The questions physio patients ask, collected and answered in writing

Where a physio practice already hears the questions

Along the course of care. A patient asks one kind of question before booking, another at intake, another in the first session and another when the plan of care ends, and at each point someone at the practice hears it. The table follows that course, with examples of the kind of question each point brings. Write down the ones your practice hears, in the words patients use.

Keep the list going until new questions stop appearing and the familiar ones pile up marks. The ones with the most marks are the ones to answer in writing first.

Writing down the question, and leaving out the patient

The list holds questions in general words and nothing that identifies anyone. "Do you see children after a sports injury?" is a question about the practice. "Tuesday's patient asked whether her knee will need surgery" is health information about a person, and it stays in her record, whoever heard it. A sheet by the phone with the question and a mark each time it comes back is all the collecting needs.

In the treatment room the line runs through the middle of a conversation. When a patient asks how many sessions they will need, the answer about them belongs to the session and to their record; the fact that the question was asked belongs on the list, as a type. A therapist can add a mark after the last patient of the day without writing down anything a patient said.

Have the person who handles privacy for the practice approve the method first: what gets written down, where the list lives, who reads it. The rules for health information differ by jurisdiction, and your privacy lead or counsel is the one to apply them. What you are asking them to approve is a list of general questions and nothing more.

One test sorts the list. If the answer would be the same for every patient who asked, it belongs on the site: the referral policy, fees, plans billed, hours, home visits, what to wear. If it depends on the patient's body, it belongs to the therapist and the session, and the site says only when and how it gets answered. If it depends on the patient's plan, the site states what the practice does and names who decides the rest.

Most small business sites carry no answers like that yet. In our audit of 9,483 small business websites (40 trades, 90 metros, late August to early September 2026), 61.5% had no question-and-answer content of any kind, and half the sites (50.7%) had a heading phrased as a question without an answer beneath it in a form a machine could isolate. Both are whole-sample figures; the audit publishes no physiotherapy cut.

Worked answer: can I book without a referral?

The question has two parts that patients run together: whether your practice will see them without a referral, and whether their plan will pay without one. The first is your policy. The second is the plan's rule, which differs from plan to plan and place to place, and the page should never state it as fact. The block answers the first in its opening sentence and hands the second to the patient's plan, with what the practice does either way; it is an answer page in miniature.

Can I book without a referral?

[Yes. / For most treatments.] [Practice name] sees patients [without a
doctor's referral / without a referral for everything except
[treatments]]. You can book at [booking link] or by calling
[main number].

Your plan may be different
Whether your insurance or plan pays without a referral is the plan's
rule, not ours. [Plans we bill directly that ask for a referral
before they pay: [list, from your billing records].] If you are not
sure, call the number on your plan card before your first session.

[Accident, work-injury or other claims, if you take them]
[The claim types that need a referral, a claim number or an approval
before [Practice name] can bill them, and what to bring.]

If you already have a referral
Bring it, or ask whoever wrote it to send it to [secure method].
[Whether it changes anything here: it does not / it lets us bill
[plan] directly.]

If you have no family doctor
[You can still book with us. / Where to start instead.]

Last checked [date] by [name, role].

The opening sentence names the practice, so it cannot be quoted as anyone else's policy, and it answers the part the practice controls. The plan's part is stated as the plan's, with the plans the practice knows about listed from its own billing records rather than from any rule book. The last line dates it, the plainest form of freshness, because a referral policy is the kind of fact that changes when a contract does. Put the block on the booking page, and link each treatment page's referral line to it, as a page for each treatment sets out.

Worked answer: how many sessions will I need?

No page can answer this for a patient, and the block says so in its first sentence. What the practice can add is what its own records show about attendance in the past, for a kind of problem, labeled as a count, and its policy for setting and reviewing a plan. The count is optional; the policy is not.

How many sessions will I need?

At [Practice name], your therapist proposes a plan at your first
assessment, and the number of sessions in it depends on what brings
you in. We cannot give you a number before that assessment.

What our records show
[In [period], patients who came to [Practice name] for [problem
group] attended [median or range] sessions. This is a count from our
booking records, not a forecast for you.]
[Leave this out if fewer than [the number your privacy lead sets]
patients stand behind the figure.]

How the plan is reviewed
Your therapist reviews the plan with you at [session number or
interval], and you decide together whether to continue. [How a
patient can pause or stop.]

If your plan limits visits
[What happens when a plan's visit limit is reached: the self-pay fee,
or how to ask the plan for more.]

Last checked [date] by [name, role].

Three things keep the block honest. The first sentence states a process, not a number. The count, if it appears, is past attendance from the practice's own records, with its period and its problem group named, never a recovery rate or a promise. And it is withheld when too few patients stand behind it, because a figure drawn from a handful of people can point to one of them; where that line falls is for whoever handles privacy in the practice to set. Recount once a year, and date the count.

Where each answer lives on the site

An answer helps only where a patient looks for it, so each one goes on the page its question belongs to, and every page that raises the question links there. A single page of questions can gather them too, as long as each answer on it matches the one on its own page word for word.

Markup comes last and repeats the text. FAQPage markup can label the questions and answers on a page that holds several, provided it matches the visible text exactly. Google has shown no FAQ rich result at all since May 7, 2026, as its changelog records, after limiting it to government and health sites in 2023, so plan no page around it. FAQ pages and their markup are covered in implementing FAQ schema.

Give each answer to the person who hears its question most, with a date to reread it: the referral answer to whoever handles billing, the sessions answer to a senior therapist. When a policy changes, its answer changes that week. The list itself keeps going at a lower rate, and each question on it is a candidate prompt for a measurement panel of the kind set out in what being named means for a physio practice. The rest of a practice's pages are mapped in the overview for physiotherapy practices.