"Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession and physical therapists are not medical doctors; we are a separate profession that provides a unique service that physicians are unable and untrained to provide."

Letter to the AMA from the APTA, Dec 2009

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Governor Scott signs Physical Therapist/PTA Temporary License Bill into Law

Physical Therapists and Physical Therapists Assistants graduating from Florida based PT and PTA programs will be able to obtain temporary licensure thanks to Governor Rick Scott signing HB 799 into law on Friday, April 6, 2012.

With Governor’s Scott’s signature HB 799 will become law effective June 1.
HB 799 was a major priority of the Florida Physical Therapy Association (FPTA) along with the state’s 11 Physical Therapy and 15 Physical Therapy Assistant schools.

Passage of the legislation can be attributed to the hard work of our PT and PTA students, faculty, and FPTA leadership and legislative counsel.

As a recap, HB 799 and its companion SB 1228 were heard in a total of six committees of reference and passed every single committee without objection. On final passage in the Florida House of Representatives HB 799 passed 114-0 and then passed 36-0 in the Florida Senate.

While process barriers were ever present during the 2012 session, the legislation steamed on toward final passage. However, it wasn’t until the final day, March 9 at 11:22 p.m. that HB 799 achieved final passage and was enrolled. On Friday, March 23, the Florida House of Representatives procedurally released HB 799 from its purview to be considered by Florida Governor Rick Scott.

As mentioned previously, Governor Scott signed the bill into law Friday, April 6. FPTA’s strategy was textbook advocacy for taking an idea and making it a law.

Thank you to the following legislative sponsors:
  • Rep. Tom Goodson, R-Titusville
  • Senator Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee

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Tim Richardson, PT owns a private practice at Medical Arts Rehabilitation, Inc in Palmetto, Florida. The clinic website is at MedicalArtsRehab.com.

Bulletproof Expert Systems: Clinical Decision Support for Physical Therapists in the Outpatient Setting is a manager's workbook with stories, checklists, charts, graphs, tables, and templates describing how you can use paper-based or computerized tools to improve your clinic's Medicare compliance, process adherence and patient outcomes.

Tim has implemented a computerized Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system in his clinic since 2006 that serves as a Reminder, Alerting, Prompting and Predicting CDS using evidence-based tests and measures.

Tim can be reached at
TimRichPT@BulletproofPT.com .

"Make Decisions like Doctors"


Copyright 2007-2010 by Tim Richardson, PT.
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Consistent with the American Physical Therapy Association Vision Statement for Physical Therapy 2020, the American Physical Therapy Association supports exclusive physical therapist ownership and operation of physical therapy services.