How do I stay connected to patient care as an OT stuck managing productivity?

The patient work is what gave the job its meaning. The slow, real progress of a person getting a piece of their life back. Now you manage caseloads and productivity targets, and the meaning feels buried under numbers that were never why you came. Those targets are the language the building speaks, but they are not the truth of the work. Do not let them convince you that meaning is gone. It has moved. Every therapist you support, every unfair caseload you push back on, protects the patient care you love, just at a scale your own hands could not reach. Keep treating patients if you possibly can, even a few. It will anchor you to why the targets exist and keep you honest when you set them for others. You became an OT for the people, not the productivity report. Do not let the report make you forget that.