{"id":27016,"date":"2020-01-23T10:17:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T16:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27016"},"modified":"2020-01-23T10:48:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T16:48:29","slug":"bill-would-create-new-interstate-compact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27016","title":{"rendered":"Bill would create new interstate compact"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill that would create the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact was discussed Jan. 22 in a Health and Human Services Committee hearing.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Carol Blood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB753, introduced by Bellevue Sen. Carol Blood, would allow audiologists and speech-language pathologists who are licensed in a member state of the compact to practice in another member state.<\/p>\n

To join the compact, a state must:
\n\u2022 conduct a criminal background check of all licensure applicants, and report the results to members of the compact;
\n\u2022 determine if an applicant has held a license in another state;
\n\u2022 require an applicant to hold a license in that state; and
\n\u2022 determine if an applicant has earned necessary college degrees and passed required exams.<\/p>\n

States also would be able to investigate wrongdoing and terminate an audiologist\u2019s or speech-language pathologist\u2019s license, Blood said, and nine other states would need to join Nebraska for the compact to take effect.<\/p>\n

Blood said currently there are nine audiologists and 67 speech-language pathologists per 100,000 Nebraskans and that her bill would increase access to these specialists and promote expanded use of telehealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill is also on the yearly policy priority list that we receive from the [U.S.] Department of Defense,\u201d she said. \u201cThis will help our state to continue on the path to become a leader on military friendly policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blood added that she does not expect the compact to cost the state money, noting that the last two interstate compacts Nebraska entered required either minimal or no cost.<\/p>\n

Janet Seelhoff, Executive Director of the Nebraska Speech-Language-Hearing Association, testified in support of LB753. She said the bill would reduce regulatory barriers while still protecting the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support this legislation as a measure to make it easier for audiologists and speech-language pathologists to practice in Nebraska,\u201d Seelhoff said. \u201cThere are shortages of providers, particularly in the rural areas of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darrell Klein of the state Division of Public Health spoke in opposition to LB753.<\/p>\n

Klein said that as the first state to adopt the compact, Nebraska would be committing to an unknown, adding that the state Department of Health and Human Services would not be able to implement the bill as written and would require significant changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would be unable to determine the costs of joining,\u201d Klein said, \u201cand what the impact would be on the department.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that would create the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact was discussed Jan. 22 in a Health and Human Services Committee hearing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-27016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-carol-blood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27016"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27023,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27016\/revisions\/27023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}