Oklahoma is one of the last few states where patients are prohibited by state law from seeking physical therapy services unless they are referred by another health care provider. Eliminating the referral requirement is one step to making care more accessible to more people.
What is Direct Access?
Direct access to physical therapy is your opportunity as a patient to be evaluated and treated by a licensed physical therapist without first seeing your physician for a prescription. Direct access can save time and money, thereby expediting your treatment, relief, and recovery.
Direct Access is described in depth by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) as follows:
What does patient access to physical therapists’ services without referral mean and why is it needed?
Patient access to physical therapists’ services without referral means the removal of the physician referral mandated by state law to access physical therapists’ services. Forty-four (44) states have granted consumers the freedom to seek physical therapy treatment without a referral. Sixteen of these states have no restrictions, while the rest have some provisions. Currently, a referral is mandatory by state law to initiate treatment by a licensed physical therapist in 6 states.
This referral mandate causes delays in the provision of physical therapists' services to individuals who would benefit from treatment by a physical therapist. Delays in care result in higher cost, decreased functional outcomes, and frustration to patients seeking physical therapy treatment. Eliminating the referral mandate results in timely, and thus more effective, physical therapists’ services.
Are physical therapists qualified to deliver physical therapists’ services independent of referral?
Absolutely. Physical therapists receive extensive education and clinical training in the examination, evaluation, diagnosis, prognosis, and intervention of patient/clients with functional limitations, impairments and disabilities. Physical therapists are qualified to recognize when a patient presents with signs and symptoms inconsistent or outside the scope and expertise of the physical therapist and when the patient should be referred to a physician. APTA’s Guide of Professional Conduct advocates that physical therapists should assist patients in receiving appropriate medical care when the physical therapists’ examination and evaluation reveals signs and symptoms inconsistent with a condition that can be appropriately treated with physical therapy or needs a physician’s care and expertise.
Liability insurers and the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy affirm that physical therapists’ services provided without referral does not jeopardize the health, safety, or welfare of the patient/clients seeking physical therapists’ care and services without referral.
Health Providers Service Organization (HPSO), the leading liability insurer of physical therapists in the United States, states in a March 22, 2001 letter, "that direct access is not a risk factor that we specifically screen for in our program because it has not negatively impacted our claims experience in any way. In addition, we do not have a premium differential for physical therapists in direct access states."
