Legislative Update 2021

2021 IAMFT Legislative Summary (May 2021)

This year’s Indiana General Assembly has concluded the majority of its 2021 session.  As of May 5, 2021, the legislature had not officially adjourned for the year because it must still adopt new legislative and Congressional district maps later in the year as part of re-districting, but at this time we do not anticipate other issues being considered when they re-convene to adopt the maps.

This session was particularly busy for IAMFT as there were a number of bills of interest to IAMFT members. The following bills became law:

1. Senate Bill 3, authored by Sen. Ed Charbonneau, provides permanent telehealth authority for many health care providers, including MFTs and MFTAs, effective April 20, 2021. The bill does not address telehealth authority for students.  Find Senate Bill 3 at this link:  http://iga.in.gov/static-documents/7/4/2/b/742b0b09/SB0003.06.ENRH.pdf

2. Senate Bill 82, authored by Sen. Mike Crider, permits Marriage and Family Therapists, along with Clinical Social Workers, Clinical Addiction Counselors, and Mental Health Counselors, to provide a mental health diagnosis rather than to just evaluate mental health conditions. While the change is mainly a change in terminology in terms of our actual work, it will permit MFTs to complete a diagnosis without having an MD or HSPP sign off on the diagnosis. Given that 74 of Indiana’s counties are mental health shortage areas and 64 countries do not have a psychiatrist or have a shortage, this bill will permit quicker access to needed services for individuals in critical need of services. The bill is effective July 1. 2021.

Senate Bill 82 requires certain qualifications before an individual may provide a mental health diagnosis. The bill also requires the following if a patient has not seen a medical provider within one year or has a potential medical condition:

Note:  Please read the entire bill to fully understand the details of these requirements.

Find Senate Bill 82 at this link:  http://iga.in.gov/static-documents/8/3/2/6/8326af71/SB0082.04.ENRH.pdf

3. House Bill 1516, authored by Rep. Chris Judy, licenses behavior analysts and creates a committee under the Medical Licensing Board to regulate them. The bill exempts other licensed professionals working within their scope of practice from needing a behavioral analyst license. IAMFT was successful in making sure that behavioral analysts were not regulated by our licensure board and therefore regulating MFTs since behavioral analysts are specifically excluded from engaging in our practice.  Find House Bill 1516 at this link:   http://iga.in.gov/static-documents/7/c/e/c/7cec4525/HB1516.05.ENRS.pdf

2021 Legislative Update (April 2021)

Senate Bill 3, which would allow MFTs the ongoing right to use telehealth as a medium for providing therapy beyond the immediate necessity of the COVID-19 pandemic, has passed the Senate with full support and is now awaiting a final vote in the House. SB 3 passed the House and the Senate concurred in the House amendments.  Therefore, this bill is on the way to the Governor.

Senate Bill 82, which would allow MFTs the legal right to use the term "diagnosis" to describe our DSM-5 assessments of clients, is back in the Senate and there has been disagreement about language that was added that would require masters level mental health providers to schedule an appointment for a client with a physician, if the client has not seen one in the past year, in order to render a diagnosis. Our lobbying efforts have offered a compromise of giving the client a list of providers to replace the scheduling requirement.

Please note:  We are continuing discussion with the legislators to change this language, but if we are unable to reach a compromise, we will not allow the bill to be passed with language that is detrimental to us. It would be helpful for everyone to contact their legislators, particularly Crider, Cook, and Barrett, to express our serious concern with the current language in an effort to get this changed so that we can try to get a functional version of the bill passed this session.  There is no point in having all legislators contacted at this point, although contacts with Crider, Cook, and Barrett would be fine.

House Bill 1516 passed the Senate and the House concurred with the Senate amendments. the bill is on the way to the Governor. The bill licenses ABAs through a committee under the Medical Licensing Board, so we were successful in preventing them from being licensed under our Behavioral Health Licensing Board.

(Updated 4/07/2021)

IAMFT Legislative Update (February 2021)

The IAMFT Legislative Committee, with the help of our Lobbyist, Mark Scherer, has been hard at work advocating for the legal rights of MFTs in the State of Indiana.  Mark Scherer has been our IAMFT Lobbyist since 1995.  With Mark's help, we are following three important pieces of legislation on behalf of IAMFT.  We are providing recent encouraging updates from the 2021 Legislative Session of the State of Indiana.  [See also 2021 Bill Watch List for Mark Scherer, Lobbyist]

For Senate Bill 82, IAMFT is partnering with social workers, mental health counselors, and addictions counselors to fight for our right as masters-level clinicians to use the term "diagnosis" in our work.  Indiana is currently one of several states that does not have the term "diagnosis" in our licensure language for marriage and family therapists.  Senate Bill 82 would correct this language.  Through their Practice Protection Fund (PPF), AAMFT supports IAMFT's legislative effort in addressing this issue.

To encourage state senators and state representatives to back this bill, we want to show that others in the mental health profession understand that MFTs receive sufficient training in diagnosis through the course of our graduate studies and path to licensure.  Our expertise to diagnose should be recognized legally.

If you work with psychiatrists who would be in agreement with the State of Indiana granting MFTs the legal right to diagnose our clients, we ask that you encourage them to write a letter of support for this initiative on behalf of MFTs.  Please forward this letter to our IAMFT lobbyist, Mark Scherer, at  mscherer@thelobbyfirm.com.  Mark will share letters with our state representatives to help our cause.

Helpful talking points are listed below to aid conversations with psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.

1. This legislation would explicitly include the term “diagnosis” within the definition of the practice of marriage and family therapy.
2. The federal government recognizes MFTs as one of the five core mental health professions. The federal government’s definition of Marriage and Family Therapists states that MFTs “diagnose and treat mental and emotional disorders” (U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification, 21-1013).
3. MFTs are trained to diagnose within the scope of our education and training.  COAMFTE (Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education) is the only national accrediting body for clinical training programs in marriage and family therapy.  COAMFTE requires that students in accredited MFT programs receive clinical training in the “assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of major mental health issues” (COAMFTE Accreditation Standards, Version 12.0).
4. The proposed legislation does not expand the scope of practice of MFTs in any way. This bill ensures that LMFTs would only be able to diagnose within the scope of practice for MFTs as defined by statute.
5. The state licensure board has the ability to discipline licensees who diagnose outside the recognized boundaries of their competencies.
6. MFTs are licensed as independent mental health professionals in all fifty states and the District ofColumbia.  Currently, at least 34 states explicitly include the term “diagnosis” within the definition of the practice of marriage and family therapy, including states surrounding Indiana (Illinois and Ohio explicitly include diagnosis; Michigan and Kentucky are silent on the issue).

Furthermore, despite thousands of MFTs “diagnosing and treating” year after year, none of the ethics cases handled by the AAMFT Ethics Committee (as of 2016) have ever found an ethics violation based on misdiagnosis.  The AAMFT Ethics Committee is in charge of disciplining members found in violation of the AAMFT Code of Ethics.  This demonstrates that MFTs are no more likely to commit diagnosis-related practitioner failures than are other mental health professionals in our peer professions of psychiatry, psychology, social work, and counseling.

Other bills we are watching include Senate Bill 3 and House Bill 1286 regarding the provision of telehealth mental health services.  These bills would allow MFTs the ongoing right to use telehealth as a medium for providing therapy.  Senate Bill 3 has made its way through the Senate with full support from all 47 senators.  The wording in this legislation would free all mental health providers (including MFTs) from needing executive order extensions from the governor to offer telehealth sessions to our clients.  Both bills further allow us to use virtual platforms to provide our services beyond the immediate necessity of the COVID-19 pandemic.  As of February 6, 2021, Senate Bill 3 was sent to the House for consideration.  House Bill 1286 has passed out of Committee as of February 13, 2021.

Disclosure Statement:  In previous years, IAMFT has been a recipient of AAMFT's Practice Protection Fund (PPF) grants for legislative and advocacy issues relevant to the MFT profession.  IAMFT anticipates similar financial support from the Practice Protection Fund (PPF) for 2021.  AAMFT created the Practice Protection Fund (PPF) to help defend the MFT profession from legislative and regulatory threats, as well as to help fund the advancement of the profession in every state.  Donations can be made at Advocacy Donation to AAMFT Practice Protection Fund.

We appreciate your continued support for our marriage and family therapy profession.  Please join us and become a member of IAMFT.  We look forward to working for you.  And, thank you for your efforts in helping us move our MFT profession forward in Indiana!