PT Compact Goes Live

One of the greatest barriers to practicing telemedicine is cross-state licensing requirements. Most laws, regulations, and payers require the provider to be licensed in the state that the beneficiary is located in at the time services are rendered. There has been great progress in this area recently, with more states adopting the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact and the recent update to the Nurses Licensure Compact. However, some of the other compacts that exist have not been able to “go live,” or start issuing licenses and privileges in member states, because of a lack of states enacting the legislation necessary. Each compact has a certain number of states that must be members before they can “go live.”

Here is the good news: in a press release on June 19, the Physical Therapy Compact Commission announced that their interstate compact (PT Compact) is now live! Starting July 9, physical therapists and physical therapist assistants in Missouri, North Dakota, and Tennessee are able to purchase compact privileges for one of those three states. Mississippi is also issuing privileges. Compact legislation has been enacted in 17 other states: Washington, Oregon, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey and New Hampshire. The Commission expects these states to be issuing privileges in the very near future as well.

To read the press release, click here.
For more information on the PT Compact, visit ptcompact.org