The Steadily Maturing RxP Agenda

Headshot of Dr. Bethe LonningIowa is pleased to have three conditional prescribing psychologists! This status means they have completed their MSCP, passed the PEP, completed their clinical contacts and their 400/100 practicum and are prescribing with supervision. During this period of supervision, if they want to prescribe to special populations (defined in our law as under the age of 18, older than 65, pregnant, etc.) this is the time when they would acquire supervision specific to those populations. A fourth candidate is just waiting for his application to be approved before being granted his certificate so Iowa may have four by the time this is published—and, he just did succeed! There are two other candidates diligently working on their clinical assessment and practicum hours (Iowa law still uses the previous designation language as it wasn’t updated until after our law was passed) and hopefully will have their certificate(s) by the end of this year.

We continue to assess the climate of our legislature to determine when it might be a good time to look at altering some of the original language of our law. As with most states, we were unable to get the law to read exactly how we wanted it and now are hoping to be able to fine tune some language in the future. Iowa’s legislative session for 2022 will come to a close by the end of April at the latest so we’re looking at legislative session 2023 at the earliest.

In addition, we have worked with major insurance companies in the state, including Medicaid, to determine how prescribing psychologists can update their credentials to include prescribing in their areas of specialty and to bill E/M codes for the services they provide. While this process has been tenacious, it has also been largely successful which is great. There have been more issues with pharmacy companies/networks allowing prescribing psychologists’ prescriptions to be filled even though the Board of Pharmacy has approved them and their DEA numbers are on file. We continue to work on getting this issue resolved.

The second Midwest cohort from New Mexico State University had their first in-person clinical class in March at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA with two other classes to follow later this year. This Midwest cohort has students from Iowa, Colorado, and Michigan as well as other states joining in this group. The pandemic slowed down the process of getting supervision hours in but hopefully, we are now on track to have a steady stream of candidates completing their training and working as prescribing psychologists in our state.

 

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