Accreditation

The entry-level occupational therapy doctoral degree program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), located 7501 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 510E, Bethesda, MD 20814. Contact information includes: telephone number (301) 652-6611, email: accred@aota.org and web address is www.acoteonline.org. The University of Nebraska’s Medical Center campuses are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, an Institutional Accreditor recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. In June 2026, UNMC and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln merged their accreditation statuses to become the University of Nebraska.

Graduates of accredited programs are eligible to sit for the national certification examination for the occupational therapist administered by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). After successful completion of this exam, the individual will be an Occupational Therapist, Registered (OTR). Each of the 50 United States require students to have graduated from a professional occupational therapy education program that includes supervised field work and is accredited by a national accreditation agency. The UNMC Occupational Therapy program meets educational requirements to apply for certification or licensure in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Note that a felony conviction may affect a graduate’s ability to sit for the NBCOT certification examination or attain state licensure.

As part of the accreditation process the Occupational Therapy Program provides a method by which the public and academic community can file a formal written complaint without retaliation regarding any aspect of the program or the conduct of one of its faculty/students.

Any individual from outside the University who wishes to register a formal complaint about the program may do so by contacting the Program Director and submitting a written, signed document with the following information: the name and contact information of the individual registering the complaint, the date, and a statement which clearly identifies it as a complaint, and the nature of that complaint. The individual will receive a response from the Program Director within 14 days.

Individuals wishing to file a formal written complaint may submit it to the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education. You can provide the accrediting agency with written testimony regarding the program or file a formal complaint following the procedures detailed at the ACOTE’s web site or by directly contacting the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education of the American Occupational Therapy Association, located 7501 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 510E, Bethesda, MD 20814. Telephone number (301) 652-6611, email: accred@aota.org and web address is www.acoteonline.org.