Blue Ridge District just held their winter meeting at Winchester Brew Works on Feb 8th! The turn out was great and everyone enjoyed brews and local pizza. The brewery is co-owned by one of BRD's own PTs, Jeff Landy! While there was a brief business meeting, the focus of the meeting was networking between student and clinician attendants from across the BRD.

We look forward to seeing everyone at our May meeting in Charlottesville. Time and place are still to be determined so look out for details as the date draws closer!

On January 23, the Tidewater District hosted its first meeting of the year at Pivot Physical Therapy's Oyster Point location. Pivot also sponsored refreshments for the meeting. There were 41 guests in attendance (25 clinicians, 16 students) for the business meeting and special presentation. Thank you to the speakers, Matthew Dancigers (PT) and Spencer Muro (PT), for sharing their knowledge and insight on pain neuroscience and implications for clinicians.

On January 17th at Inova Physical Therapy Centers in Alexandria, Daren Moat PT, MBA, presented on Leadership, "Thinking like a CEO of your own PT career" . Daren, who is a John Maxwell Certified Coach, gave the group insight on aiding individuals with personal and professional growth goals and carrier development.  This was a very well attended meeting and we look forward to having Daren work with our team again in the near future.

To provide the means for two entry-level PT students and/or post-professional residents in geriatric physical therapy the opportunity to engage in advocacy efforts of the profession at a national level with the intention that this exposure will engage students/residents in similar efforts after their graduation.

Late last week, Sharon Dunn, APTA President, and Justin Moore, APTA CEO, sent out an email announcing a $500 billion bipartisan budget deal was passed by Congress and signed by The President that would fund the federal government through March 23, 2018. This new legislation will provide a permanent fix to the Medicare Part B therapy cap, thereby eliminating the need to fix this issue on an annual basis. The cost of the permanent fix to the therapy cap was estimated at $6.47 billion.

When Congress adopted a federal spending package that included the elimination of the hard cap on Medicare therapy services, it didn't just remove a rule—lawmakers also adopted a new system of payment thresholds and triggers, and a differential payment rate for physical therapist assistants (PTAs) and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs), among other things.