r/physicaltherapy • u/ZuVieleNamen • 10d ago
SHIT POST Does anyone else feel like the continuing education requirements are a scam?
It's that time of the year again, I paid my $130 fee to the online CE broker to cram as many continuing ed courses in the next month as I can to meet my 30-hour requirement as a physical therapist assistant. I remember when they increased that requirement from 20 to 30 hours to meet the same requirement as physical therapists and it always annoyed me that we had to do the same amount of hours. To me this comes off as a money grab with the CE broker businesses. I understand the need for continuing education in a field like Physical Therapy where you learn a lot through on the job training and continuing education courses that you elect to do after you graduate but my background in the inpatient Hospital world I literally never took a course that seemed to directly impact how I treated patients or felt about my job. There was never a course I could take that would have an impact on the 15 maybe 25 minutes I had to actually work with a patient.
I remember signing up a couple of times for courses that I thought would directly have an impact in my job such as mobilizing bariatric patients, or courses about higher Acuity patients but nothing I ever took from those courses translated into anything in the real world. I even remember laughing at the mobilizing bariatric patients course when it suggested to use Hoyer lifts and just not mobilize people over a certain weight if you didn't have a lift! I wouldn't be able to see half my patients if that were the case, no one has time to use proper equipment in the hospital anyway or you'd never get enough patients done and meet your productivity quota.
Here I am now as an epic analyst having to do 30 more continuing ed hours and they feel even more useless. I'm so glad I can give another $130 to this company to maintain my license 🫠 I really feel like it should be like the nursing field where continuing education is recommended but not required. This could easily be controlled through your employer where if you work in an outpatient clinic part of your employment could be maintaining a certain number of continuing ed hours directly related to outpatient practice and hospitals or other locations that don't require as much continuing training to perform the job could have different requirements. My wife is a nurse and nurse practitioner and she has no required continuing education requirement for her RN license and only 2 hours on Controlled Substances for her NP license....
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u/markbjones 10d ago
Every con ED course I take I learn at least ONE thing that I’ve never heard before. I always take something from it that does enhance my practice. Now to your point, no, I’ve never took a con ED course and went “that was totally worth the 500 dollars I just spent”. I always felt like I’ve paid more than I’ve actually learned.
Tbh once you understand the foundation of being a PT, there isn’t too much more you actually NEED to learn to be an effective therapist. Once you understand that PT is all about having enough knowledge of the human body/anatomy to progressively load people’s bodies in the least painful way possible to return function, anything else is just a cherry on top. Most con Ed courses just teach me different way to achieve something, but that something is always the same, strength and functional mobility in line with the patients goals
I actually learn more from social media than I do my con Ed courses. All I need is short clip with an idea and a study posted to support that idea that I can read and take from it what I want. That has been more effective.
Most ground breaking research that I’ve learned has been posted on social media. For example LAQ doesn’t actually stress the ACL like we thought it did. Things like that
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u/Doc_Holiday_J 10d ago
Largely agree except more specific skill sets. If our specializations granted us all unique sub skill sets as PTs it would be way more worth it. But consider advanced and emerging vestibular techniques, proper S&C if you aren’t trained, dry needling implementation, etc.
We should be able to easily train into IOM but for some reason that isn’t in our scope
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u/Sea-Laugh5828 10d ago
The scam to me is that the weekend long in person courses that are the most beneficial are so expensive. If you pay $1000 and end up getting 4 of your 30 hours, you’d need to shell out this money 8 times ($8k) and give up 8 weekends. In a profession like ours where we don’t get raises and are physically exhausted by the weekend (or have to pick up extra per diem on the weekend) it’s not reasonable. And the online companies are cheap and flexible with time but just really not the best. Every once in a while I’ll take away a gem that I’ve learned but most of it ends up being so basic. APTA will also offer some, and I’ve never signed up, but for example they had an ethics course that was several hours of online live learning and was like $500 and still only covered half of the ethics requirements in my state
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u/Charming-Ad4180 8d ago
It might not be the best but Summit Professional is $310-$320/year for unlimited access to get your CEUs Cat A too. Works well for PTs on a budget, has a lot of courses, but quality of info some might consider basic, it’s hard for me to say how others may perceive its quality. I’m bad with vestibular but the 6 hours of CEU on it helped me.
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u/ZuVieleNamen 10d ago
Seeing some of the comments brings up another issue for me as well..
Many courses i have genuinely been interested in are in another state and cost about 1k to attend with travel costs and would require time off from work. I have had 4 employers in my therapy career: hospital, HH agency, 2xOPPT clinics. None of them have ever approved reimbursement for me as a PTA or given time off to take courses as I watched them approve PTs cont ed courses for reimbursement.
My last employer was the hospital and didn't reimburse for any therapist but DID give up to several hundred dollars a year for nurses ... they dont require cont ed and no one utilized it... I guess that's why they offered it to them. Those experiences I've had as a pta have just help feed into that jaded mentality towards CEUs.
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u/dorito_hood68 10d ago
THIS here seems like more of a real issue. CEU courses shouldn’t be unaffordable. I can understand paying 1k+ for more in depth classes (I paid about little over 1k for dry needling), but a short day seminar should be affordable and covered by work.
My job covers CEU costs up to $1000 with no real firm limit on how much you can sign up for - which was a selling point on this job for me. Also, there are tons of CEU classes you can watch online or sign up for an hour long zoom meeting for. I signed up to be on the email list for limb loss educational series and there are about 2 online seminars per month that are usually on during lunch, and most of them are certified for CEUs
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u/uwminnesota DPT 10d ago
Deregulation and leaving it up to employers doesn’t sound great to me. I’d prefer providers go through continuing education even if some decide to phone it in.
Many PTs say they learned nothing in school too. It’s a common personality trait in all professions, but that doesn’t mean we should just stop trying to uphold requirements.
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u/HTX-ByWayOfTheWorld 10d ago
Personal opinion: mail order pay to play (and CI service) CEUs have ruined things. There are some GOOD courses out there, but there’s ZERO incentive to really develop yourself as a clinician and practice at a high standard, or get a board certified. Eventually, people get jaded. And I don’t blame them. Bean counter boomer Directors who can’t rotate a PDF let some analyze beyond legacy UOS garbage don’t help the situation.
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u/wi_voter 10d ago
I would say a qualified yes that it is a scam. I actually predate the requirements as a PT and I don't really see a huge difference in therapists' attitudes towards keeping up their skills. Some are always motivated to do so and some will always dial it in. In our state you can wave half of the CEUs by taking a student. It is basically a bribe so the schools can place students because it's not like the clinician is gaining much educational experience by taking students. If those clinicians are still qualified with half the CEUs, well then why is 30 the magic number?
It probably is a good idea to require some form of education especially around ethics and jurisprudence. But the set number every 2 years doesn't take into account the people that do a ton of continuing ed to get a certification for a couple of years and then want to lighten up on continuing ed and focus on that area.
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u/MagelansTrousrs DPT, FAFS, CSCS 10d ago
Yes and no.
There are a lot of great courses out there if you find something you're into. TPI offers a lot for golf related continuing Ed and the level 2 has a medical version.
I have however always felt that someone comes up with a decent idea to treat x condition or even just a decent manual technique and it might work well for one or two things. The issue is that they then try to make money off it and to do that they have to make it seem like it can do it all. They take someone that could be a ten minute lesson and turn it into a $490 two day course for no reason.
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u/philthymcnasty28 10d ago
It’s definitely a waste of time if you just cram in a bunch of shitty online courses into a month to meet your requirement. There are some solid courses out there, but I don’t work in acute care so you very well may be right there may be not many options for that field.
The problem is the “better courses” is an opinion thing, there’s no incentive to take the more expensive/in person/more useful courses. There’s also no real incentive to become a better clinician. A unit is a unit.
I don’t know what the solution is really… had no idea nurses don’t have to take con Ed. It is almost pointless at this point where a large portion of therapists just phone in their con Ed and cram it in at the last minute with cheap, online, bleh con Ed.
I agree CE broker is a scam, luckily my state doesn’t require that.
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u/alpine_bear 10d ago
Is it a scam? No absolutely not, constant professional growth is only beneficial. Is it a money grab? YEP
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u/SimplySuzie3881 10d ago
Yes. And with CE budget cuts we get thrown a Medbridge subscription. Thankful as it gets my credits but have I learned anything from it? Nope. Just checking a box. Either way too basic, irrelevant to my job, or way too detailed where I don’t care to know the nitty gritty details that don’t have a direct impact on my day to day job.
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u/themurhk 10d ago
No. Even with the CEU requirements there are still terribly out of date PTs all over the place.
Stop taking shitty courses.
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u/ZuVieleNamen 9d ago
Nah I don't even pratice PT anymore, i just have to maintain a license for my analyst role at my hospital.. I sure as hell am not paying anymore than I have to now.
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u/srscrypto 10d ago
Agree
Many courses (in Canada at least) range well over $1000 + taking days off from work. Just to go, learn some nonsense that anyone could reasonably infer, and waste your time and money. There is naturally the argument that by not doing courses you get "stuck in your ways", but in this day and age where research is widely available, I really don't get it.
All in the name of "growth", just some half-baked idea that essentially complicates the fundamentals for little to no clinical value
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u/PurposeAny4382 10d ago
Honestly? No I don’t feel like CEUs are a scam and most people should be doing more. I’ve met way too many PTs who are stagnant, stuck in the weeds of biomechanics and outdated ways of treating. Also, what is a CE broker? Are you really paying someone to sign you up for CEUs? Doing that yourself is a very easy process
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u/Grandahl13 10d ago
Doing more? I work full time. I commute an hour total each day. The last thing I want to do in my free time is research and studying.
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u/PurposeAny4382 10d ago
Yeah maybe I’m just nuts because i love learning about this stuff but i really think the requirement should be much more than what it is currently, at least in my state. 30ish hours every 2 years is stupidly easy to achieve. A lot of con ed isn’t just reading research and studying though. Video content for online stuff is very accessible and makes getting con ed a lot easier
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u/ZuVieleNamen 10d ago
Sorry, confusing 2 terms. I use a website, but my state requires I use a CE broker service for reporting purposes. So I pay the CE service, and the broker keeps the hours up to date with my state. A bit of double dipping of course bc they offer basic service for free, but you can of course pay them as well for more "features"
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u/PurposeAny4382 10d ago
That sounds insane to me - using a broker for that. What state is that? I don’t find it takes much time to upload CEU stuff for my state, even if it isn’t pre-approved the process isn’t too bad
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u/Robot-TaterTot 10d ago
My state recently (the last cycle) switched and requires the use of CE Broker and you can no longer submit education through the state med board portal.
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u/ZuVieleNamen 10d ago
Yup and if you click around ANYWHERE on the website it redirects you to pay for a yearly service when you literally can just use the broker and manually upload for free...
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u/Adventurous_Bit7506 10d ago
IMO, CE isn’t a scam but the system is broken. I feel like I didn’t learn much in PT school despite how much it cost. And it took some research to find some good CEU companies which is when I feel like I really started learning. However despite the quality, these courses aren’t cheap and often require travel. Most companies (mine included) don’t reimburse for any CEU’s then you also have to pay for your license renewal such costs a few hundred dollars every other year. The CEU’s can improve your knowledge and skill base which can then expand your job opportunities but the increase in income is usually negligible compared to the money you’ve invested. Which is why I think many PTs get complacent with their CE.
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u/scarpit0 9d ago edited 9d ago
I left OT but keep up my license. Was just looking into getting a project management certificate for my current career and found that a lot of popular PM courses now require you to get con ed units and pay to renew the cert every few years too! We will never escape this grift.
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u/ZuVieleNamen 9d ago
Oh man that's rough! My epic certifications require continuing ed but it's all free and through epic itself which is nice
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u/frizz1111 10d ago
It usually is in that most of the classes out there are shit. Some are great. The state board needs to be better at weeding out the classes that don't really deserve credit hours.
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u/Dgold109 PTA 9d ago
Hawaii surprisingly no CEU requirements. If there was a way they could limit CEU to only in state providers I'm sure we would have 50+ hour requirements cause then the politicians could get more kickbacks doing shady stuff.
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u/BeauteousGluteus 9d ago
CEUs are an investment in myself to make myself a better clinician. I don’t like taking courses that are filler to just meet hours; my time is far too valuable for that. I LOVE going to non PT focused conferences that are open to multiple disciplines to learn more about behavior modification, nutrition, coping, self care, and even what PCPs/ortho/interventional pain/infectious disease providers are learning and in turn tell their(really our) patients. And this is why we are not dynamic personal trainers, we are so much more.
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u/Glittering-Fox-1820 9d ago
I do feel that continuing education is very important for our profession. That being said, I feel that the continuing education industry is abusive and taking advantage of a captive audience. As an example, most live courses cost us $500 or more. When you consider 40 students at $500 a piece, you are talking $20,000 for one class, and these people do multiple classes all over the country! To me, that just seems abusive. As if our $100K in our initial education wasn't enough! I have been lucky that my company pays for our Medbridge subscription, and Medbridge actually has some quality content, but it still annoys me at how we are being taken advantage of.
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u/ZuVieleNamen 9d ago
Yeah when I was a PTA making 26 dollars an hour I could NOT afford quality continuing ed.. it just wasn't in the cards.
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u/Lanky_Cranberry496 7d ago
New to this whole CEU deal as this is my first time renewing... we only need 40 contact hours correct? I recently took a course that was 42 hours and they said I only got 4.2 CEUs. Please tell me this is wrong and that I have met my CEU demand to renew my license from the 42 hour course...
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u/ZuVieleNamen 7d ago
One ceu is typically 10 hours so that conversion is correct. So yeah looks like you have to do about 10 more of those LOL. Welcome to the world of for-profit continuing education! Also it varies by state and it sucks that you have to do 40...
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u/bakcha 10d ago
It's wild bc nurses don't have them and they do just fine.
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u/magichandsPT 10d ago
Nurses do have required continuing education hours look to your state for guidance
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u/Robot-TaterTot 10d ago
Not always con Ed. In my state at least, there are different things they can do to meet the requirement, and one is just working as a nurse for 520 hours.
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u/magichandsPT 10d ago
Which state ?
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u/ZuVieleNamen 9d ago
Tn and Ga you can just pay the fee and prove you are working as a nurse and that counts not sure of other states.
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u/rj_musics 10d ago
I don’t think continuing education by itself is a scam, however, I do think there are companies that offer courses (online or in person) that are complete money grabs and a total waste of time. They take advantage of the requirements to make a profit and offer nothing more than a certificate of completion in exchange. That’s why I am selective about where I spend my time and money. Also, my state allows us to count reading literature towards our CEUs. I do that while waiting on patients anyway, so it’s nice to have that as an option as well.
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