May 10, 2010 - Senate Bill 590 will be heard in the House Health & Welfare Committee meeting at 9a on 5/12

 Please attend if at all possible. 

1. The issue at hand is the Physical Therapy (PT) supervision requirements of Physical Therapist Assistants (PTA) in a nursing home setting. The bill establishes the maximum number of clinicians the PT can supervise as well as the frequency the PT must supervise the PTA for all nursing home patients regardless of payer type.
2. These requirements are similar to our surrounding state have in place as well as more than 33 other states.
3. The bill states that a PT must hold a supervised documented conference with the PTA every 6th visit but no longer than 30 days.
4. Given the concurrent therapy requirements being implemented October 1, 2010, it is imperative that this bill pass. The current supervisory requirements would put an even higher demand on the PT's time while restricting treatment of patients by PTAs. 
5. At present, a new grad PTA cannot treat a Part B patient in the nursing home for one year, regardless of supervision. That same PTA can treat the patient while on Part A but not under Part B.
6. The CMS study indicates that the proposed supervision requirements of SB 590 are not detrimental to patient care or clinical outcomes regardless of setting.
   http://www.cms.gov/TherapyServices/SAR/itemdetail.asp?filterType=none&filterByDID=-99&sortByDID=3&sortOrder=descending&itemID=CMS057263&intNumPerPage=2000
7. Senator McPherson has been pursuing the PT Board to make these changes for more than 2 years.  Due to their continued lack of action regarding the matter, he authored this bill. The bill had 3 amendments in the Senate hearing.
8. The PT Board and the PT Association expressed no opposition to the amendments during the hearing.

We hope you will support the long term care industry by contacting the members of the House Health & Welfare Committee supporting this bill. If you can be present at the House hearing, please fill out a green card in support of the bill. LNHA is in support of this bill.