In general ,NBCOT is the national board for certification in occupational therapy. NBCOT gives the boards for both OTA and OT which needs to be passed to get national certification (C for OTA's /R for OTs)Over the years things have changed,but i believe now all States require an OT assistant pass the national NBCOT boards and get a COTA (certified occupational therapy assistant)certificate to obtain a state license. For an OT, all states require the nbcot exam for OTR (registered) to get the inital state license. Then, states may have differences in state licensure. In one state, it wasn't until recently that they required OTAs to pass the NBCOT exam to get a state authorization/certificate to practice.NY now requires the nbcot exam be passed and there is state legislature being pushed to license COTAs although there is limited information as to the way it hasn't officially been called a license when up until a few years ago the state certificate said license number on it. In other states COTAs are licenses and sign COTA/L.
So it is possible to be both certified (national) and licensed (by each state) depending on where you practice.from my understanding OTR/L s have the option to stop paying the nbcot dues after initial certification if there state doesnt require it to continue, so then they become OT/L.
