During the last legislative session, the Idaho Physical Therapy Licensure Board proposed changes to the rules for the practice of dry needling, which, as a result of the changes, now require providers to be certified before they can use the treatment technique.

When the bill allowing physical therapists in Idaho to perform dry needling passed in 2018, it specified that a PT must attend a dry needling course certified by the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy in order to legally practice dry needling in the state. But at the end of 2019, FSBPT discontinued certifying courses. During the 2021 Idaho Legislative session, the licensure board proposed rule changes specifying that they begin certifying dry needling courses, as well as certifying PTs to perform dry needling. This rule change passed the legislature and took effect on July 1, 2021.

So PTs licensed in Idaho who would like to use dry needling must now apply for certification through the licensure board. Licensure board staff report that the process to get certified takes an average of about a week, once completed paperwork has been submitted. Here is a link to the guidelines and application you need to submit to use dry needling.

Also, please be advised that for courses to count toward the educational requirements for a PT to get certified, that course also must be certified as a dry needling course (not just an approved continuing ed course). As of September 27, only three courses met this criteria (although several certification applications are pending). Courses may be submitted for approval by the licensee wishing to use them for certification, as well as the course provider. The course certification process takes an average of one week.

Derek Gerber
President

UPDATE: You can find a list of all courses that have been approved for CE including Dry Needling courses on the Division of Occupational Licenses website. The list is very long and cannot be sorted by course topic. You can download the full list as an excel file and search that file or download a PDF list of the courses that have been approved as of September 28th. (Updated 09-28-2021 by NK)