Echography
Physiotherapists use ultrasound to be sure of their diagnosis. With their hands, physiotherapists can sense many problems, however, they cannot see the inside of the body. With an ultrasound, this is now possible. This makes it easier and more understandable for both you as a patient and for us as therapists.
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Additional research method
Both at our physiotherapy practices in Amsterdam-Oost and in Zwanenburg, we can perform an ultrasound on you as an additional examination method. Many injuries can be properly examined with ultrasound. We use ultrasound to make diagnoses that are not certain with our orthopedic tests.
We also use ultrasound to understand exactly how long recovery from an injury will take. This recording can then be used again at a later time to measure how far you have progressed.
We use the ultrasound to reveal…
- Where the injury comes from
- What caused the injury
- How long the recovery will take
- If we are not missing factors affecting recovery
Advice during our first meeting
If we think ultrasound research will benefit you, we will recommend it during our initial consultation and examination. Often the ultrasound can then be done right away.
Security
Even you as a patient may prefer a more reliable form of examination to be sure of the diagnosis. We like to be sure of the exact problem by viewing the affected area by camera. For doctors and insurers this is also desirable and you are sure of the diagnosis.
Cost/insurance
The cost for an ultrasound examination is 75 euros on top of the usual consultation and examination fees. Unfortunately, at the moment insurance companies do not reimburse ultrasound examinations at physiotherapists. We hope this will change in the future when an ultrasound examination becomes standard in physiotherapy practices. We do always recommend submitting the bill to the health insurance company in order to still try and to get a refund.
Wouldn’t it be better to have an ultrasound at the hospital?
It is better to have injuries examined by a physiotherapist with an ultrasound than at the hospital. The reason is that we are aware of your situation, know what we are looking for and we let you make the required moves during the ultrasound. Moving a muscle or joint gives a lot of information about how something is functioning.
Unfortunately, the hospital only looks at it when you are sitting still. When sitting still, you are often not even able to feel the pain. The images are also not directly reviewed because the person taking the images only does the examination and the doctor analyzes your images.
An advantage of the hospital is that they have a lot of experience in doing ultrasounds and the costs are covered by the health insurance company (note that the costs do come off your deductible). Hospital costs range from 75 to 250 euros.
When is an ultrasound necessary?
An ultrasound examination is additional and not necessary in many cases. It makes the diagnosis more certain and that way nothing is certainly missed. With our other research methods, we come a long way. If it is necessary, we will tell you at your first visit to the practice. Below are some examples of injuries where an ultrasound is valuable.
- Muscle tear
- Bursitis
- Scar tissue
- Trapping
- Wrong posture muscles
- Calcifications