Study: Eliminate licensing barriers for mental health professionals
Nevada faces a shortage of mental health workers, but some of the barriers contributing to the scarcity of professionals could be eliminated during the 2015 legislative session, according to a study released Thursday by the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities.
The study highlights a set of recommendations that would make the licensing processes easier to help attract the professionals who are needed to meet the mental and behavioral needs of the community. The bipartisan center focuses on providing independent and data driven analysis of critical policy issues facing the state and the Intermountain West.
Joel Dvoskin, chairman of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s Behavioral Health and Wellness Council, called the study a “spectacular piece of work.”
“I would be surprised and disappointed if the (licensing) boards are not open to these suggestions,” he said Thursday.
The recommendations include simplifying the exam requirements for licensed mental health workers coming to the Silver State; eliminating provisions that require these professionals to have been licensed for a minimum number of years in another state; require each licensing board to offer a temporary license or provisional license to professionals licensed in other states; create a 30-day timeline to consider applications from professionals licensed in other states.
Also among the recommendations: Increasing state employee salaries, benefits and incentives. The state also could consider joining interstate compacts in medicine, nursing, and psychology to improve recruitment of mental health professionals from other states.
Victoria Carreon, director of Research and Policy at the Guinn Center and principal author of study, said there have been past efforts to simplify licensing issues, but historically it’s been difficult.
There has been some resistance from the licensing boards involved.
“Licensing boards are set up to protect the public so they tend to want to maintain stringent requirements, if they can,” Carreon said Thursday.
The other issue is revenue.
Carreon said Nevada would actually get more revenue by simplifying the licensing process because there would be more applicants. However, if Nevada joined an interstate compact, the state would automatically recognize anybody licensed in another state, which could result in less revenue.
With regard to salary increases, obviously there are budgetary restraints, Carreon said, but the state can offer other incentives, such as college loan repayment, which is “a very positive incentive” because students complete their degrees with large amounts of debt.
Suggestions for the long run, include the development of a workforce development plan.
The state is currently producing an insufficient number of graduates in mental health fields to meet the need in the community. In 2013, seven physicians completed a psychiatry residency program at the University of Nevada School of Medicine and five of them remained in the state, according to the study. The same year, two physicians completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry and only one stayed in the state.
Officials with the Guinn Center feel that it’s a good time for the state Legislature to consider some of the recommendations in the study in light of the work of Sandoval’s council, Carreon said.
A lot of the recommendations are consistent with the council’s recommendations, but they provide ways of achieving the recommendations, Dvoskin said.
“We would really like to carry on with the momentum that the council has started on this issue and build up on that,” Carreon said, adding that there’s various other efforts out there already.
Contact Yesenia Amaro at yamaro@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440. Find her on Twitter: @YeseniaAmaro.
