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PT Board withdraws recognition of AHP Healthcare; licensing staff report increases in applications and automated licensing workflow
Summary
The board voted 4-0 to remove AHP Healthcare from its continuing-competency recognition list. Licensing staff reported a year-to-date 8% increase in initial license applications and described automatic licensing triggers tied to FSBPT score uploads.
The Physical Therapy Board of California voted 4-0 on June 26 to remove AHP Healthcare from the board—s list of recognized continuing-competency approval agencies.
The board recorded the vote as: Karen Brandon — yes; Daniel Pew — aye; Neil Armstrong — yes; Talakila — yes. Tanya McMillan was absent. The motion was made and seconded on the record; the meeting minutes do not identify the members who made or seconded the motion by name.
The action followed a licensing services update during which staff described application and processing trends for fiscal year 202425. Paul Rowe, applications and licensing lead, reported that initial license applications were up 8% year over year for quarter 1 through quarter 3; U.S.-educated physical therapist initial applications increased 5% and physical therapist assistant (PTA) applications increased 17%. Foreign-educated initial applications were down 19%, while endorsement applications increased 10% and military-related applications rose about 50%.
Rowe said of 2,009 initial applications received year-to-date, 93% were U.S.-educated and that average processing times (application receipt to issuance or closure) for completed applications during the period were 29 days for U.S.-educated applicants, 48 days for foreign-educated applicants and 8 days for military applications. He noted target turnaround times of 45 days for endorsement applications and 90 days for new graduate applications.
Continuing-competency audits were also reported: 212 physical therapists were audited in quarters 13 with a 94% pass rate; 68 physical therapist assistants were audited with an 81% pass rate.
During public comment a licensee asked whether the licensing office has a technical process to automatically issue licenses when exam scores arrive. Licensing staff explained that analysts can set applications to auto-issue once an applicant—s score downloads from the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT) and that the board now receives scores via an API that can process uploads continuously; staff cautioned that scores sometimes arrive in waves as FSBPT completes post-exam checks and forensic analyses.
Materials presented at the meeting also referenced continuing-competency workload studies and rulemaking work to establish fees for recognized approval agencies; staff said data collection for those studies is underway.
The board took the AHP Healthcare vote during the licensing/continuing-competency agenda item; no further details on the grounds for withdrawal were read into the record during the motion and vote.
