Health Care Blog

The Notice Posting rule requires employers to post Notice of a potential Labor Certification Application (including Schedule A Application) at the worksite for 10 business days. The idea behind the law is to give US workers notice of the future Labor Certification, so that they can notify the DOL of any wrongdoing by the employer. Before this decision, the DOL steadfastly had held that a “business day” is a weekday (Monday through Friday) and that federal national holidays would not count as business days.

This interpretation had been particularly irritating for healthcare employers, who routinely are open for business on weekends and holidays. Immigrant visa cases would be needlessly delayed because of this silly interpretation. Occasionally, we would even hear of a case has been denied because of a posting that was done during a minor federal holiday, in spite of the fact that the employer’s hospital remained fully staffed.

The DOL’s Appeal Board, the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA) thankfully has ended this nonsense. The BALCA opinion makes the vital point that “the purpose of the Notice of Filing requirement is to ensure that an employer’s employees and other interested persons are notified that it is filing an application for permanent alien labor certification.”

Going forward, employers can satisfy the 10 business day Notice posting rule by placing Notice for ten consecutive days when employees are on the worksite and able to see the Notice of Filing.

The present processing dates are:

EB-1 – all current
EB-2 – all current, except China (01 JUN 06) and India (08 MAY 06)
EB-3 – all 22 JAN 05, except China (22 NOV 03), India (22 JAN 02), and Mexico (01 MAY 01)

California continues to fight the disciminatory actions of the FSBPT. The Physical Therapy Board of California’s October 11, 2010 teleconference regarding the FSBPT action on the NPTE will be webcasted live. All interested parties may watch it via the webcast.

The NPTE-i expected to be substantially similar to the regular NPTE.

Here is the calendar of important dates for the first exam:

November 1, 2010 – Registration opens with FSBPT
November 8, 2010 – Scheduling opens with Prometric
February 22, 2011 – Registration closes
March 15, 2011 – Last date for jurisdictions to approve PT candidates for NPTE-i
April 1, 2011 – Last date for candidates to schedule with Prometric

It remains to be seen how the State Board of California reacts to this announcement, since the NPTE-i does not comply with the two alternatives that California outlined in its recent letter to the FSBPT.

1. The FSBPT is likely to formally announce its plan for the NPTE-YRLY exam. The plan will be slightly better than what they’ve published so far, but not much more. Check their blog for the formal announcement, which should come Thursday.

2. It appears that Sen. Robert Menendez will formally introduce his immigration bill to Congress. Unfortunately the bill has virtually no chance of approval anytime soon, although some are holding out hope that the bill can get traction during the lame-duck session, in November and December.

The blog posting says that graduates from universities from the four restricted countries – India, Philippines, Pakistan, and Egypt — have apparently shown a “propensity” toward “widespread” sharing of NPTE questions. The FSBPT has yet to define “propensity” and “widespread” in any dialogue with members of the public and state boards of Physical Therapy. Every time the FSBPT hides behind these vague words, it calls into serious question the FSBPT’s rationale and raises questions of this policy’s true intent.

The FSBPT also says that “the exam itself has not been compromised by any groups beyond the restricted groups”. This of course, does not mean that it hasn’t been compromised by any individuals within those groups. If compromised questions were exposed to the internet (and every indication is that they were), then individuals beyond the restricted groups have cheated. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

Moreover, since there are many more individuals in non-restricted groups, the standard of review for these groups should be greater because the damage would be far greater. For instance, if there are 1,500 restricted country test takers and 10 percent have cheated, then there are 150 restricted country cheaters.

On the other hand, if there are 15,000 non-restricted country test takers and just 1 percent has cheated, then there are 150 additional cheaters. American patients don’t care about the nationality of the cheaters; they just want all 300 cheaters to be banned from the test. The FSBPT’s program catches the first 150, but does nothing about the second 150.

Ultimately the FSBPT is beholden to its stakeholders, the 50 State Boards of Physical Therapy. One such State Board, California, has just sent the FSBPT a strongly-worded letter, which sets an October 1 deadline for the FSBPT to rescind their discriminatory policy or suspend the NPTE for all test-takers. A copy of this letter is available on the MU website.

At the FSBPT’s annual meeting in late October, it will more fully outline its plans for the future of the NPTE to their membership and to their stakeholders. This dialogue has already begun and may result in an amended policy in advance of the annual meeting.

The FSBPT’s aims are valid. Test takers who cheat should be penalized before sitting for NPTE. In some instances, the penalty should be an outright prohibition against taking the exam.

While the FSBPT’s aim is valid, their remedy is imperfect. MU lawyers Chris Musillo and Cindy Unkenholt have been working with employers, recruiters, physical therapists, immigration lawyers, and other industry leaders with the goal of remedying or modifying the policy, which we believe violates both federal and state discrimination laws.

In order to make sure that your State Board is part of this dialog, please urge your State Board to make their opinion known to the FSBPT.