Physical Therapists

Licensees may be considering leaving their practice or the physical therapy profession, either temporarily or long term.

If you are no longer practising as a physical therapist in British Columbia, you have two options: you can cancel your licence or maintain your Full licence.

If you cancel your licence:

• You must not practise physical therapy, assign physical therapy services, or hold yourself out as a physical therapist entitled to practise.
• You must not use the protected titles Physical Therapist, Physiotherapist, Registered Physical Therapist, Registered Physiotherapist, or any abbreviations.
• You must apply for reinstatement if you plan to practise physical therapy in British Columbia again: Applying for Reinstatement.
• See Leaving or Closing A Physical Therapy Practice for advice on notifying clients, retention of clinical records, and employment contracts.
• If you have a Health Profession Corporation permit, that will also need to be cancelled.

If you want to maintain your Full licence, you must continue to meet licensure requirements, including:

• Active professional liability insurance (Extended period or “tail” coverage offered by insurance brokers does not meet the requirement for Full licensure.)
• Practice hours
• Quality Assurance Program requirements

What are practice hours?

Practice hours are paid and professional activity hours spent in physical therapy practice or other activities resulting from possessing physiotherapy or physical therapy credentials and experience.

Why do you report practice hours?

Physical therapy regulators in Canada consider practice hours to be an indication of currency of practice. All Canadian jurisdictions, except Quebec, have the same requirement.

Practice hours are a reflection of practice experience. For example, the College requires new physical therapists to have a minimum number of practice hours to be eligible to use dry needling in physical therapy practice.

Practice hours are also a component of health human resources data. The CHCPBC reports practice hours to CIHI annually where they are aggregated nationally.

What qualifies as practice hours?

• The Bylaws define practice hours as “clinical practice, research, administration, teaching or academic positions, and consulting.”
• Practice hours include activities you do while licensed as a physical therapist in order to meet the expectations of the Code of Ethical Conduct (PDF), and the Standards of Practice (PDF) for the provision of physical therapy service to clients. This includes, for example, clinical documentation, report-writing, and team meetings.
• Teaching that results from possessing physical therapy credentials

What does not qualify as practice hours?

• Physical therapy clinical practice means service provided to human clients*, so hours spent providing rehabilitation care provided to animals do not qualify as practice hours.
• Vacation hours, statutory holidays, leaves of absence (e.g. sick, parental), continuing education, courses and on-call time if the physical therapist is not called in to work do not qualify as practice hours.

Who can accrue physical therapy practice hours?

• Physical therapists (Full and Provisional licensees) practising physical therapy in BC in accordance with CHCPBC Standards of Practice, Code of Ethical Conduct and the Bylaws.
• Physical therapists licensed to practise in another jurisdiction in Canada.
• Physical therapists practising physical therapy in jurisdictions outside of Canada where physical therapy is a regulated profession; the physical therapist must be licensed with the regulator in that jurisdiction in order to practise and to accrue practice hours.

When do you report your practice hours?

• When submitting an application for licensure
• Annually during licence renewal

What dates do you use to count your practice hours?

• Practice hours are counted per licensure year from April 1 to March 31.

* Physical Therapists Regulation

See information on Criminal Record Check (PDF).

For more information about creating and maintaining a Health Profession Corporation, visit our Businesses and Corporations page.

Our Health Profession Corporation permit renewal guide (PDF) provides step-by-step instructions for the annual permit renewal process.