Originally published: . Volume 14, No. 4. Source pages: 4.
The Medical Psychology Advisory Committee held a Business Meeting, March 24, 2023, at 1:00 p.m., via Live Streaming Video and Teleconference during the public session. Agenda items included: Nurse Practitioners; Changes to the Practice Act; and Notification of applicants (MP and MPAP) regarding the status of applications. The members discussed the issue of nurse practitioners asking to consult with, or refer to, medical psychologists, especially in the rural areas. They discussed changing rules to clarify Nurse Practitioners' role when referring to Medical Psychologists. Also mentioned was that legislative changes might be in order and that LAMP would have to initiate those. Members also discussed that nurse practitioners may be introducing legislation to remove the requirement for collaboration with the physicians. Dr. Warren Lowe introduced and members discussed the topic of making changes to the Medical Psychology Practice Act. He noted that the Act has been in place for 14 years. Housekeeping changes were discussed including not requiring out-of-state psychologists to go through the psychology board for a state psychology license. Dr. Lowe also said, “We missed something glaring. As it stands now, anyone that’s licensed by LSBEP can become an MP. So if they’re license specialty is in I/O psychology or experimental psychology, they can apply to be an MP if they’ve never had a course in abnormal psychology in undergraduate psychology or never seen a patient or worked with a patient. We intended it to read 'with' a specialty in clinical or counseling psychology.” Members also discussed legislative roles and responsibilities of being in public service, issues with military MPs roles and the medical board’s jurisdiction, and delays in applications being approved. The committee went into Executive Session and made two motions after the session. The first one was to defer the applicants to a later date. The second motion passed, put forth by Dr. Darla Burnett, was, “To carry a request to the full medical board asking for a rule change that eliminates the requirement that someone applying for an advanced practice as a medical psychologist must maintain concurrent licensure with both LSPEP & LSBME after they receive their MP license and it’s in good standing.” That would be an emergency rule change, members agreed.
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