Preparing for Residency Site Accreditation
Getting a residency site accredited under the 2025 Residency Standards will require some effort, but planning ahead can save headaches and help ensure a successful application.
Each dark blue icon is a clickable hyperlink that will provide additional details, templates, and more for each preparation step.
1. Review the 2025 NCOPE Residency Standards including the “Guidance” and “How It Will Be Assessed by NCOPE” blocks.
2. Assess the prospective residency site’s access to patient populations and interventions.
A well-rounded residency provides residents access to a wide variety of patient populations, orthoses/prosthese, and full episodes of care including patient evaluation, formulation of treatment plans, measurement/shape capture, fabrication/guiding techincal team, bench alignment, fitting/delivery, and follow-up/maintainance. Appendix A of the 2025 NCOPE Residency Standards define Minimum Activity Volumes (MAVs) to ensure residents have adequate repititions to provide safe and appropriate O&P care for the patient populations that most need our services.
3. Define a structure for the residency program.
Residency programs provide a structured path that guides residents in meeting both program and accreditation standards. Clearly defining where residents will train, what goals they must achieve, how hands-on their experience should be, and who will mentor them is essential to their success.
4. Identify the clinicians who will serve as the associate director(s) and mentor(s) and ensure they meet the requirements.
- Formal O&P Education at the baccalaureate level, post-baccalaureate certificate, or master’s level
- Post-Certification/License Experience:
- Directors/Associate Directors: Minimum 4 years
- Mentors: Minimum 2 years
- Current NCOPE Residency Training: Completion of all three modules of the Online Development Course or the Approved Clinical Mentor (ACM) Course within the past 3 years
5. Identify the clinics that residents will rotate through as part of their residency training.
Residency Training can occur at Satellite Clinics or Partner Clinics to ensure the resident’s training is well-rounded and enables the achievement of all site defined goals and NCOPE requirements.
- Satellite Clinics are owned and operated by the same organization that owns/operates the primary residency clinic location.
- Partner Clinics are owned and operated by a different organization than the one that owns/operates the primary residency clinic.
6. Compile the required information for fair and transparent advertising about the residency program for use on OPRESCAS.
- All NCOPE Accredited Programs must advertise positions using OPRESCAS
- All advertisements must include the location(s) where residency training occurs, the number of residency mentors at the site, transportation requirements, the program duration, the criteria used to select residents, the name and email/phone number for the primary contact, in addition to other relevant information
- Any changes that occur while the application is visible must be updated in the advertisement
7. Participate in fair practices with applications and select residents based on objective criteria.
- The residency program must ensure the director and other relevant personnel can access the WebAdMIT Pre-Launch system after each system rollover
- The application must be opened before a resident is selected and it must stay open for a minimum if 14 days
- All persons who apply for a residency position must be considered and selection must be based upon objective criteria
- The residency program cannot extend offers until all submitted applications have been reviewed
- Residency positions can only be extended to persons who apply using OPRESCAS which is verified for all residents at the time they register to begin
8. Have all documents and supporting information ready to go before starting the application.
Documentation requirements may vary by program structure and resources, but all residency sites must submit:
- Residency Advertisement & Selection Criteria: Information to be posted on OPRESCAS and the objective criteria used to evaluate applicants
- Program Policies (Standard II): Including resident supervision, leave/time away, duty hours, on-call expectations, and travel/vehicle use
- Affiliation Agreements: Signed agreements for any external training sites or collaborative organizations
- Orientation Schedule: An agenda of topics covered when the resident is onboarded to orient them with the practice enviroment, meets the facilities training requirements for HIPAA and Universal Precautions/Safety, and other relevant aspects
- Program Structure: Details on rotations, training locations, goals, and objectives
- Patient Encounter Report: A PHI-redacted report created from the EMR or scheduling software that clearly demonstrates the site can provide the resident access to required patient populations, visit types, and orthoses/prostheses
- Personnel Documentation: Names and certification details of the residency director and mentors, NCOPE training certificates, and official transcripts from O&P education programs