Big PT wins in Committee

APTA MN State Government Affairs has had a busy week at the Capitol – and it’s only the fourth week of session! Leading up to this week was strategic engagement about our PT Practice Act; Kathleen, Anne, and Josh with legislators, especially those on the committees where the PT Practice Act was being considered. We also had several conversations with stakeholders, including groups who oppose our practice act. But it was all laying the groundwork to ensure that we were in the best position for our bills to pass.

And, APTA MN members, I have some good news! For the first time in this decade (and longer, so I am told) the PT Practice Act modifications bill has successfully passed committees in not just ONE but BOTH bodies of the Minnesota Legislature. But that’s not all we worked on this week: we had a couple of surprises to manage, but that’s what happens when the legislature is in session. Here’s what we did:  

• Had hearings in both the House and Senate on the PT Practice Act Update bill (HF 2689 and SF 3049 – bills are linked if you want to take a look).
  • HF 2689 passed the House out of the House Health Committee and moved it to the next committee stop, the House Judiciary Committee. We convened immediately after committee to discuss an action plan to get the bill a hearing before deadline.
    • A couple of thoughts from the hearing: we were well prepared for opposition to removal of the 90-day referral requirement and the definition of diagnosis (Holly did a great job here). There were a couple of legislators who spoke out with concern about removing the year wait for direct referral for recent DPT licensees. Overall, member comments were limited but supportive.
  • SF 3049 was held over by the Senate HHS Committee and will be considered for a larger package of bills called an omnibus bill.
    • A couple of thoughts from the hearing: we were well prepared for opposition to removal of the 90-day referral and lined up Sen. Kupec, a senator who represents Moorhead, to speak in favor of direct access. He lives near the North Dakota border and goes to North Dakota for his PT and had no idea there was an issue with having to seek a referral until we met with him. Chair Wiklund was also very supportive of removing the 90-day referral.
  • VIDEO OF THE HEARINGS: The House hearing will be available online here under House Health Committee. The Senate hearing is available here.
• We successfully negotiated language added to the Acupuncture Scope of Practice bill (within 3 days of the hearing) to ensure that PTs would not be prohibited from continuing to practice dry needling. I will say that getting new language added to a different scope of practice bill at the 11^th hour is almost always never successful, but through persistence it got done.
• We successfully kept a surprise amendment off our senate bill that would have written in language that would have prohibited PTs from taking continuing education courses (that would have been an unintended consequence of the language, not the intent). We were informed in the hearing room that a senator wanted to offer an amendment and worked out in the hall to point out how this would harm our practice and in the long run patients using statute. It was quite an exercise in quick thinking while keeping an ear to the committee!
• And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the SGA Team were able to help prepare our fantastic testifiers, Holly Clynch, Steve Burnap, and Forrest Andres-Beck, testify (for their first times) in support of our PT Practice Act. Thank you, Holly, Steve, and Forrest!
• And (part two) a huge thank you to our chief authors, Rep. Liz Reyer and Sen. Liz Boldon, who delivered great opening comments in support of physical therapists, physical therapy assistants, and physical therapy students. They are truly our champions.

There is still work to be done, but today we got closer to passing the PT Practice Act Update bill than we have in years. Reminder: the last hearing on the bill was in 2020 (before the COVID-19 Pandemic changed the Legislature that session!). And we had a couple of other victories along the way. We should all be very proud of the progress we made. Most bills do not get hearings during the legislative session, and ours got heard in both the House and Senate! Congratulations!