Legislative Update

Here is a post I put up on the myspace student PT message board:

I know many PT students who are content just studying and figure they can deal with legislative stuff when they are done with school - or let other people deal with it... but I wanted to do my part in getting the word out about some of the more recent developments...

APTA offers a lot of talking points and easy access to all your governmental reps at the APTA legislative action center (find it at www.apta.org, click on the "APTA in Action" link on the left)

A major bill for students is the Loan Forgiveness Act that is in Congress right now. This will aid PT's who work in underserved areas after graduation. The underlying part of this bill is that it would include PT in the group of "primary health services." As many of you hopefully realize PT as a profession has a bit of an uphill climb for respect in the medical community and victories such as getting this bill passed NOW are going to benefit us in the FUTURE.

Another huge bill is the one to repeal the therapy cap once and for all. The therapy cap applies to Medicare beneficiaries and can greatly limit the amount of visits patients can have per year. If Congress does not take action by January 1, 2008, the therapy cap will again be imposed on Medicare-covered physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology services. We need to take action NOW to ensure the cap does not go back into place.

Also, there is legislation that would allow Medicare beneficiaries to directly access physical therapists for outpatient services as authorized by state law (states with Direct Access).

These would all be huge victories for our profession and can also be large losses if action is not taken. All it takes from you is contacting your legislator or for those on clinics asking your patients to do so (especially ones that are under Medicare and that would be affected negatively if these do not go into effect). Pass this on to friends and families...

I know it's real cheesy, but this is the reality of our profession and fighting now is going to make everything so much easier in the future. It is the most frustrating thing when other students are apathetic about the politics of their profession, because it is all of us who are affected by their inactivity.

Off the soap box now... If you want further info on any of this I would be glad to help or refer you to those who can best help you.

Lastly, I personally am very curious to hear from anyone out there on why they are or aren't involved in this kind of stuff and any feedback on the specific bills would be very interesting to me as well.
All the best.