Arkansas Occupational Therapy Association - AROTA

10/12/2026

First up in our AROTA "day in the life" series, where we explore the diverse roles, practice settings, and everyday impact of OT across AR... Children's Therapy Team! Follow Sydney Summer as she turns play into purpose through movement, creativity, and of course, laughter!

Interested in being spotlighted in our "day in the life" series? Email us at [email protected].

10/11/2026

10/05/2026

Arkansas therapy providers & advocates: Please take notice!

Beginning November 1, 2026, Arkansas Total Care is implementing new prior authorization requirements for therapy services.

For OT, prior authorization will be required for commonly used services including CPT 97530, OT reevaluations (97168), and group OT (97150). Speech therapy will face similar changes, while certain PT services will receive an initial 12 visits without prior authorization.

These changes could create additional barriers to timely access to medically necessary therapy. Patients may meet medical-necessity criteria and still face an additional authorization process before receiving routine treatment.

There are also concerns that these requirements may be more restrictive than traditional Arkansas Medicaid.

If you have concerns about how these changes may impact your clinic, please share your comments, experiences, or concerns with us. We would like to include provider feedback as part of a coordinated advocacy effort regarding these changes and their potential impact on patient access. With implementation approaching, your input is important.

Please share this post and help us gather feedback from Arkansas therapy providers. The Arkansas Total Care provider notice is included below.

09/28/2026

Professional Development Opportunity for OT Practitioners!

The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech is offering Micro-credentialing in ACQUIREc Therapy (PCIMT) for occupational therapy practitioners interested in expanding their knowledge and skills in pediatric constraint-induced movement therapy.

The course is primarily asynchronous and includes online lectures, videos, research discussions, quizzes, and weekly monitoring, along with at least one live synchronous session.

🎓 Earn 0.8 CEUs (8 contact hours)
💻 Primarily online/asynchronous
🧠 Focused on ACQUIREc Therapy and pediatric CIMT

Interested in learning more? Visit the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Teaching & Training page for course details and registration information.
https://fbri.vtc.vt.edu/research/research-centers/neuromotor/training.html

09/26/2026

Join us on Oct. 27th at 7pm for another free webinar from Aspire!
Register: https://www.aspireoted.com/arota-elevate

Occupational therapy practitioners leverage their understanding of the dynamic relationship between the client, their participation in meaningful occupations, and the surrounding context to create occupation-based intervention plans.

We often need to gather detailed information about the client’s desires, needs, strengths, environments, limitations, and occupational risks, then integrate and interpret this data from an occupational perspective to help clients engage in occupations that are important and meaningful to them.

The clinical reasoning process can be daunting for new practitioners and experienced practitioners alike, especially when transitioning to new settings.

This course will explore clinical and professional reasoning specific to occupational therapy, providing OTs, OTAs, and students with a practical clinical reasoning framework that can be seamlessly applied in any practice environment.

08/27/2026

Have you ever been curious about what goes on behind the scenes at AROTA?

Speculate no more and join us on Sept. 24th from 6pm—7pm!

This Committee Exploration event will be held virtually, providing an introduction to our Legislative, Outreach, and Research committees. You'll have the opportunity to join a breakout room designated to your committee of interest, where you can discuss a list of prepared questions and topics with other interested members to help brainstorm ideas and shape the future direction of the committee. At the end of the timeframe, we'll come back as a group to hear from each committee and identify next steps.

We hope you can attend! This is an open meeting, so please feel free to invite anyone who may be interested in participating.

Please visit the link below for more details:
https://www.arota.org/event-6509850

08/23/2026

UPCOMING LIVE WEBINAR: Sept. 22nd @ 7pm

Register: https://www.aspireoted.com/arota-elevate

When it comes to occupational therapy practitioners working with clients, the goals often revolve around developing specific skills, strategies, and knowledge to effectively manage and address the unique needs these clients. In addition to having the skill set to manage complex cases, OTPs also must be mindful of the fact that clients may have difficulties with underlying emotional issues, dysfunctional family units, inadequate access to care, and cultural differences. These can show up in the clinical settings as poor compliance with treatment, motivation to participate during the sessions, and behavioral issues, often anger that gets misdirected towards the practitioner. These scenarios can lead to unsatisfactory treatment outcomes and have a negative effect on the workplace satisfaction for the OTP, leading to burnout.

This course is designed to equip occupational therapy practioners with the knowledge, skills, and strategies necessary to address the complexities of working with challenging clients across diverse practice settings. Challenging clients encompass individuals with a range of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical impairments, whose needs may present unique obstacles to therapeutic progress. Through a combination of theoretical learning, case studies, and practical exercises, participants will gain insights into understanding, engaging, and supporting challenging clients to optimize their occupational performance and quality of life.

03/21/2026

📣AROTA Shirt Order still open to help support our upcoming conference! 🎉
https://www.b-unlimited.com/collections/university-of-arkansas-for-medical-science-occupational-therapy

02/17/2026

✨February Elevate Webinar! Thanks to our partnership with ASPIRE OT we now can offer FREE Monthly Webinars to AROTA members for CEUs🤩 Not a member? Visit our updated website www.arota.org to join!