Continuing Education Policy and Procedure

PURPOSE 

Provide Board staff, Board members, course sponsors, licensees, and general consumers transparent guidelines in the Louisiana Physical Therapy Board’s approval process. Courses and activities shall meet the content criteria set forth in §195.  

 

POLICY

The CEU Committee reviews continuing education courses for course sponsor applications as well as individual course applications for compliance with Rule §195. Course applications that are not in compliance with Rule §195 are denied. Course applications that are not clearly commensurate with Rule may be referred to the entire board for review, as determined necessary by the CE Committee.

 

RESPONSIBILITIES

 

Staff Responsibilities

  1. Receive applications at the Board office via the online application.
  2. Review applications to determine if the proper forms, documentation, and fees have been provided by the applicant.
  3. Notify applicant if additional information is needed. 
  4. Provide information to CEU committee for review within 7 days of receipt of complete application.
  5. Post the approved coursework to the LPTB website, including the amount of credit hours which may be earned.
  6. Review and approve CEU applications for all CAPTE Program requests, Clinical Instructor requests, postgraduate coursework, and APTA and APTA Louisiana Chapter coursework.
  7. Send approval or denial notice to applicant via email. 

CEU Committee Responsibilities

  1. Review speaker/instructor qualifications.
  2. Review content criteria of course submitted in application.
  3. Obtain additional information from the applicant directly, as necessary.
  4. Deny courses or approve and assign the amount of credit hours and return to staff in a timely manner, no to exceed 45 days.
  5. The policy is reviewed annually.
  6. The commitee may refer to the board if the course's qualifications are in question with review requirements.

Course Applicant Responsibilities

  1. Create a user account. Instructions on creating a user account may be found here.
  2. Submit a completed application, pursuant to Rule §195.
  3. Maintain a record of attendance and completion of a sponsored course activity, pursuant to Rule §193.G.
  4. For courses previously approved, any changes, including but not limited to changes in course speaker and/or content must be submitted in writing to the Board office.
  5. The application must include in either a PDF or Word doc:
    •     Course instructor(s)'s CV/Resume;
    •     Course completion certificate
    •     Course survey form
    •     Timed course schedule (or word count for readings and # of exam questions, or run time for videos);
    •     Course objectives;
    •     Course citations/bibliography

**Course citations for clinical courses shall be no less than 3 references of articles published in peer reviewed journals related to the field of Physical Therapy that were published within the last ten years. Citations for administrative and ethics courses shall be no less than 3 relevant references, which are not required to be from peer reviewed journals, and were published within the last 10 years.

Program Criteria

Speaker Minimum Qualifications

  1. Curriculum vitae shall be submitted with application packet for course review and shall include: 
      •      Place and dates of education and degrees earned.
      •      List of education/expertise in the area of course presentation.
    •      Speaker shall have Doctoral or Master’s level of education; or
      •      Bachelor’s level of education with at least five years of practice experience; or
      •      Associate’s level of education with at least five years of practice experience in a related field and who have advanced competencies and/or specialties; or
      •      Physical Therapist Assistants with at least five years of practice experience in a related field and who have advanced competencies and/or specialties. 
  2. Must hold a license to practice within their profession, if required.
  3. Must demonstrate advanced proficiency/clinical education in area of expertise/area of course presentation.

Course Goals (PT Rule §195A.)

Program content must be easily recognizable as pertinent to the physical therapy profession. It shall contain evidence-led* information related to the practice of physical therapy and clinical outcomes. Course or activity content shall address physical therapy competence and practice and shall be designed to meet one of the following goals.

  1. Update knowledge and skills required for competent performance beyond entry-level of the PT or PTA at the time the licensee entered the profession;
  2. Allow the licensee to enhance his or her knowledge and skills; and/or
  3. Facilitate personal contribution to the advancement of the profession.

    *The term evidence-led should be defined as including those articles published in a peer-reviewed journal. The strength of the evidence will be considered. Case reports, expert opinions, and editorials will not be considered evidence without additional supporting research.

Length of Course

All Courses must be at least one hour in length. Course approval time will be rounded down to the nearest quarter hour.

 

Criteria for Course Review, listed by course delivery method

  1. Text-based courses 
    •      The Mergener Formula will be used to calculate the CEUs for any text-based Independent Study Learning activity such as a journal article, PDF document, or text-based web-learning activity. 
    •      Text-based credit must have a learning assessment.
    •      Learning assessment is included to calculate the number of credit hours in the Mergener Formula. Course sponsor must provide number of words, number of assessment questions, and level of difficulty (level 2 is beginner, level 3 is intermediate, level 4 is advanced.)
  2. Computer- or Video-based courses
    •      Video-based credits will be approved based on presentation time, excluding the introduction.
    •      Video-based courses will have an interactive feature to allow dialogue, coursework assignments, and post-tests.
    •     Video-based credit must have a learning assessment.
  3. Symposium-, Conference-, and Traditional lecture-type courses
    •      Symposium and conference-type courses will be approved on course time only.
      1. Registration times will be excluded.
      2. Breaks will be excluded.
      3. If the course or activity is over four (4) hours long, a fifteen-minute break will automatically be deducted from time.

Individual Course Approval Submitted by Licensees (PT Rule §193.F.)

  1. The licensee submits for apporval of the course or activity using the online form located on the licensee dashboard (§193.F(1));
  2. The course or activity submitted for approval shall only be considered for the licensee who submits for approval (§193.F(2)); 
  3. In no case will such application for course or activity approval be considered during the last 60 days of the requestor's license term (§193.F(3)).
  4. The application must include in either PDF or Word doc:
    • Course instructor(s)'s CV/Resume;
    • Timed course schedule (or word count for readings and # of exam questions, or run time for videos);
    • Course objectives;
    • Course citations/bibliography

**Course citations for clinical courses shall be no less than 3 references of articles published in peer reviewed journals related to the field of Physical Therapy that were published within the last ten years. Citations for administrative and ethics courses shall be no less than 3 relevant references, which are not required to be from peer reviewed journals, and were published within the last 10 years.

 

Types of approved courses or activities

  1. Jurisprudence
  2. Ethics
  3. Clinical and/or Administrative

Verification/Certificate of Attendance

  1. Attendance certificate must include actual hours attended by participant
  2. Attendance certificate must include actual hours approved in Louisiana
  3. Attendance certificate must include participant’s name and license number

Fees (PT Rule §501.A.)

  1. Review charge for APTA, APTA-LA, and Louisiana CAPTE accredited program sponsors will be waived. (PT Rule §193.E.)
  2. Other course sponsors: activity less than 8 hours = $100.00
  3. Other course sponsors: activity 8 hours or more = $150.00
  4. Licensee fee for course approval = $20.00

Refund of Fees

The application review fee is non-refundable. Denied courses do not qualify for a review fee refund. The following may qualify for a refund:

  1. Individual course review fee paid for a course that was previously submitted by a course sponsor in the same calendar year.
  2. Course sponsor review fee for a course that was cancelled due to natural disaster and will not be available for Louisiana licensees to complete. If the course is rescheduled in a different calendar year, the course fee and approval will be transferred to the calendar year that the course is offered and a refund will not be issued.

Approval Period Timeframe

Courses submitted by course sponsors may be submitted for approval at any time. Courses offered multiple times in a calendar year are approved for the entire calendar year that the approval is granted.

Courses or activities submitted by licensees in accordance with Rule §193.F. may be submitted for approval during the licensee's renewal period until the last 60 days of the requestor's license term.

 

Revised: February 16, 2022