La. Admin. Code tit. 46 § XLIV-1101

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 11, November 20, 2024

Section XLIV-1101 - Educational Qualifications for Licensure

A. A person desiring to be licensed as a massage therapist must be able to read, write, speak and understand English and shall provide evidence to the board of compliance with the requirements set forth in §1301 of this Part.

B. The person shall also provide evidence of having satisfactorily completed massage therapy studies in a minimum of 500 in-class hours or the equivalent number of credit hours as set forth or required by federal regulations of a supervised course of instruction. The course of instruction must be provided by any proprietary school licensed by the Board of Regents, or appropriate governing body of any state and approved by the Board of Massage Therapy, or a supervised massage therapy course of study offered by a public entity, community college or technical school regulated by the state of Louisiana that meets the education requirements of this Chapter. In order for an out-of-state course of instruction to be considered acceptable as part of the licensure requirements for the state of Louisiana, the school providing the course of study must be licensed or approved by the state where the school is located at the time the application is submitted or the person must provide written verification from that state that the school was duly licensed or approved at the time the course was taken. The minimum 500 in-class hours shall consist of 325 hours dedicated to the study of massage therapy techniques and clinical practicum-related modalities, 125 hours dedicated to the study of anatomy and physiology, and 50 hours of discretionary related course work including, but not limited to, hydrotherapy, business practices and professional ethics, health and hygiene, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid. If the applicant is submitting an educational transcript from any Louisiana or out-of-state school and the transcript does not allow a determination of in-class or clock hours, the school must submit information necessary to convert credit hours shown on the transcript into class hours to demonstrate that the applicant has met the educational requirements of 500 in-class hours. It is the applicant's responsibility to obtain the necessary information to demonstrate compliance with the educational requirements. An individual with military training and experience will be considered to have completed the educational requirements for this Section when the service member has been awarded a military occupational specialty and performance in that specialty is at a level equal to or exceeding the requirements of this Section.

C. In order to satisfactorily complete course requirements to be eligible for licensure, massage school students must have graduated from the school with passing grades and must have attended at least 90 percent of class hours in each subject matter offered in the supervised course of instruction, as reflected by attendance records taken at the beginning of each class meeting. The Board of Massage Therapy's inspector is authorized to review attendance and course records and to conduct monitoring as spot-site visits, either directly or through a duly authorized designee, to determine whether scheduled classes are being held and whether all students recorded as present are present for the entire class period. If documentation, satisfactory to the Board of Massage Therapy, of student attendance is not maintained by a massage therapy school or if the documentation includes classes that were not held or shows students as present who were not present for the full class period, the Board of Massage Therapy may deny eligibility for state licensure to graduates who attended the school during the period that attendance was not adequately or correctly documented.

La. Admin. Code tit. 46, § XLIV-1101

Promulgated by the Department of Health and Hospitals, Board of Massage Therapy, LR 20:1002 (September 1994), repromulgated LR 20:1111 (October 1994), amended LR 32:1231 (July 2006), LR 39:1768 (July 2013).

AUTHORITY NOTE: Promulgated in accordance with R.S. 37:3551 et seq., and R.S. 37:3555 et seq.