Mar 23, 2023 | Advocacy, News
VPA has been advocating for the passage of PSYPACT, Vermont H.282, for some time. Great news! PSYPACT passed through the House Health Committee and has now gone to the House Ways and Means Committee. Here is written testimony from the Office of Professional Regulation from March 16, 2023, reporting on the Board of Psychological Examiners’ support for PSYPACT. We are hopeful this bill will pass through the House this session and complete its journey through the Senate in 2024. Here is where you can get more info on H.282.
As of this date, PSYPACT has been enacted and is effective in 34 states; 2 additional states have enacted PSYPACT but it is not yet effective in those states. You can see a map of states that have enacted PSYPACT here. If you support the passage of PSYPACT, please write your legislators and ask them to co-sponsor or at least support passage of this important legislation!
Mar 19, 2023 | Insurance & Reimbursement, News
A number of changes to Medicare were passed in late 2022, including an expansion of the providers who can be reimbursed, an extension of telehealth waivers, and a new conversion factor. You can see an easy-to-read summary of these changes written by APA staff here.
Mar 19, 2023 | Insurance & Reimbursement, News
Psychologists now have a mechanism to provide and report interprofessional consultations (through telephone, electronic medical records, etc.) for diagnosis and treatment. The new CPT® codes are 99446–99449 and 99451. We caution you to check with your insurer to see if they reimburse for these codes before billing. You can read more about these new codes on the APA website.
Mar 19, 2023 | Advocacy, News
In early March, the Colorado governor signed RxP into law in Colorado. Colorado is the sixth state to allow prescriptive authority for psychologists with advanced post-doctoral training.
Bills in Hawaii and Washington failed to pass thus far.
Feb 9, 2023 | Advocacy, Blog, News
Some of you may remember our discussion about CareDash, a nationwide directory (pulled from the NPI listings) of of therapists that included individual therapists without seeking their permission or getting any details of the practice. It purported to allow individuals to schedule an appointment with every therapist listed. When individuals would choose a therapist and click to schedule an appointment, the site would pass the individual through to Better Health, an online therapy platform (not associated with CareDash, to our knowledge).
In conjunction with APA, VPA advocated for prohibiting CareDash from using psychologists and therapists information without permission. We are pleased to announce that CareDash is now out of business.
As you’ll see below, all of our efforts paid off—CareDash is out of business. The CareDash website is no longer active as of February 1, 2023, and the company itself, NuFit Media, Inc. (doing business as CareDash), has discontinued its business. This is a major victory in protecting psychologists’ reputations and livelihood.
