B. Independent practice defined

A qualified physical therapist is considered to be in independent practice when the individual renders services on the individual's own responsibility and free of the administrative and professional control of an employer such as a physician, institution, agency, etc., the persons the individual treats are the individual's own patients; and has the right to collect fees for the services rendered. While the therapist need not be in full-time private practice, the individual must be engaged in private practice on a regular basis, i.e., the individual is recognized as a private practitioner and for that purpose maintains at the individual's own expense an office or office space and the necessary equipment to provide an adequate program of physical therapy.

An office (or office space) in a hospital, SNF, or on the premises of any clinic or agency participating as a provider of outpatient physical therapy services utilized by a physical therapist in furnishing such services as an employee of or under arrangements with the provider, may not be considered the physical therapist's office for purposes of this section. The expressed purpose of this limited benefit is to make physical therapy more readily available to the beneficiary in cases where the therapist's office might be more accessible than a provider's facility.

A physical therapist will be considered engaged in private practice on a regular basis when the individual maintains office hours of such frequency and duration that the patients undertaken to treat can receive services as medically indicated.