About the Rehab Wealth Project
A free, plain-language financial reference for physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists.
The Rehab Wealth Project is a free financial reference for physical therapists (PTs), occupational therapists (OTs), and speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Every guide and every calculator is openly readable, with no account required and no popups. Only optional bonus material, such as the salary negotiation kit, asks for an email address.
Why the project exists
Rehabilitation clinicians finish a doctorate or a master's degree carrying $100,000 to $180,000 in student debt, then start a career whose pay is set largely by federal reimbursement rates and regional market conditions. Almost no clinical program teaches the financial side of that, so a new graduate is handed a menu of federal repayment plans, a retirement account they have never heard of, and no way to tell whether the salary they were offered is normal for their market.
That information gap is what this project fills. Physicians have the White Coat Investor. Software engineers have Levels.fyi. Rehabilitation clinicians have professional associations, recruiters, and each other. None of those produce a plain-language walkthrough of what a $150,000 loan balance costs under each federal repayment option, or what a physical therapist earns in a specific metro area at eight years of experience.
What the project publishes
Guides. Student loan repayment, tax-advantaged investing, disability and life insurance, and housing, written for a therapist's income and a therapist's career shape. Factual claims are cited to primary sources: StudentAid.gov, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Register, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Federal student loan policy changes often, so guides date their claims and say when a rule is unsettled.
Calculators. A student loan payoff calculator, an investment growth projector, and the Autonomy Calculator, which finds a financial independence number and the years to reach it. The math runs in the browser. Balances and salaries entered into a calculator are not transmitted or stored unless the reader chooses to save a scenario to an account.
Pay data. A salary tool that compares clinician pay against federal BLS wage data by state, metro area, work setting, and years of experience, alongside pay reports submitted by clinicians. The methodology, including its limitations, is published on the tool itself rather than summarized away.
The goal
The measure of this project is whether a clinician can make a better-informed decision after using it. Which repayment plan fits the career they actually want. Whether an offer is competitive for their market. What an extra $500 a month becomes over ten years. How many years of saving stand between them and the point where full-time patient care is a choice rather than a requirement.
Financial independence sits at the far end of that range, and most readers want a rung well short of it: the ability to go part-time, take a sabbatical, move to a different setting, or turn down work. Each financial step buys a specific option, and the guides are organized around that idea in three phases. Phase 1 gets a clinician to a net worth of zero. Phase 2 builds a runway. Phase 3 turns the runway into choices.
How the project is funded
Some guides link to lenders and insurance carriers. Where a link is an affiliate link, the project may earn a commission at no additional cost to the reader, and the page carrying it says so plainly. Placement and ranking are not for sale, and no partner reviews content before it publishes. The full policy is on the affiliate disclosure page.
What this project is not
This is educational material for a professional audience. The Rehab Wealth Project is not a financial advisory service, a course, a coaching program, or a paid community. It is not operated by a licensed financial advisor, planner, tax professional, or attorney, and nothing published here is individualized advice for any reader's situation. Federal rules, lender terms, and market rates change, and a guide can only describe the general case. Anyone making a decision about their own loans, taxes, insurance, or investments should confirm the current rules and consult a qualified professional.
Contact
Questions, corrections, and data submissions are welcome at contact@rehabwealth.com. Corrections are the most useful thing a reader can send.