How to Become an Occupational Therapist: Licensing Information

Occupational therapists are the health care professionals who help patients who need assistance with daily life functions and movement. Some people lose their ability to do such things as tie their shoes, wash, or go shopping for groceries due to an accident, trauma, or illness. Occupational therapists and their assistants come up with and oversee a course of treatment for these patients to help them gain the strength and cognitive processes necessary to fulfill these functions. Occupational therapists also work with patients who never learned these skills due to a congenital impairment. When exploring how to become an occupational therapist, the licensing process is an important step to research.

States license occupational therapists through different departments. Some do it through a board of health while others do it through a department of consumer affairs. All have educational requirements. In addition, applicants must have verifiable clinical experience. Finally, there are national standardized exams that must be passed. Licensing only lasts a maximum of a few years before recertification is required. Work experience and continuing education are required to prove occupational therapists are keeping abreast of the latest advances in the field. For working occupational therapists, the requirements are not especially onerous.

Before taking the licensing exam in a given state, candidates must have graduated from an accredited occupational therapy degree program. For occupational therapy assistants, that program can be an undergraduate degree program. For occupational therapists, the candidate must have obtained a postgraduate degree in occupational therapy.

Along with proof of the candidate’s educational background, licensing agencies require a certain amount of clinical experience, gained through an internship, professional experience, or through a postdoctoral term. Many degree programs include a clinical internship that may go towards the hours required for licensing. Occupational therapists can often find work on a contingency basis before they have received their license. Postdoctoral programs hire graduates of occupational therapy programs to continue their training and do research.

All states use an exam created by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). The NBCOT is a private, non-profit agency made up of occupational therapists. They have created a curriculum of best practices in the industry and administer the nationally accepted exams for credentialing. Working with state and federal government agencies, they report and update the certification status of the nation’s occupational therapists. The exam is regularly updated and new questions are added and tested constantly. The computer format of the exam guarantees that no two test takers exam experiences are identical.

The certification exam is taken on computers at exam sites. The exams test the candidate’s expertise in several competencies. There are questions that set up simulated case histories, allowing candidates to choose a course of action. There are questions about diagnosing problems in patients. There are also questions about what course of action should be taken to help patients. In one version of the exam, there are 200 multiple-choice questions. On the other version, there are 170 multiple-choice questions accompanied by several long-answer questions. Once the exam has been passed and the fees have been paid, licensing is complete. Licenses last for three years, or more in some places. Recertification is easier than licensing and requires some continuing education and proof of employment. This ensures that occupational therapists remain current in their knowledge of best industry practices and new regulations.