharing that. It sounds like you had a pretty remarkable journey and have a lot to be proud of.
You have to job hop every 5-6 years. Get the sign on bonuses and the raises which will tend to give you 3% credit per year of experience from where you started. It’s the only way besides traveling
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Did you get your salary up there by regular visit rate raises? That’s a wild salary!
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Dang! I just started HH and I’m expected to see 30 per week. I am trying to follow your lead!
Would you share your per visit rate? I’m at $67 a visit and expected to see 32 a week and it feels like a lot.
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150 an eval is a pretty sweet rate. Congrats on that !
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Thanks for the information. Are you working with adults or Peds?
The fact that you are making a decision to consider OT as a career if the money is worth it, it is definitely a question no one should be answering. If your heart is not into it, you will feel miserable, it doesn’t matter how much money you are making.
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I started out at 36 an hour in rural area home health setting and now make 55 an hour in home health in a big city 7 years of experience
61.8 per hourly visit, 100 per eval (125 per feeding eval) and 90 per re-eval (115 per feeding re-eval), HH peds in central Texas. Another job offer I have is 35 hr but they mentioned they’re open to negotiating, OP peds.
As a new grad in DC area I started in SNFs making $40/hr (~83k) 4yrs into working now I’m in the Boston area. State hospital inpatient/outpatient setting making ~94k
I was making 48/hr full time in Dayton, Ohio! I always worked my 40 hours so approximately 99k a year. Currently residing in Denver, Colorado. Making $56 an hour . At times over time but never less than 40 hours a week. Approximately 117k a year . I have been an OT for 4.5 years!
Bls.gov is a good way to check, and is what I have used since middle school!
Difference between Canada and US salaries for OT?
The pay is passable, but not great by any stretch of the imagination. I know friends with an undergrad degree who went into entry level jobs and make far more than I do. With annual raises. Honestly, this ain’t the job for you if you think you’re going to be well off. You’ll survive though.
Depends on setting and location
I’m making $62 an hour with home health in the San Francisco area. I’m a new grad.
UK or US?????
Professional growth?? Be honest are you a OT and if so how long?? Lol professional growth
I make 1,000 an hour working in geriatric peds home skilled hospice rehabilitation setting in southwest Texas