Should I Renew My PT/OT/SLP License if I Leave Patient Care?

Should I renew my PT/OT/SLP license if I leave patient care?

So you’ve decided to leave patient care, and you might even have a non-clinical job lined up. Congrats successfully making the leap, and best of luck with your new endeavors! This career change probably comes some questions about what to do about CEUs, licensure, professional membership, and more. You’re probably wondering whether you should let your physical therapy (or occupational or speech therapy) license lapse when you leave patient care.

It’s pretty tempting to do exactly that. After all, if you’re not going to stay in direct patient care, why spend the money and time it takes to maintain licensure? We all know that continuing education can be expensive and inconvenient, and you might not even use many of the clinical concepts ever again, right?

But…we implore you: please renew your PT license. We will do our best to convince you that renewal is the right move 🙂

Here are two reasons why you should renew your PT/OT/SLP license, even if you’re leaving patient care.

1. You might want to go back to patient care one day.

We all remember how hard it was to get that license. From the grueling all-nighters during school, to the brow-mopping national examination tests themselves, that license did not come easily.

And that’s not even mentioning the fingerprinting, background checks, and other hoops you had to jump through to get your license in the first place! 

While you may currently feel that you never want to work in patient care again, you could easily change your mind in the future, and you don’t want to close any doors for yourself. It’s wise to leave your options open.

If you do let your license lapse and then want to renew it, it’s a much bigger expense, and a much bigger hassle to renew it.

If anything, consider putting your license into “inactive” mode (if that’s an option in your state), rather than letting it lapse.

2. Certain non-clinical jobs still want a current, active clinical license.

Quite a few of the best non-clinical roles do require an active PT (or OT or SLP) license. If you wind up in one of those roles, you’ll be happy that you kept your license.

For example, care coordinator, pre-service coordinator or clinical review coordinator, diabetes educator, rehab liaison, and utilization review roles all require active PT (or OT) licenses in good standing. 

Don’t close the door to future high-paying and enjoyable non-clinical roles, just because you don’t want to pay for your license renewal fees and continuing education. You’ll regret it in the long run. Especially if you decide to go back to patient care, for whatever reason 🙂

So what’s the easiest way to renew my license if I’m going non-clinical?

We’re so happy you asked!

1. Find an online physical therapy CEU source that has courses you actually want to take. 

When you work at a clinical job, your employer will often offer a continuing education credit so you can attend courses and learn new clinical skills. In-person courses are priceless for those working clinically. There’s nothing like learning alongside other therapists to truly level up your skills. In-person courses are also fantastic networking opportunities, and they can sometimes snap you out of a rut when you’re feeling bored with your work.

That said, such courses are much more relevant for an active clinician than someone working in a non-clinical role. And those in-person courses are typically not cheap!

Plus, when you make the switch out of patient care, it’s suddenly your own responsibility to pay for those in-person courses. This makes online con-ed much more appealing…

Let’s go over our favorite options for rehab (PT/OT/SLP) professionals seeking online CEU platforms:

MedBridge

We typically recommend Medbridge to career changers, and we believe they are the best overall option for rehab clinicians who want CEUs that can support their non-clinical career growth. Here’s why.

• Excellent selection. Medbridge has the best selection of non-clinical courses that offer certifications. You might not want to sit through lots of ankle instability courses when your job has nothing to do with orthopedics, after all! You’d probably rather watch courses on compliance, billing, leadership, and safety, and actually receive some form of certification or achievement that makes sense on your new non-clinical resume.
• Highest quality courses for those who enjoy learning from videos. MedBridge is ideal for watching courses in a video format. They have excellent quality (visual and sound), and the selection is incredible! Plus, you can watch courses from a convenient app on your phone. This means you can get your continuing education done during the time you’d otherwise spend scrolling social media, waiting to pick up kids at daycare, or even people-watching at the airport.

ContinuEd.com

ContinuEd runs the websites PhysicalTherapy.com, OccupationalTherapy.com, and SpeechPathology.com. They’re a great option for therapists who want the simplest and most affordable path to racking up CEUs. It’s efficient and affordable, and we recommend it to many people who are on a tight budget. Here’s why.

• Excellent value. The ContinuEd sites offer the best value for an online unlimited CEU platform for PT/OT/SLP professionals. And, if you use our discount code, you can get a 13th month free!
• Great for those who learn by reading or listening. Let’s admit it: we have all have spent stressful evenings completing CEUs right before our license renewals are due. The ContinuEd sites offer text-based and audio courses, in addition to video courses. This means that clinicians can use their preferred learning methods, whether that’s watching videos, listening to audio files, or reading clinical content.

Wait! My state requires live CEUs for license renewal! Don’t I still need to attend in-person courses?

Fun fact: Another reason why we love both MedBridge and ContinuEd is that they both offer live webinars that fulfill the in-person CEU requirements that many states have in place.*

*Disclaimer: We HIGHLY recommend checking with your individual state to confirm that these webinars actually fulfill the requirement!

Also, keep in mind that some states have weird laws (we’re looking at you, Minnesota) that require you to have a certain amount of direct patient care hours in order to renew your license.

2. Make peace with the cost—and time investment—of license renewal. 

This one can be harder than we’d like to admit. If you’re frugal and don’t enjoy spending money on things you don’t need, it can feel painful to drop hundreds of dollars on a license you might not even need for your non-clinical job.

Our advice is to consider your license renewal fee the cost of job insurance. If you lose your non-clinical job, your active clinical license is your safety net. You’ll be able to get another job in patient care, while you might not find another non-clinical role quite so easily.

So really, that’s it. Look at your license as an insurance policy for your employment, make peace with the renewal fees and time spent to renew it, and plan to renew it regularly.

Here are a few other burning questions you might want to consider when you leave patient care.

Should I renew my APTA/AOTA/ASHA membership if I’m leaving patient care?

Frankly, we also struggle with this one. It’s expensive to belong to the your professional clinical organization, and many clinicians will choose not to renew membership once they leave patient care.

But at the same time, we do feel there’s merit to keeping your professional memberships active. After all, if we want the APTA, AOTA, and ASHA to recognize the importance of non-clinical roles in our respective professions, non-clinical PTs, OTs, SLPs and assistants should probably maintain a seat at the proverbial table.

Plus, it can be super fun to see the looks on people’s faces when you show up at events to share the cool non-clinical job role you hold. People might find you inspiring, and we’ve found the networking opportunities at conferences tend to skyrocket once you’ve left the clinic. Go figure!

Ultimately, it’s your choice.

We can’t tell you what to do with your time and money, but we do strongly believe you should keep your clinical license active, even if you have no plan to return to clinical work. You never know when you might choose — or need — to get back to patient care, and who wants to retake the national licensing exam? We’d rather do just about anything else! 🙂

If you have any other questions about renewing your license when you leave patient care, ask them in the comments below! We’ll get back to you ASAP!