Educational Credentialing for Physical Therapy

The FCCPT provides educational credentialing for foreign Physical Therapists and Physical Therapist Assistants, for the purposes of obtaining:

• A healthcare worker certificate for immigration
• Licensure in a US jurisdiction
• Certification for Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
• Admission to an advanced PT education program in the US

Credentialing of education is a multi-phased process.

1. Obtain official documentation from the original source. - all documents must be provided directly to the FCCPT, by the issuing institution with the appropriate seals, signatures and post-marks from the institution itself.
2. Authentication of all original source documents – experts in international credentialing examine all incoming documents for authenticity of source and content.
3. Verification of the educational program and systems – Schools and PT programs are verified for years of study, post secondary status and documentation provided.
4. Conversions of grading systems and credit hours – The US semester credit is the basis for all reviews. One semester is considered to be 16 weeks in length.
5. Assignment of educational course content – a course by course review of the course syllabus for assignment as general education or professional education.
   1. General Education constitutes all non-physical therapy education completed, provided these courses were taken at the college level from a recognized educational program.
   2. Professional Coursework is that which is core to the practice of physical therapy.
6. Determination of Substantial Equivalency based upon the Coursework Evaluation Tool (CWT) – The CWT was developed, by the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy. This is the only tool which has content validation against the Commission on Accreditation of Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) evaluative criteria. Thus, the CWT represents the minimum required content of US accredited PT programs.
7. The final report is a comparison of documents to a standard tool, and the findings are advisory only. The result does not determine the quality of the person who’s documents have been evaluated, but rather the, extent to which the educational documentation provided matches the US standard of entry level education.
8. Credentialing within the US also includes the collection and verification of licensure or regulatory documentation – original source documents are required.
9. Authentication of the original source documents is completed.
10. Verification of licensure, Certification, or Registration requirements in country of education.
11. Determination of English language proficiency as tested on the TOEFL examinations.
12. Finally when any documentation is in doubt, the follow up with the original source regarding verifications takes place.