MOTA members, 

We have good news for occupational therapy providers who see clients under any Minnesota Health Care Program (MHCP)!

MHCPs include Medical Assistance, MNCare, and other health care programs administered by the Minnesota Department of Human Services.  This regulatory change does not impact clients who have Medicare or private insurance as the primary payers. 

Effective immediately, the rules for allowing students to treat clients in these MHCPs have changed.  The rule changes will allow occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants who provide appropriate supervision of students, to bill and receive payment for the services provided by a student.  The supervision must be provided on site.  Please click on the "Therapy Students Providing Care" link, below, to get the details of this change. 

MOTA believes that this change will allow for greater opportunities for level I and level II fieldwork students to gain experience in settings that serve populations covered by MHCPs and reduce the supervisory burden on fieldwork supervisors.

The following information changed on the MHCP Provider website:

We made the following update to the MHCP Provider Manual – Rehab Rehabilitation Services:

• · Revised "Therapy Students Providing Care" section to clarify when services provided by therapy students can be billed
• · Added a section called "Eligible Ordering and Referring Providers"
• · Corrected Physical Therapy provider titles
• · Added a statement indicating Speech Language Pathologist Assistants are not eligible for Minnesota Health Care Programs enrollment or payment
• · Clarified definition of "Practitioner of the Healing Arts" to remove oral surgeon and optometrist and add physician, clinical nurse specialist and certified nurse midwife