School OT and PT Eligibility, Consult and Dismissal Decisions | MyTherapyWizard

Defensible Eligibility, Consult and Dismissal Decisions

Defensible Eligibility, Consult and Dismissal Decisions (MyTherapyWizard help article card)

Eligibility questions come from every direction: a doctor's note requesting an evaluation, an advocate pushing for services, a parent who disagrees with a decrease, or a district that wants a standardized-score cutoff. Under IDEA these are team decisions, and criteria vary by state and district.

✨ Available on: All plans

🧩 What makes a decision defensible

  • Evidence from more than one source: observation, teacher and parent input, functional and standardized results
  • A clear link between the need and access to the student's education
  • The same measures repeated at re-evaluation, so change can be shown
  • Measurable goals with readily available data
  • A written rationale for consult, direct service or dismissal

🪄 In MyTherapyWizard

  1. Complete the Guided Evaluation and review the composite band, domain summary, and strengths and concerns.
  2. If the student does not qualify, select Mark As Does Not Qualify. The client leaves the rest of the care pathway and their profile is stamped DNQ so referrals can be tracked.
  3. At re-evaluation, run the same template so item-level change is visible.
  4. Write the rationale in the report's context step, and sign the report.
Evaluation scores overview with composite band, strengths and concerns
Client profile stamped DNQ after Mark As Does Not Qualify

💡 Why it matters: a dated, structured record behind every decision protects the team when a decision is questioned.

▶️ Watch

Clinical protocols built in

MyTherapyWizard is an EMR with clinical protocols built in. Every Guided Evaluation, questionnaire and standardized template follows a structured scoring protocol:

  • The quantitative areas (the items you rate) are scored on the back end with the same defined criteria, rules and performance bands for every client.
  • The qualitative areas (your comments, observations and narratives) go into the report as you wrote them.
  • Once the plan of care is active, its goals populate into your session notes. Each goal gets a Goal Performance Index (GPI) that combines accuracy with the support needed, so 70% independent and 70% with maximum assistance score differently. Each session gets a Session Performance Index (SPI), the average of its GPIs.
  • AI never assigns or changes a score. It only helps put finished results into words, and you approve every line.

Learn more: Understanding Performance Bands · Myth vs. Fact: structured scoring and AI

📚 See other articles in School-Based Practice here.