Kudos to our partner PT Jobs.com!

Evidence in Motion and MyPhysicalTherapySpace would like to take a brief moment to acknowledge our partner PTJobs.com (see the job listings on the right side of our web pages) for taking the necessary steps to insure that their job listings do not include ads from clients who operate in referral for profit (RFP) arrangements. A policy that goes into effect next week makes it very clear that PTJobs.com does not accept job listings for positions in a practice if any physician has a financial interest in the practice and refers patients to an employed physical therapist or to a physical therapist who supervises an employed physical therapist assistant due to fundamental conflict of interest.

To be clear, we did not have to twist their arm for them to move in this direction. The policy has always been consistent with their company’s mission and values, and they are themselves actively involved in and support physical therapist owned practices. The issue was figuring out how to drill down to ownership interests during the registration process. They settled on a process by which potential clients would have to make the following certification during the resgistration process:

“I certify that no referral source (including any referring physician) has a financial interest in the practice that has the position that is the subject of this advertisement.”

Clients further acknowledge that their ad is subject to removal at anytime if it becomes clear that the client's status has changed or the certification was falsely made. Kudos to PTJobs.com for taking a strong position against RFP. If you're seeking to hire a physical therapist or are looking for an opportunity yourself, be comfortable knowing that when you post your ad or resume with PT Jobs, you're supporting a company whose interests are aligned with yours. Let them know you appreciate their stance by doing business with them!

Now if we could only get every PT educational program in the country to adopt a similar policy when it comes to setting up clinical education sites for their students. We should be able to go to a website and see very clearly which educational programs have adopted such a policy and those who have not. Please let us know if such a list has been circulated or already posted. Otherwise, we will consider posting such a list here, one that can be updated in real time if a program adopts such a 'no RFP' policy. We need transparency in this area. I'm afraid that many programs routinely collaborate with practices that do not serve the best interests of the very professionals the educational programs are supposed to be training.

John