I think a focus on the issues would be good. However I must again correct factual inaccuracies.

The MAPA post nominal was withdrawn after concern was raised that it could mislead uninformed patients into believing that a member holds a Masters level qualification when that was not the case. In fact, definitely in WA and most likely in all other states it would be grounds for referral to the registration board as it contravenes the registration act. It might also result in action by the ACCC under the trade practices act as it may be likely to mislead. The APA within its own code of conduct can not have a policy that might create a breach of law.

MAPA was replaced by a member logo depicting that a person is an APA member - members are strongly encouraged to identify themself as a member. I understand the policy was changed in the late 90's (maybe 1996 - it was well before my time) and members were given a good period of time to change their stationary. I believe the deadline was the end of 2002 and an article reminding members was run at that time.

Further, I'm not, nor have I ever been a member of the APA and thus I've never used the post nominal "MAPA". I hold a Master of Business Administration and thus use "MBA", a graduate diploma in aged services management and thus use "GDip ASM" and I'm a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and thus use "FAICD". I'm currently working on a Doctorate of Business Administration and I plan to use the prenominal "Dr" and postnominal "DBA".

I don’t think that it's misleading for people to believe that I hold a qualification that I do actually hold (Sorry if this sounds sarcastic but it's frustrating to have to correct facts after each post).

To get back to focusing on the issues I repeat "In Victoria, I suspect (entirely on anecdotal evidence) that the figure should be higher however other factors holding physiotherapists back such as concern about the reaction from GPs and patients are more of a factor then awareness at the moment". The phenomena of uptake has been well studied and documented as following an S curve and the argument that we can change this in a free market by simply creating more awareness is fundamentally flawed (PS. My doctoral thesis covers innovation uptake). Awareness is only one factor that affects uptake. Physiobase picked up on another key factor - organisational (or in this case professional) culture. Anxiety amongst Physiotherapists over the issue of charging this client group a fee is high (and even higher for refusing to treat DVA patients) and the only way this anxiety will be overcome is if they see their colleagues (being the early adopters) patient load has been unaffected by gap billing. I'll add that the more we discuss strategy in public forums, the easier it is for compensible bodies to pre-empt moves by the APA to put the profession in a strong position - this is why there are compensible body committees in each state that represent the members. The Victorian CBC contains mostly private practice physio's who reflect similar concerns but also have discussions around strategy.

I'm going to conclude here by saying that I'm here to offer the occasional comment on the business of physiotherapy and I'm finding that I'm spending too much time simply responding to inaccurate statements made by a MrPhysio. If MrPhysio has comments about the business of physio that are worthy of debate, I’m happy to offer the occasional comment but I’m not planning on responding to further inaccurate musings on the APA. Sorry guys – I’ve got work to do.