Physical Therapy Board votes to pursue legislation raising statutory fee caps

The Physical Therapy Board of California voted Thursday to pursue legislation that would raise statutory fee caps for several licensing and renewal fees after staff presented an analysis showing a structural imbalance in the board's special fund.

The board's president, Dr. Karen Brandon, opened the discussion by stressing the board's consumer-protection role and the need to maintain fiscal stability: "The board's role remains to maintain consumer protection and consult with local and state entities on laws and regulations pertaining to [the] physical therapy industry," she said.

Department of Consumer Affairs fiscal adviser Matt Nishamini told members the board's fund-condition statements and a driver-based cost model showed expenditures exceeding revenues over the next several years unless changes are made. "You can either cut costs, increase revenues, or do a combination of the two," Nishamini said, presenting a chart that projected reserve months declining into the red without intervention. His analysis calculated the current per‑application cost (direct plus allocated indirect costs) at roughly $651 for a new PT application, higher than today's statutory limits.

Executive Officer Jason Kaiser and staff walked the board through an interactive dashboard that modeled several scenarios — modest, stepped increases and a doubling of current caps — and showed how each change would affect months in reserve and projected augmentations for attorney general and administrative‑hearing costs.

After discussion about barriers to entry and the timing of regulatory versus legislative processes, a board member (identified in the transcript as speaker 11) proposed language to "pursue legislation as part of sunset review" to amend Business and Professions Code fee caps (the proposal included raising several caps, for example setting the PT application cap at $600 and aligning related initial and renewal fees). Dr. Brandon seconded the motion and authorized the executive officer to confer with a legislator on the language.

Stacy Defoe, executive director of the California Physical Therapy Association, offered public comment during the hearing, saying the association was neutral on the proposal and would monitor the process: "We are neutral on this issue because we understand the need for this," she said.

The board approved the motion on roll call, 4–0, with one member absent. The action authorizes staff to work with legislators to secure statutory increases in fee caps; any actual fee changes for licensees would be proposed later through the administrative (regulatory) process, with public notice and stakeholder comment.

The board and staff said next steps include drafting the legislative language, specifying which fee caps to raise, and continuing multi-agency budget work to quantify potential augmentations for outside legal and adjudicative costs. Board members emphasized that legislative authority to raise caps would not automatically change fees; any fee increases would require a separate, substantiated rulemaking process and further stakeholder engagement.