CHCS Perspectives Summer/Fall 2013

PERSPECTIVES • SUMMER-FALL 2013 – Page 40 DEAN’S AND CHANCELLOR’S LIST FORT LAUDERDALE Chancellor’s List The D.P.T. students earning highest honors are as follows: Julie Carrabine Teresa Doolittle Wayne Jared Amber Maltese John McCready Austin Witnauer Dean’s List The D.P.T. students earning honors are as follows: Kimberly Blackaby Jonathan Blake Andrea Charles Tara Gonzalez Sterling Guthrie Bronson Ingland Lauren Levine Matthew McMillin Amanda Nelson Brooke Olsen Nicholas Playe Andrea Quaid Courteney Ray Christine Verst Sarah Whiteman C linical education is an important component of any health care professional pro- gram, and sustaining the clinical sites to maintain this portion of the curriculum has become challenging in today’s health care environment. In an effort to provide external benefits and acknowledgment to our community-based clinical education partners, the clinical education team and faculty members in the Physical Therapy Program have de- veloped a community outreach initiative. Placing students in hundreds of clinics annually is an arduous task in all health professions. As there is no national matching system in place in physical therapy, placements are done by each school. In recent years, with over 200 accredited physical therapy programs nation- ally, placements are getting harder to secure. This is confirmed by the Florida Consortium of Clinical Educators, which consists of clinical education faculty from most physical therapy and physical therapy assistant schools in the state of Florida. Most schools within the con- sortium report increasing difficulty placing students, especially in acute-care hospital settings. Numerous factors have impacted physical therapy placement opportunities for students. Especially in acute care settings, productivity requirements for PTs have increased as reim- bursement has decreased. While the need for PT services remains, especially with an aging population, the advent of DRGs (diagnostic rehabilitation groups) in the 1980s resulted in physical therapy becoming a cost center in most hospital settings. Other prospective payment systems and reimbursement cuts in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and home health have also resulted in increased productivity requirements. Changes in Medicare policy on student supervision and payment have impacted place- ments as well. Medicare B patient visits by PT students are not reimbursable except under very rigid supervision in both outpatient settings and SNFs, challenging facilities with large Medicare populations to accommodate students. The same holds true for facilities that man- age pediatric patients under Medicare Part C. Another challenge is changing employment arrangements. More PTs are being employed on a per-diem or contract basis, which limits working hours and may create situations where it is not feasible to supervise students. While these are not the only reasons for decreasing student placements, they have created signifi- cant challenges. The clinical site coordinators (CCCEs) that accept PT students into their facilities, and the clinical instructors (CIs) that agree to supervise students, do so as a professional respon- sibility. Serving as a CCCE or CI does not usually offer the individual PT any financial re- CLINICAL EDUCATION Community Partner Outreach: A P.T. Department Initiative –Giving Back– PHYSICAL THERAPY Fort Lauderdale By Debra F. Stern, D.P.T., D.B.A., PT, assistant professor, Shari Rone-Adams, associate professor, D.B.A., PT, and Kim Smith, M.S.P.T., (D.P.T. candidate)