Arkansas Physical Therapy Contact Hour Requirements

Approval status

Approved

Work towards your Arkansas online CEU allowance with our courses and meet 100% of your online home-study for PTs. Learn more about Arkansas Physical Therapy CEU Requirements.

Course acceptance for these courses

These courses are accepted for Arkansas contact hours on this site. The Arkansas rule is different: program content and CEU accreditation must be approved by the Arkansas State Board of Physical Therapy or a board-approved entity. Acceptance here is not that board approval.

The board’s procedures also require approved programs and college courses to be in clinical application, clinical management, behavioral science, science, or scientific research. Confirm that these nutrition courses meet that test before you count the hours.

Biennial contact hours and the online limit

The board’s continuing-education procedures say a physical therapist completes 2.0 CEUs, which the procedures treat as 20 hours, and a physical therapist assistant completes 1.0 CEU, which they treat as 10 hours, in each biennium. One CEU is 10 contact hours of an accredited course or program. The hours must be obtained within the 24 months preceding the odd-numbered-year renewal. 17 CAR § 175-111 states the same totals and says they are completed by December 31 in each biennium.

The rule defines a contact hour as 60 minutes of in-person attendance at a seminar or workshop. The board procedures describe a contact hour as actual time in a seminar or workshop. Those two descriptions are not the same sentence. Use the text you are relying on, and confirm the conversion with the board if a certificate uses a different hour.

Online hours are limited to 50 percent of the total: 10 contact hours for physical therapists and 5 for physical therapist assistants. The jurisprudence exam counts as 1 online hour, and a live interactive webinar counts as in-person. These courses are online home study. A 12-contact-hour online bundle is larger than either online limit, and the jurisprudence hour uses part of the same limit. Count only the online hours the board accepts.

Jurisprudence exam and audit records

Renewal requires a passing score on the Arkansas Physical Therapy Board jurisprudence exam. The exam is part of continuing education for every odd-numbered-year renewal and is worth one contact hour. The fee and registration steps are on the board site.

For the odd-numbered-year renewal, licensees attest that the continuing education was completed and that it meets the board’s criteria. After that renewal, the procedures say the board randomly selects 10 percent of licensees for audit and gives 20 days to submit proof. Proof is kept for a minimum of four years from the date the course was completed. The procedures ask for the date, place, course title, schedule, presenters, number of contact hours, and a certificate of completion, transcript, or grade report.

What the courses cover

Each course is 4 contact hours, and the bundle is 12. You can apply accepted hours toward the physical therapist online allowance. That allowance is the 10-contact-hour cap above, not all 12 contact hours in the bundle. Prices are on the course and bundle pages. Those links open the pages. They do not complete enrollment.

• Foundational nutrition: macronutrients, micronutrients, calories, and requirements for a healthy population.
• Dietary patterns, including the standard American diet, Mediterranean diets, and plant-based diets.
• How food marketing can affect everyday food choices.
• Label reading for sugars and other nutrients.
• Dietary screening tools used in a physical therapy setting.
• Nutrients related to healing, tissue recovery, and rehabilitation.

References

• Arkansas State Board of Physical Therapy, continuing education procedures
• 17 CAR § 175-111, continuing education requirements
• Arkansas State Board of Physical Therapy