OT vs OTA

[Finagle]

A friend of mine wants to become an OTA because they want to work with patients directly, and according to them, if they qualified as an OT they'd end up doing paperwork instead of hands on work.

They already have a bachelors degree in psychology, but they're currently applying to an OTA program whose only entry requirement is a highschool qualification. The program isn't even certified, although it is on the American Occupational Therapy Association's list of "developing programs".

Does this make sense? Could they have trouble getting hired if the program doesn't end up certified? I'm worried that they may be underselling themselves by going for what looks like a post-highschool diploma when they already have a degree...

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[teacher2PT]

I've never heard of an OT not working directly with patients most of their day at all. I did my research before applying to an OT program and would never have applied if I'd heard anyone say that. I guess it all depends on where you want to take your career. If your friend doesn't mind not having the autonomy of an OT, and doesn't care about doing something like becoming a Certified Hand Therapist, then OTA would be the way to go. I just hope he/she has consulted with many OTs/OTAs in different settings to see what's right for him/her.

 

[superCOTA]

There are nursing home/ sub-acute units where there will be 2-3 OT's and 3-5 COTA's.

The OT's will do evals, attend wound care, feeding meetings, whatever other meetings are happening, work on charts (MDS), resolve problems with patients that arent on program (declines in status, decubitis ulcers, death), and argue with management with who knows what. The head will do much paperwork related to billing, hiring/firinging, catch up on the latest changes in insurance, and argue with with management as well.

So the OT may get a few cases but in this model, 2 OT's put patients on and off progam and cosign the assistants notes. The third will handle overflow and between them all, will watch over the COTA's.

On long island where ther are at least 50 nursing homes with over 100 beds, yea this is how it goes.

Some OT's do complain over this. They can go to a busy hospital and work acute where the cases are more involved and the pace is faster if this is a problem for them.