[Transcript] Episode 424: Licensure Compact Status Updates

 

Evan Dumas 

You’re listening to Group Practice Tech, a podcast by Person Centered Tech, where we help mental health group practice owners ethically and effectively leverage tech to improve their practices. I’m your co host Evan Dumas.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I’m Liath Dalton and we are Person Centered Tech.

 

Liath Dalton 

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a robust online Practice Management and Electronic Health Record system to support you in growing your thriving practice. Therapy Notes is a complete practice management system with all the functionality you need to manage client records, meet with clients remotely, create rich documentation, schedule appointments, and bill insurance all right at your fingertips. To get two free months of Therapy Notes as a new Therapy Notes user, go to therapynotes.com and use promo code PCT.

 

Evan Dumas 

Hello, and welcome to Episode 424: Licensure Compact Status Updates.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yay. We are excited that there has been additional clarification on timelines for the Counseling Compact and the Social Work Licensure Compact in particular, which are the two compacts that are not yet effective in the sense that practice permissions can’t yet be obtained under the compacts even though both the counseling compact and social work compact have been enacted in enough states to reach the threshold for them to be effective.

 

Liath Dalton 

But getting the sort of infrastructure, in terms of the databases that are going to facilitate that management, and opening up the actual applications for practice privileges, has been something that has not had a very clear timeline until recently.

 

Liath Dalton 

And of course, there has been a lot of interest in terms of when are the applications going to open, because that’s very impactful in terms of practice portability, continuity of care, all the many reasons that teletherapy and the ability to have greater cross jurisdictional practice ability are important both for client care and can also be important for practice stability. If you’re wanting to expand your reach, or have a providers on your team with very specific niches, that sort of thing. So that’s kind of the bigger context for why we’re excited about these updates.

 

Liath Dalton 

So in terms of the Counseling Compact, 35 states have adopted the Counseling Compact, and it is in process in even more. Now, applications for the counseling compact privileges to practice are expected to open in late 2024 or early 2025. So not too far down the road, because at the time of recording, we’re at the end of June 2024. So within the next six to seven months, the application should be opening.

 

Liath Dalton 

And they are currently building out a database and a website called the Compact Connect, I’ll include in the shownotes a link to that as well, as to the Compact Map, so you can see if your state is one that has adopted it yet or not.

 

Liath Dalton 

And basically, the timeline for the Counseling Compact applications opening up means that it will be the next licensure compact that goes into effect. It’s going to occur prior to the Social Work Licensure Compact. And of course, the PSYPACT has been open and operational for a number of years at this point but has continued to add to the number of member states, which is also great to see. Currently there are 42 states that have enacted PSYPACT. So those of you that are psychologists or have psychologists on your team if you are based in a compact state, that’s great news for for you.

 

Liath Dalton 

Now the Social Work Licensure Compact, has actually been moving quite rapidly in terms of how it compares to the timeline for PSYPACT going into effect, and also the Counseling Compact, honestly. But it’s, while it’s been enacted in 12 states to date, the target date for applications opening for the multi-state license is not until the fall of 2025. So we’re still looking at about 18 months out from from now. Sadly, there is still still like it can’t leave our lovely Marriage and Family Therapists out. We can’t, but unfortunately,

 

Evan Dumas 

They can.

 

Liath Dalton 

The compacts, there is not a LMFT compact in in the works. Though, there is likelihood that, depending on your licensing board in your state of residence, that some LMFT may be able to get practice privileges under the Counseling Compact. That part is still still being kind of worked out, though. So, so we’ll see how that develops. But to date, there is no dedicated Marriage and Family Therapist Compact.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, I still think that’ll change down the road. Because their whole rationale for not having a compact was because social workers didn’t have a compact. And so they’re like, we’re following what they’re doing, social work doesn’t have a compact, we don’t want to compact, it’ll dilute our, not brand, but it isn’t what we do. And then all of a sudden, Social Work Compact, boom, 12 states. So as soon as that, you know, takes off, they’re gonna probably revise their thinking, go, Oh, crap, we’re behind the times, we got to get caught up, hopefully, hopefully.

 

Liath Dalton 

I really hope so, particularly because there are so many factors that can actually make it all the more important for Marriage and Family Therapists to have the ability to practice across jurisdictions. Just given how, you know, mobile, our population is, increasingly so, but also, when you’re talking about two parties to a relationship or a family unit, and people may not be residing in the same state.

 

Liath Dalton 

So how do you work with a couple that’s in the midst of a long distance relationship, or, you know, divorced parents and the kiddos are going back and forth? So there’s like, even more reasons and rationale, in my view for why the practice permission for cross jurisdictional practice for LMFTs is warranted and really necessary.

 

Liath Dalton 

And we know that just from, you know, a number of the MFT practices that we work with, struggling to to navigate this and meet client need in some of these more complicated situations where folks aren’t all residing in the same state. So, we are hopeful that there will be movement on that.

 

Liath Dalton 

If you are an MFT, or have an MFT is in your practice, I highly suggest that getting involved in the advocacy component for just impressing on your professional association and local chapter of your professional association why this is so important. This is a space where your voice can really matter. So use it, and encourage your, any MFT colleagues to also do the same. And hopefully, that sort of communication from the profession, and the Social Work compact having gone into effect, will be the catalyst for actually bringing that about. So fingers and toes crossed on that front. We’ll keep you updated on developments as and when there are.

 

Liath Dalton 

And then of course when the applications open for both the Counseling Compact and the Social Work Compact and all the details of what the applications consist of, and so on are revealed. We will be doing another episode. Well, an episode for each of those compacts because they’re going to be a ways apart, but we’ll we’ll keep you up to speed on on those aspects as well. So hopefully this is a helpful update and brings a little bit of hope or at least is able to help you inform any planning that may be impacted by how things shift once the Compacts are open and practice privileges are obtainable under them. Thanks for joining us and we’ll talk to you good folks next week.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, talk to you later on everybody.

 

Liath Dalton 

This has been group practice tech, you can find us at PersonCenteredTech.com. For more podcast episodes, you can go to person centered tech.com/podcast or click podcast on the menu bar.