of 6— List your top 10 diagnoses

What you'll accomplish

By the end of this guide, you'll have a library of 10–20 customized patient education handouts for your most common diagnoses — ready to print and hand to patients. These handouts would take 20–30 minutes each to write from scratch; this system lets you build the whole library in one focused hour.

What you'll need

A free ChatGPT account at chat.openai.com (or Claude at claude.ai)
A folder on your computer or Google Drive called "PT Patient Handouts"
A list of your top 10–15 most common diagnoses
Time needed: 60 minutes to build the library; 2 minutes per future handout
Cost: Free

How-To Guide: Build a Patient Education Handout Library with AI

Step 1: List your top 10 diagnoses

Before opening the AI tool, write down your 10 most common diagnoses — the conditions you treat and explain week after week. A typical outpatient orthopedic PT list might include:

Lumbar disc herniation / non-specific low back pain
Rotator cuff tendinopathy / impingement
Post-op rotator cuff repair
Post-op total knee replacement
Post-op ACL reconstruction
Cervical radiculopathy
Hip osteoarthritis
Plantar fasciitis
Lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow)
Knee osteoarthritis