When recommending conservative treatment, clinicians should outline the expected recovery timeline and specific next steps if improvement does not occur.

“if I have someone come in with an ankle sprain and I say oh just need to do pt and I don't explain to them what would happen in 3 weeks I say follow up I could just say follow up with me in a month if you're not doing well I need to go through the steps with them listen here's the story not everybody with an ankle sprin is going to get better you're probably going to get better because most do but you might not so if four or six weeks goes by you're still having swelling pain you don't feel like you're making improvements I really need to see you because you may have an injury to the car cartilage and we have to get an MRI so I always give them the answer to what we are doing next if what I've just recommended isn't going to work well”