ConnOTA LEGISLATIVE ALERT
HELP US FIGHT
Athletic Trainer Scope Expansion
It’s time to stand up for the OT profession!
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR STATE SENATOR NOW!
Ask your State Senator toplease
OPPOSE
House Bill 7171 (Senate Calendar # 454)
“An Act Concerning Athletic Trainers”
Last week, the Connecticut House of Representatives quickly passed House Bill 7171, “An Act Concerning Athletic Trainers”. This bill expands the scope of practice of Athletic Trainers (ATs) beyond their current academic preparations and clinical experiences. This bill is now pending before the State Senate (Senate Calendar # 454) and could become law if occupational therapists don’t fight back and urge your state senator to oppose the bill.
This bill would not only expand the patient population ATs treat to any “physically active individual”, but it would also expressly allow ATs to treat non-athletes in all settings, including the workplace.
(To learn more about the legislation, you may click here for a link to the bill summary)
While ConnOTA is united in our opposition to this bill along with other healthcare professionals, including the CT Physical Therapy Association, the CT State Medical Society, the CT Orthopedic Society, the CT ChiropracticAssociation, the CT APRN Society, and the CT Nurses Association, among others, we attempted to discuss our collective concerns and negotiate in good faith with the ATs supporting the bill. But since that negotiation did not occur, we must all now communicate to the State Senate our strong opposition to this bill.
To contact your State Senator, please go to:
Input your address and click “submit”. Based on your address, the name of your Connecticut Legislatorsincluding your State Senator will be generated. (Please consider inputting both your work and home addresses, as you may have a different State Senator for each location).
Locate the name of your STATE SENATOR (it should be the second name listed). If you click on the hyperlinked text “State Senator, District” after their name, under the column where it says Title (Contact), it should open up an email form.
Or, if you click on your STATE SENATOR’s NAME (Web), it will take you to their website where you can click on a “Contact” tab. In addition to emailing, you can also obtain your State Senator’s phone number from this section to make a personal phone call to their office. Please consider both emailing AND calling (you will likely speak to your Senator’s aide or have to leave a voice message). A phone call in addition to or following up on an email will help make a big difference!
Simply tell your State Senator who you are and that you are asking them to pleaseOPPOSE House Bill 7171 (Senate Calendar # 454), “An Act Concerning Athletic Trainers”.
When contacting your State Senator, here are additional talking points consider:
- Occupational Therapy is THE evidence-based, science-driven, proven discipline to properly address workplace injuries and ergonomics. It is inappropriate at this time given their lack of education and training for ATs to infringe on the scope of OT and be allowed to work in these settings.
- Allowing ATs to no longer treat just athletes, but any “physically active individual” can impact the role and scope of other health professionals and potentially risk patient safety as ATs are not trained in how co-morbidities impact treatment decisions.
- While OTs and physicians frequently interact to review standing orders, this legislation would allow for only annual standing orders.