Battle over OT designations might be resolved in court

The dispute over the occupational therapy credentials OTR and COTA has gone to court.

At issue is who can allow occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants to use the credentials. The players are the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy and the American Occupational Therapy Association. The NBCOT has filed suit against the AOTA, seeking to reaffirm ownership of the designations OTR (occupational therapist, registered) and COTA (certified occupational therapy assistant).

The suit, filed in a Maryland federal court last month, alleges that the AOTA is violating antitrust laws, breaching a 1995 license agreement acknowledging NBCOT’s ownership of the designations, and interfering with the NBCOT certification program. The suit comes after the AOTA filed petitions with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel federal registration of the trademarks OTR and COTA.

AOTA spokesperson Brynda Pappas said she could not comment on the pending litigation. But in a letter to AOTA members, AOTA President Mary Foto, OTR, FAOTA, said, “The central issue in this dispute is whether you and I, as OT practitioners … will continue to define standards of occupational therapy practice and determine the criteria for continued competency, or whether those core responsibilities … will be controlled solely by the NBCOT, a private corporation which cannot even state what standards it will apply and which has no accountability to OT practitioners.”

The AOTA administered credentialing examinations until 1986, when it created the American Occupational Therapy Certification Board as an independent body to administer entry-level examinations for initial certification as an OTR or a COTA. The board’s name was later changed to the NBCOT.

NBCOT spokesperson Jeff Conley said the certification renewal program is a three-part questionnaire asking demographic information to update the NBCOT database. The questionnaire also asks about illegal or incompetent behavior and about practices that could be helpful in revising its entry-level exam. “We are getting more and more calls for credential verification,” he said. “What triggered a lot of this is that the NBCOT has not had contact with some of these people for over 10 years. We’d like to be able to say, ‘Yes, these people are credentialed and in good standing.’ ”

A second phase of the program, a self-appraisal program, has yet to be developed and would not take effect for at least five years, he said. The $75 renewal fee is good for five years, he said.

Foto said the credential renewal program was started without adequate consultation with practitioners or professional associations. “Through their effort to gain total control over trademarks used by the profession, NBCOT threatens to prevent you from continuing to use the OTR and COTA designations if you fail to participate in their new certification renewal program.”