HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 94912        FILED ON: 7/20/2010

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 4912

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

_______________

In the Year Two Thousand Ten

_______________

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 shall include, but not exceed,  portions of the fibula and tibia that directly relate to the ankle, 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.

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.