The following is meant to serve as a guide to help practicing physical therapists and physical therapy assistants successfully complete the continuing education courses required for the renewal of their physical therapy license based on state.
Continuing education (CE) is an essential part of being an effective and well-rounded physical therapist. CE offers busy physical therapists the opportunity to engage with the profession outside of seeing patients and offer practicing physicians the chance to advance their education and expand their horizons. Since each state has unique CE requirements, exemptions, acceptable courses, and a variety of other rules and regulations, we've compiled a list of physical therapy continuing education requirements by state to make finding your state's requirements easy.
According to the FSBPT, one Continuing Education Unit (CEU) is defined as "ten contact hours of participation in organized continuing education/training experience under responsible, qualified direction and instruction." However, the FSBPT is moving away from the continuing education model in favor of a more inclusive approach to "continuing competence," where a breadth of activities may qualify for a Continuing Competence Unit. More information about Continuing Education and Continuing Competence can be found at the aPTitude website, which reports that 34 states now accept ProCert®.
We've broken down the requirements by state and by contact hours, so keep reading to find your state's requirements!
Have any corrections, tips, or thoughts on Continuing Competence? Tell us in the comments!
Before you dive in, we would also like to encourage you to conduct further research for the purposes of clarification and remind you to speak with official representatives of your state Board of Physical Therapy for any questions or concerns regarding your specific state requirements. While we have conducted thorough research here, we cannot guarantee that this article replaces the need to work directly with your state board. Please conduct your own research at the links provided to ensure accuracy. This guide was updated on 06/25/19. Any changes to state licensure requirements occurring after this date may not be accounted for.
