LSBME advisory committee agrees board’s free law-and-rules course will satisfy occupational therapists’ annual ethics CE requirement

The Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (LSBME) Occupational Therapy Advisory Committee agreed on March 13 that the board’s law-and-rules online course will suffice to meet the annual ethics continuing-education (CE) requirement for occupational therapists, and members outlined how the change will be communicated and implemented.

Committee members discussed the change during a routine meeting and were told the course would be free and available to licensees. "This course is available to meet the compliance regulations for ethics course. It's free of charge," said Dr. Vann, who demonstrated the board’s website and the course access during the meeting.

Why it matters: the committee’s decision affects how licensees claim ethics credit and how CE platforms classify hours. Several members described problems where CE Broker credits placed in the ethics slot reduce a multi‑hour course to a single credited hour. "It was really just related to what type of course, like, what type of course you took and then how you upload it through CE Broker," said Glenn Wallace, citing examples of three-hour ethics courses that were only credited for one hour when filed under the ethics pathway.

Susie Allen, the board’s director of research and education, said the law-and-rules course is already configured for board compliance and that staff will work through whether a formal rule change is required. "I'm Susie Allen. I'm the director of research and education here," Allen said; she asked whether the committee intended the change to be implemented by rule and described the current separation in CE Broker between the laws-and-rules slot and the ethics slot.

Under the committee’s plan, the board’s law-and-rules course will be posted as satisfying the ethics component; if licensees take other ethics courses, those will generally count only as the single ethics hour permitted by the current CE configuration. Committee members confirmed the total annual CE-hour requirement will remain unchanged at 14 hours. Dr. Vann said staff will send notification to licensees and that the course will be free on the board’s website.

What happens next: Susie Allen and staff will draft the notification letter to licensees and, if necessary, begin the process to update rules so the board’s configuration and CE Broker settings align with the committee’s intent. The committee also discussed posting an explanatory note or "info bubble" on the website to guide licensees in uploading courses correctly.