HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 740        FILED ON: 1/13/2009

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2044

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Nine

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An Act relative to the registration of podiatrists..

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.  Chapter 112 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2006 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out section 13 and inserting in place thereof the following new section:-

Section 13.  Podiatry as used in this chapter shall mean the diagnosis and treatment of the structures of the human foot and ankle by medical, mechanical, surgical, manipulative and electrical means, including, but not limited to, the treatment of the local manifestation of systemic conditions as they present in the foot and ankle, partial amputation of the foot, and tendon surgery in the foot and ankle, including the Achilles tendon.   The practice of podiatry shall not include the administration of a general anesthetic or amputation of the entire foot.  Ankle surgery involving bone, including, but not limited to the fibula and tibia, must be performed in a hospital or surgical center and requires credentialing by that facility and shall require either (a) board certification approved by the American Board of Podiatric Surgery (ABPS); or (b) board certification as deemed appropriate by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Podiatry; or (c) supervision of a Podiatric physician (D.P.M.) who is board certified by the ABPS who has ankle privileges, until competency is established to achieve credentialing by the facility; or (d) supervision of a board certified Allopathic (M.D.) or Osteopathic (D.O.) physician who has ankle privileges, until competency is established to achieve credentialing by the facility.

Nothing in this act should preclude registered podiatrists, who have board certification in foot surgery, from performing procedures for which they have been credentialed by a hospital or surgical center to perform prior to December 31st, 2007.

This section and sections fourteen to twenty-two, inclusive, shall not apply to surgeons of the United States Army, Navy or the United States Public Health Service, nor to physicians registered in the commonwealth.  The term physician and surgeon when used in sections twelve B, twelve G, twenty-three N, and eighty B shall include a podiatrist acting within the limitation imposed by this section.