The board that licenses Texas physical therapists — 23,661 of them, and 11,837 assistants, by the agency’s count on Dec. 31, 2025 — will meet Oct. 16 to take up a rule on when a patient must be told that artificial intelligence was used in their care. Its rules committee has carried that proposal since before the state’s AI law took effect.
The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act, in force since Jan. 1, says that where an AI system is used in relation to a health care service or treatment, the provider shall make the act’s disclosure to the patient or the patient’s representative no later than the day treatment is first given — or, in an emergency, as soon as reasonably possible. The subsection it points to is written against governmental agencies, so how far the duty reaches private clinics rests on the attorney general’s reading rather than plain text.
A board rule would settle it for one profession. The act already lets a licensing agency sanction its own licensees, but only after the attorney general finds a violation and recommends it; a rule in the board’s practice chapter would make non-disclosure a licensing violation on its own. The board has circled the proposal for more than a year: the same agenda language appears in its July 2025, January 2026 and April 2026 minutes, and no such subsection appears in the rules the agency compiled in May. No proposal text is posted.
A second addition to the same rule comes from a 2025 electronic health records law, not from the AI act, though that law carries its own AI provision. A third item is quieter and harder: the board’s rule for foreign-trained applicants sets minimum scores on four TOEFL sections, on a 0-to-30 scale. The testing service overhauled the exam in January and now reports sections in bands of one to six. The board postponed its fix in April, waiting on the national federation of physical therapy boards; the item returns Oct. 16 with no replacement scores posted.
Twenty-six agreed orders are listed. Those are proposed settlements, not findings, and no one is named here: the board has approved between twelve and thirty-two per quarterly meeting over the past two years, with others referred to hearings or left unanswered, so the count is not a count of sanctions. The board will also elect officers and its two representatives to the joint council that employs the agency’s staff; the governor, not the board, designates the chair. Watch the executive director selection item: no posted agency document explains it, the council rather than the board does that hiring, and its latest published minutes are from August 2025.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:00 AM, Friday, October 16, 2026. TRD 2026005872 was filed October 2 at 2:42 p.m.
- Where
- 1801 Congress Ave., Suite 10.900, Austin. The notice says the meeting may be held by videoconference, with the presiding member physically present at that address and the public able to attend there.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Board of Physical Therapy Examiners — nine members appointed by the governor under Occupations Code §453.051: six physical therapists and three public members. Chair Harvey Aikman of Mission, designated by the governor. Staff are employed by a joint executive council shared with the occupational therapy board.
- Format
- A nineteen-item regular meeting with public comment early, committee reports, twenty-six agreed orders, three rule proposals, an officer election and personnel items that may go to closed session.
- Live video
- None found. The board meets by videoconference under Government Code §551.127, which requires at least an audio recording be made available to the public, but the agency posts written minutes only.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · agency meeting dates page
Board members
- Harvey Aikman — chair; Mission; physical therapist; term ends January 2027.
- Liesl Olson — vice chair; Lubbock; physical therapist.
- Manuel “Tony” Domenech — Austin; physical therapist; chairs the education committee.
- Omar Palomin — McAllen; physical therapist.
- Tiffany Barrett — McGregor; physical therapist; appointed April 2026.
- Heather Jackson — Denton; physical therapist; appointed April 2026.
- Glenda Clausell — Houston; public member; attorney in private practice.
- Donivan Hodge — Spicewood; public member.
- Mourad Hasbaoui — Corpus Christi; public member; appointed April 2026.
Names are from the board’s roster page, checked October 7, and match the governor’s appointment releases; all nine seats are filled and no term has expired. The agency gives Barrett’s city as McGregor and the governor’s release gives Waco, adjacent towns in McLennan County; a state directory listing gives Aikman as McAllen rather than Mission. Neither discrepancy is resolved here. The licensee count is the agency’s own, as of December 31, 2025. The per-meeting range of agreed orders was counted by the Dispatch from the board’s posted minutes for October 2024 through April 2026; minutes for any July 2026 meeting were not posted as of October 7, so that quarter is not in the range.